Edit Desk: Fluency vs. authenticity, an internal battle

I’ve never gotten the chance to fill out the section for a middle initial on documents. It’s always been simpler that way — just “C.D.” My parents figured my full name, Carolina Doherty, was long enough, and simplicity won. 

Since we don’t get to choose our names — which are arguably the foundation of our identity — I felt robbed of a middle name and cheated out of the chance to include a middle initial on transcripts and legal paperwork. 

But at one point I realized my mother’s middle name, Lopez-Chicheri, sounded perfect alongside mine. So, whenever I noticed the space where a middle initial should be, I happily filled it with hers. And what I love more than “having” a middle name — even if it was a bit more than a white lie — was that it showed my Spanish heritage.

When my mother moved to the United States to build a career, she promised to raise her children with the same values and culture she grew up with in Spain. Her not granting me a Spanish middle name was a missed opportunity — so I took hers instead. 

Don’t fret — I dropped the act around 10 years old and returned to being Carolina Doherty. Still, there are moments when I bite my tongue if someone asks for my full name, middle initial included. But even without a Spanish middle name, my mother kept her promise. She spoke to me in Spanish as soon as I was born, and it became my first language.

When I started elementary school, I was ecstatic to share that I spoke Spanish and even more proud that my mom was raised in Madrid. I remember loving to host friends around our kitchen island, its wooden grooves styled after medieval Spanish furniture. I’d serve traditional snacks galore, like merienda, an evening snack consisting of toasted bread with Nocilla y azúcar (Nutella and sugar). 

Any chance I had, I proudly announced that even if my birth certificate said Manhattan, New York, Spanish rolled right off my tongue.

To ensure I wouldn’t lose the structure and grammar of the language, my mom enrolled me in a nearby Spanish-speaking school every Thursday evening from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. From third through 10th grade, I spent the nights learning about Spain’s history, the latest slang from Madrid and updating my Spotify playlist with the newest reggaeton tracks. 

I made close friends there — amigas who also had at least one Spanish parent and who, like me, didn’t want to lose that connection while growing up in an English-speaking world.

One night, I confessed to my mom that I was scared I might lose my connection to Spain anyway. She said she’d be heartbroken if the culture she worked so hard to pass on began to fade. So, she pulled me even deeper into our roots — literally.

Between the ages of 11 and 13, I spent two weeks of each summer vacation at a sleepaway camp, Layos Campamento, in Gredos, Spain. Let me preface this — it was pretty obvious my birth certificate didn’t list a city in Spain.

You can attend so many classes, watch so many subtitled films and practice a plethora of versatile conversations as the child of a foreign parent. But your identity will always be at odds with your physical environment. 

“She’s trying so hard to be Spanish,” I once heard a campmate whisper in the quiet corridor late at night. 

It crushed me. 

After spending years of my childhood and adolescence learning Spanish, studying the history, understanding the culture and loving every moment,  those words stung more than they should have.

Yet, I returned to Layos Campamento for the following summer. And the year after that. I attended until I exhausted the age limit of 13-years-old. If it weren’t for aging out, I would’ve been their camper every summer. I kept participating in their program not to prove a point but because I genuinely love feeling immersed in Spanish culture. 

This isn’t a story about what makes me “truly” Spanish or what to enlist under nationality on legal documents. It’s not about the city where you were born, bloodlines, middle names or whether your “e’s” have the appropriate accent marks. 

This is a story about identity. And about how no campmate, classmate or parent gets to tell you who you are.

After that first summer at Layos, I shrunk myself to absolve any ties connecting me to my Spanish roots. Amigas no longer traced the wooden grooves on our Spanish kitchen table. I deleted my reggaeton playlist. I winced when my mom spoke Spanish to me in public, especially around friends.

I didn’t stop attending Spanish school on Thursdays, but I did move from the front of the classroom to the back.

I erased parts of myself. 

For a while, I finally felt okay with not having a Spanish middle name. I no longer wanted to be affiliated with any of it.

But something changed on the first day of seventh grade.

It was in third period — my first French class of middle school — when my teacher, Ms. Sidorovich, asked if anyone spoke another language. I raised my hand and told her Spanish was my first. She smiled and said, “You’re fortunate. Spanish will give you a great foundation. Not just for French, but for life. It’s the second most common language in America.” 

Ms. Sidorovich is right, I am lucky. 

I’m fortunate that my mom provided more than just a language. She also provided me with culture, confidence and connection — things I was graciously given, and I almost let them go. 

I may not have a Spanish middle name, and I was born and raised in New York. But that doesn’t mean I will ever uproot what’s grown inside me for the past 19 years. 

Spanish language. Spanish customs. The whimsical notes of flamenco and fantastic rhythms of reggaeton. The food, history, humor and love. These things are mine, and they are a part of my identity as “Carolina.” 

So, no one else gets to tell you who you are — not based on what’s missing from your birth certificate, your name or what language you speak with an accent.

This is your journey and your identity. Middle name or not.