The other day in Bilbao, I met a friend at the Bira bar. We were very happy at the Tar and I said: “Of course, since you’re Guipúzcoa, hahahaha.” And he insisted that he was not Guipuzcoan. Without me understanding it, I kept saying, “Ah! Is it not? You were born in New York, weren’t you?” “Yes, I was born there, but I’m not from Gipuzkoa, I don’t feel, I’m from the Basque Country,” he replied. “Look over there! You are right.” I was silent. I lose my life force by revealing to the four winds the personality that I have decided on. Laura Penagos, Colombian and Basque actress and creator, ufaaa, and in fact, I am thinking that it is not obligatory to emphasize that I am Colombian. I said for sure that, because he was born in San Sebastian, he felt that way. The hare escapes the best hunter.

“I understand you,” I told him, “I was born in Colombia, but I also feel like I belong to the Basque Country, I don’t feel like a migrant.” But it is very difficult to get rid of the social label. We humans who use logic come from colonized imaginaries to name people, animals, and things. Without going any further, in October, the newspaper Berria reported on the Welcome to the Basque World conference organized by the Council. Four of the women who migrated spoke at the roundtable, sharing their experience and relationship with Basque. It was very interesting. The next day the News made the article about it, and when I read it, I was shocked. Under our photos and names appeared the word migrant. Our profession here in the Basque Country was not established, but the word migrant was. I spoke to a woman who was with me at the roundtable and she told me that she uses the word migrant to proclaim herself here.

Before I arrived here in Colombia, I never asked myself anything about identity. But starting this journey, the uprooting after a few months changed my identity. And questions were born to me. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Where have I come to? The void pushed me to an existential cliff where I slowly started diving and instead of climbing the sea surface, I decided that I wanted to dive deep into the rapids.

Nowadays, the personality structure is becoming more and more complex, we know. And it is very legitimate to rethink and self-designate ourselves. What to say, you already know what it is here. I would have appreciated it if I had asked the journalist of Berria before the article came out how I define myself, how I feel, after all, what my personality is. Being born and living in the Spanish State does not need to be “Spanish”.