Hansel y Gretel

Having pretty parents sucks. They’re irresponsible. They’re self-absorbed. They’re childlike while consistently worried about appearances. In the case of your parents, their good looks moved them both across the world. Your mother moved from Stockholm, father from Barcelona. Both to Los Angeles, where the pretty people go. Instead of getting famous, they had twins. You and your brother. A boy and a girl and you both get Spanish names. Family flew from everywhere to meet you two. Seeing how incompetent your parents are, your Spanish grandparents move to the United States. You grow up speaking Spanish to your Bapa (your twin had trouble saying Abuelo), cringing as you watch him put wriggling tentacles in his mouth. You like being Spanish. You and your twin do not look Spanish. You’re half Swedish after all. Despite your blonde hair, you do have an olive tone to your skin. You have your father’s eyes. You both walk like your father and have his sense of passiveness.

In high school biology class, you robotically fill out a Punnett square. One for your eye color:

V. Vato

Your mothers’ parents- blue and brown, your fathers’ parentsbrown and brown, your parentsblue and blue- makes your eyes blue. Then, you fill one out for your brother, your twin: Blue and brown, brown and brown, blue and blue- the probability of blue is 95%. Brown, 5%. His eyes are Hazel. They look dark, but in the light, they shine like emeralds flecked with gold. You try again, it still comes up wrong. You bring home the paper in frustration, you’re a perfectionist. You go over the square with your mother. She confirms- everyone’s eye color is correct, but why does your brothers not add up? Your mother dismisses it while looking at you with an emotion you cannot identify. You’re sixteen, angsty and ruthless. You angrily press further. “Porque?” Why? I don’t understand. She closes the door and cries while you quietly guess in Spanglish what she’s trying to tell you. You say it while she just nods, her hands covering her face. Overloaded with information, your gangly pale body makes more sense. In the distance, your mind reflects on how lucky you are that your twin is not in the same biology

You hold a secret. You start avoiding the mirror. You dye your hair because you can’t change your eye color. You’re so filled with emotion that the world seems to pass by while you’re lost in your head. You wear sunglasses in classes at school to hide the tears that summon against your will. Everyone looks at you strangely. At your lockers, your twin asks, “que diablos esta pasano?” What the hell is going on? You can’t look at his green eyes. You distract him with an insult. He’s used to it; you are teenagers and you fight constantly. He leaves you alone, so does everyone else.

The secret doesn’t last long. Your mother sees you imploding while your animosity for her grew. She takes pity on you and decides to let go of almost two decades worth of a secret. She tells your twin next, your father after him. Your father never talks about it again.

A few years and a cheek swab later, you read the results of your DNA test to your twin. “Alemana” German. German? Freaking. German.

You find out your last name should have been Müller. You don’t feel like you own your name anymore. For years, you hate your face. It’s soft nose, high cheekbones and generally Nordic look. As if being a girl wasn’t hard enough in the world, your face tells a lie. Your face doesn’t match your name. Your language becomes a product of betrayal, but you talk to your Bapa like nothing happened.

Twelve years and three countries later, being a Spanish-speaking white girl isn’t so strange.

When living in Playa Del Carmen, the friends you’ve made are impressed by your twin’s fluent Spanish. They like how tall you are, and they make fun of his sunburn.

You accidentally say “gracias” instead of “danke” while living in Munich. You tell your Bapa about how much you love Europe. He tells you about how much he loved hiking the Bavarian Alps when he was young. “¿Por qué no visitas a tus primos en Barcelona?” Why not visit your cousins in Barcelona? You don’t answer. You’d like to. It’s just… not the right time. He still doesn’t know, and you don’t want to tell him. You’ve decided it doesn’t matter.

Not very long after, you move home to the United States. You wonder if you’re still Hispanic. You