I was born Latina, I am Latina and I will die Latina

by Daisy Oyola 02 Jul

95 3 min 0

Crónica de un alma que no se rinde

I write from the certainty that we are all fragments of the same ancestral song.

I was born Latina, I am Latina and I will die Latina is not just the title of my book: it is the vital drive that inhabits me, the whisper of the island where I grew up and the echo of every woman who, like me, clings to her roots with tenderness and courage.

A work woven with the thread of memory

When I began to draw the first lines, little did I know that each word would become a bridge between two worlds: my homeland, Puerto Rico, and the diaspora that I came to embrace in Columbus, Ohio.

Each chapter was built like an intimate tableau, in which my professional experiences from the crime victim intervention office to the hallways of an NGO are intertwined with the stories of women who, under the same Caribbean sun, have learned to raise their voices.

The work unfolds in three parts:

1. Roots, where I recover my family teachings, the perfume of the mango in my grandmother’s patio and the music that nourished me.

2. Voices, a space for real testimonies of migrants and victims, stories of resistance that I encountered while carrying out my work as a justice specialist.

3. Renacer, where I express the hope and dreams that feed our community, celebrating the craft of living with dignity.

A song of colors and textures

The cover itself, the illustration of a serene woman among red and yellow flowers, anticipates the dialogue between melancholy and joy that beats in its pages.

I decided to embrace that palette of warm tones because they represent the duality of our experience: passion and pain, fragility that reveals its strength.

Each flower alludes to a chapter, each leaf, to an unwritten verse.

Between the pen and the scale

My training in Criminal Justice and Law gave me tools to battle in court, but I soon understood that lives deserve more than laws: they deserve to be listened to with the heart.

That’s why, in the Voices section, I include fragments of real interviews with names changed to protect identities where Latina women narrate their adventure of getting here, losing everything and starting over.

They are testimonies that hurt and heal at the same time, and that validate my conviction that justice is also exercised with the written word.

The pulse of the community

Since the August 8, 2022 release date, I have shared my work at book fairs, literary cafes, and AEO gatherings.

Each reading aloud becomes a ritual: I close my eyes, feel the collective breath and perceive how my story becomes a flag for others. Because, by sharing my identity without asking permission, I offer a mirror to those who have not yet dared to look at themselves.

Humor and hope: the necessary relief

Despite the depth of many passages, there are flashes of subtle humor: a memory of my first stumbles with English, an anecdote from virtual classes where we thought we were listening to reggaeton and it turned out to be a Zoom notification.

Those light brushstrokes exist to remind me that, even in pain, there is room for frank laughter; that agile and intelligent humor is balm for the migrant soul.

Beyond the book: a vital commitment

This work inaugurates a series of projects that I want to develop: therapeutic writing workshops for crime victims, traveling readings through public libraries in Ohio, and a small podcast where I talk with women from the diaspora.

The book will then not be an end point, but a catalyst that encourages other Latin voices to tell their own chronicle.

Poetic closure and sense of future

Today, as you contemplate these lines, you are part of this collective song.

I invite you to hold the book in your hands, to read it as if it were your own diary, to make the verse an act of justice and the word an act of love.

Because being born Latina is not limited to a geographical location: it is a legacy that flourishes in every gesture, in every syllable, in every hug we offer without knowing it.

On this altar of ink and nostalgia, I celebrate the woman that I am and the thousands of us who are sisters in writing. And I promise to continue living, writing and defending this legacy that no border can fade.

I was born Latina, I am Latina and I will die Latina