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I am Cuban, my parents are Cuban, and I was not adopted.

I'm Cuban-American, everybody says. I have a Cuban background, Cuban blood.

I might be a Cuban American, but I'm also an Afro-Cuban American.

I'm actually Cuban-born, born in 1956, the year Fidel Castro came into power, and my father moved my family to Miami a few years later when things were starting to look bad.

I was born in Cuba, and my parents were tropical agronomists.

I'm black. I'm Latina. My mom is Cuban. Afro-Cuban. My dad is white and Australian.

Sure, I've listed myself as Cuban-American. That's my heritage and my background.

My dad came from Cuba when he was a teenager not speaking English. And I grew up here speaking Spanglish. That's the world in which I grew up, and that's a world in which a lot of second generation immigrants find themselves.

Both of my parents were born into poor families on the island of Cuba. They came to America because it was the only place where people like them could have a chance.

I'm black and Cuban, Australian and Irish, and like most people in America, I'm someone whose roots come from somewhere else. I'm a mixed race, first-generation American.