What it means to be "latin"

Growing up, ethnicity was never something I thought about, at least not my own ethnicity. I knew that some people where white and some people were black, and most people fell within a range. This didn't really matter though, spending all my life in an international school made me look past skin color or even accents, I became a third culture kid despite the fact I've spent my whole life in the country I was born in. The first time I was confronted with my own ethnicity was during a standardized test; I had to fill in a bubble according to which group I belonged to, as if being born in the southern hemisphere could somehow lower my abilities. Until then, I had never considered myself a "Latina," I was just a person. I didn't identify with the mental image I had of latin people. That was when I realized that my own ethnicity had been so stereotyped I could no longer see myself in it.
I am not mexican, I have never been to Mexico, and having tacos to me is as foreign as having sushi. I have lived a privileged life; I go to an expensive private school, I traveled to Europe on my fifteenth birthday and have an apple computer. Honestly, I identify much more with a rich white kid than I do with the typical latin woman stereotype. I am no where near close to the characters J Lo represents in her movies, I am not a struggling tan skinned woman who happens to meet a wealthy white man who will introduce me to a world of luxury, I do not suddenly switch to spanish rants when I get angry; I'm just as capable of being mad in english.

It's true that my life is very different from that of the majority, there is devastating poverty all over the continent and I am blessed to have been given so many opportunities, but ethnicity has become a matter of economic status rather than the color of my skin or even the culture I belong to. I take pride of my roots, of the mapuches who fought against the spaniards and then the mestizos who fought for their independence. All of them have shaped the way I see myself and the lens through which I view the world, but this runs far deeper than what is shown in TV. In that sense I suppose I do consider myself a latin woman, but the word has lost its original meaning and become the image of a victimized culture, the image of poverty and illegal immigrants. I am not a victim, like media tends to represent me, I am strong and independent despite the fact my country and continent have often been abused by others. I am resilient, and this is the Latin America I identify with.