It’s Labour Day in Nicaragua.
May 1st, 2025.
The beach is unrecognizable. On most days, this stretch of sand feels forgotten –quiet, almost shy, the ocean doing its own thing without much of an audience.
Today, it’s alive. Loud. Joyful. Full. There isn’t a patch of sand left unclaimed.
Music spills out of portable speakers. A boat loaded far beyond what looks reasonable rockets up and down the waves just offshore, passengers gripping the sides, screaming and laughing as the hull slams and lifts again –less surfing, more roller coaster, the ocean playing conductor. Each rise earns cheers, each drop a collective gasp. It’s chaotic and joyful and completely unrestrained.
Horse-drawn carriages move slowly along the shoreline, bells jingling, kids waving like it’s a parade. Vendors shout over one another, selling food I can’t name fast enough. Giveaways. Laughter. Children sprinting barefoot, parents half-watching, half-living.
I take off my sandals and carry them in my hand, letting the sand burn just a little. The water laps at my feet. I walk with no destination, just absorbing it all.
And then it happens.
A local man passes by and makes exaggerated sounds –what he thinks is Chinese. That familiar, distorted mimicry. The kind meant to be funny. The kind that never really is.
My body reacts before my mind does.
For a split second, I’m not on a beach in Nicaragua.
I’m back in Trinidad.
I’m a kid again, walking home alone, hearing “chinky eyes” thrown like stones. Hearing nonsense syllables meant to sound like a language I didn’t speak. I remember how some kids laughed, how others joined in just to belong. I remember even a teacher calling me “Jap” –a nickname delivered casually, without malice, without thought.
I didn’t understand it then. I only knew I didn’t want to be different.
I didn’t want to be Chinese. I wanted to disappear into sameness. To be anything else.
The memory passes as quickly as it arrives.
I’m back on the beach.
The music is still playing. Kids are still running. The ocean doesn’t pause for my history.
And to my own surprise, I laugh.
Not a forced laugh.
Not a defensive one.
Just –a release.
I know what this is now. Ignorance. Not cruelty. Not intent. A lack of exposure, not a lack of humanity. It doesn’t excuse it –but it no longer defines me.
It doesn’t land the way it once did.
Because somewhere along this journey between borders, buses, heartbreaks, friendships, and long quiet mornings –I made peace with something I spent most of my life resisting.
I am Chinese.
Not as a label imposed on me. But as an identity I’ve chosen to stand in.
I use my Chinese name now. Proudly. Fully. Without shrinking it for anyone’s comfort.
The younger version of me wanted to blend in. This version knows that belonging doesn’t come from erasing yourself.
I keep walking, sandals still in my hand, the sun warm on my shoulders. The beach pulses with life, imperfect and loud and human.
The past walks beside me for a moment.
Then it lets go. And I keep going.