My father wanted to name me Jose. He thought it was a strong Puerto Rican name. My mother hated it, and thought it sounded “a little too Puerto Rican.” She worried I’d be viewed as a *títere*. The word títere is Puerto Rican slang that roughly translates to “ghetto,” but the official Spanish language definition is “puppet.” My father, who often chooses his battles wisely, settled for the middle name slot. I remember my mother would boast about me to her friends. "He had beautiful straight strawberry blonde hair as a baby," she would say while running her fingers through my now darkened, more wavy hair. My father hated when she said stuff like that. He never said it outright, but I could tell. I had grown quite familiar with my father’s “I’m annoyed by you” face as I entered my teenage years. For a while, I was glad my mom named me Jason. I would joke with my other Puerto Rican friends who had proper latino-sounding names that she named me that so I could get a job. It’s not that I ever loved “Jason”; it’s pretty vanilla sounding. But I was convinced for some reason that Jason was better than Jose. I didn't understand the big fuss anyway. It's just a name. One day after school, when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, me and a couple of friends went to go play basketball at the neighborhood church. Jujo would walk from his house to pick me up, and we'd walk to get Brian. All three of us would then cut through a neighboring apartment complex to a wooden fence that Brian and I kept open by pulling out a couple of panels anytime the maintenance guy fixed it. I always felt vaguely bad about that. My father is a maintenance man, and I knew he wouldn't approve of our little short cut. On this particular day, two police officers greeted us on the other side of the fence. They ran our names, took our photos with a Polaroid, and asked us about our gang afflictions. None of us were gang members. Sure, we'd smoke the occasional blunt and listen to the lasted mixtape imported from bodega in Jamaica Queens by a cousin, but that was every teenager in our neighborhood. Cops just liked to harass us. We were used to it. Except for Brian. He was visibly shaken up. So when one of the cops took him aside, and they began talking, I figured it was to question him further since he was acting nervous. Twenty minutes pass, and we were all free to go. We walked in silence for a few hundred yards before Jujo finally asked Brian, "what did the cop say to you?" Brian hesitated. I remember being confused by the look on his face. It was a look of guilt, like he had done something wrong. For a second, I though maybe he had ratted me out about the fence. Jujo pressed him again, and Brain told us what the cop had said. Jujo and I looked at each other, and back at Brian, then kept walking in silence until we reached the church. That day defined such a big part of my identity for many years. Almost immediately, I began dressing in different style clothing. I spoke differently; I was more deliberate in my annunciation. I used less slang. My friend group eventually noticed my new personality and started calling me "white." Even my Puerto Rican best friend, who was nicknamed *White Mike*, started calling me gringo in the whitest accent he could do. I learned two things that day. One, I am not preceived as white by white people. And two, this fact was a liability for me. That day on our way to the basketball court, Brian told us that the cop asked, "are you with them?" Brian said "yes." The cop asked one more time, "are you with them?" When Brian answered the same for the second time, the cop became angry and shoved Brian back to the two Puerto Rican kids looking on in confusion. The cops then let us go after a brief huddle between them. As I got older and became more exposed to white spaces, I have noticed that I am what white people need me to be in the moment. Most of the time, I am that brown kid from Conway Road on his way to play basketball. As one of my bosses told me on the day of my promotion to Marketing Director, "but, you're one of the good ones." (She said that after openly wondering why I smoked Newport Cigarettes). But when it comes to issues of race, where I run my mouth a little too much and break the cardinal rule with interacting in white spaces—*never embarrass a group of white people about race*—I am suddenly too white for my opinions to hold weight. Whether intentional or not, when I'm called "white" it is often as a way to defang me. Because if I'm white, then what I said was white saviordom, so it doesn't matter as much. It's a way to save face. Looking back, I understand where my mom was coming from. She is obviously a product of colonialism and American racism- years of conditioning that makes Puerto Ricans hate our Black and Taino heritage and lean into our Spanish oppressor identity. But, she knew that my life in the states would be easier if I were perceived white. And, it didn't take me long to realize that too. As a kid, my mom would look past the broader nose and fuller lips she gifted me, and mourn my white features lost to adolescence. That sent a message to my little kid brain, which later congealed as a teen. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I dropped that mask and embraced the parts of me my mom wanted so desperately to discard. Anyway. That night a few days ago I reacted in anger. I regret that. But if the worst thing someone can say about me in 20 years when they skim through these forums is that I was emotional, or sort of a d*ck, then I'm okay with that.