Sofía Cordero - Latine Heritage Month 2024

Your Team Transformers' resident engineer!

For Latine History Month, meet...

Sofía Cordero

I was born in NYC into a mixed family, where my dad was Puerto Rican and my mom was white.When I was younger, I spent almost all of the holidays with my Puerto Rican family where I could really be immersed in my Puerto Rican heritage from having grandparents who only spoke Spanish to learning how much I love pasteles (an excellent Puerto Rican dish).

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

...due to complicated internal familial and external pressures, I had fewer and fewer of those holidays and lost contact with that part of my family and myself. Suddenly, by the time high school rolled around, I was seemingly just another white kid and I felt shame for both having that Puerto Rican part of me and also for having let that connection to my culture lapse. In some ways, in the high school environment I was in, it was easier to fit in and not to be half Puerto Rican, not to have have those ties.

But eventually...

...and that I feel super comfortable in my identity and speaking Spanish, but I don't. Since then, I've done my best to continue to learn about and grow within my Puerto Rican heritage, but it's still very much a journey. I still compare myself to other Latines and worry that I'm not Latina enough and wonder if I'll ever feel like I've reached that point where it feels like I've done "enough" to make up for the opportunities I've missed out on. As I write this, I truthfully don't know if I'll ever feel like it's enough, because there's no metric to judge that by, but I do know that I'll never make the mistake of denying a piece of culture, my heritage, or myself again. And all I can do is continue to learn about and connect with my family and my culture.

I wish I could say that afterwards everything worked out...

It's something that I came to regret as I got older and honestly still do to this day. But once I was in a new environment, one that was less judgmental than that of high school and one that encouraged me to make decisions for myself, free of family politics and drama, I was able to essentially make amends within myself and reconnect to my heritage. I participated in Latine cultural events on campus, found friends that I could be myself with and learn from, and joined our Salsa y Bachata team, which I would eventually go on to be the president of.

I did decide to do something about it in college.

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How did you make a change?

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Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!