I always thought that I was a citizen of Peru. I am a child of a Peruvian mother and African American father. My mother told me that I was partly Peruvian.  However, I came to find out that I have to go to the consulate and get all of documents looked at to officially be a citizen of Peru.

About a year ago, my mom and I made an appointment with the consulate of Peru. I woke up at around 6 a.m. to go to Houston to the Peruvian Consulate.

The lady only spoke Spanish and I had some idea of what she was saying, but my Spanish isn’t that good so I asked my mom what to do and she just did everything for me. It took an hour for them to get the papers processed, so I sat down and watched SNL skits. After that, I had to give them 20 dollars to get a copy of my citizenship and give them fingerprints of my index finger.

It was awesome being there because I was surrounded by a lot things that reminded me of Peru; like Nazca line posters, Inca cola, and Spanish speakers. I’m very proud of my culture and I’m glad I can now be looked at officially as a Peruvian citizen.