THE BEGINNING

This chapter is about more than my backstory; it’s about the roles we step into to survive and the cost those roles can carry. They weren’t malicious they were survival. They were shields I used to navigate environments that didn’t feel safe, identities I adapted so I could move forward. At the time, they felt necessary. Later, I realized each one came with a cost.

And it makes me wonder:

• How often do we adjust ourselves just to belong?

• When does adaptation stop serving us and start erasing us?

• Are we protecting ourselves, or unintentionally feeding the very systems that want to shape us?

These questions don’t have easy answers, but they open the door to looking at my own story differently starting from the very beginning.

I was Born in NYC March 1986 to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic, I grew up navigating the complex interplay of cultures, expectations, survival and identity. My parents’ journey was one of resilience—a trait they unknowingly passed on to me. Even in those early days, the seeds of something larger were being planted, though as a child I never saw it.

In 1988, we left NYC and moved to Massachusetts. Life in Massachusetts was manageable, but NYC always felt like home. Living in Massachusetts, felt like on a “run tour.” We constantly moved and friendships were hard to maintain and I never stayed in the same school for long.

Many summers and weekends were spent in the city, surrounded by family. In 1998, we finally returned to NYC permanently. By 1999, I began to believe my father might be part of something covert. He moved through life as if he were part of something larger, something hidden. We weren’t allowed to share his true identity, and he always seemed to know things without being present. At the time, I thought he was an operative, and it inspired me in many ways.

When people asked about my background, it had to be a different story not out of malice, but from a deep-seated need to shield my dad. Isn’t that what we as humans do by nature? Protect the people and things we love?

Creating stories about my family background became second nature so easy I didn’t see the harm it could cause. At the time, it felt fun to craft this air of mystery around our family. Over time, however, my upbringing brought its own challenges, especially as I tried to balance my family’s strict Latin values with the broader culture around me and where it left me as an American. I didn’t realize how this need to "perform" created a fracture in my own identity.

By 2006, I had moved out of my parents’ house and into the Bronx with my high school best friend. What started as a carefree season of independence quickly turned into a lesson in survival. I experienced an assault the day before a planned vacation to England with my best friend. That experience left me feeling voiceless, unmoored from my identity, and unsure of my sense of self. When we returned, I struggled to find work and tested a simple idea: What if I spoke with a British accent? “English Liz” was born.

To my surprise, it worked. Walking into a different jobs and I introduced myself with a British accent, and I was hired on the spot in most cases. From no chances to an abondent of choices. This realization that opportunities came more easily when I adopted a “British” persona was both empowering and deeply unsettling.

My time as a "British Latina" taught me how to navigate systems, but it also showed me the lengths I went to for acceptance and survival. It revealed how perception often trumps reality in a world that rewards appearances over authenticity. I found myself questioning why I was treated so differently (and better) when I “spoke English.”

It was as if this new persona gave me access to a world that didn’t see me before, let alone accept the real me. Being “British” opened doors: entering exclusive events without invites, better negotiating power for purchases, and even accessing prescriptions without proper diagnosis. But while British Latina thrived, I felt increasingly invisible. Maintaining the accent became mentally and emotionally draining, and by 2008, I decided to let it fade.

Even so, I found myself slipping into the accent during moments when I lacked confidence or when others encouraged me to use it to “get our way.”

Today, I see how this experience mirrors the broader patterns I’ve uncovered today and have mentioned in previous post on control, manipulation, and exploitation that force people to adapt or risk being discarded.