NO PERMISSION IS REQUIRED TO BE WHO WE ARE?

Gay Pride Month, Black History Month and the latest attempt at ridiculousness - Latino Heritage Month, my - my! I looked at the bottom of my feet and there was no stamp indicating what I am supposed to be - so I chose to be a free person. Free to live my life, my way...

Yes, I am infuriated at how society today needs to separate, mince, minimize every little bit of who we are, and for what? Another commercial venture by flag makers, card jingle writers, little non-described people trying to create a separate society of their very own? Forget it, people! Not one person in the world needs an imaginary or created event to have pride and reverence of who one is, where we came from, where the roots of our blood stream got started. I happen to have been born in Costa Rica, yet in 1958 my life re-began as an Angeleno when my father decided to bring us to the United States where he had been living for a number of years for business reasons.

He insisted that integration into the U.S. system was necessary, life became routine and as the years went by, more and more, I became engulfed in the system of my new surroundings, yet, the Latino background was always there. Every 15th of September, Costa Rican Independence Day is celebrated to this day. My U.S born daughters and son-in-law party along with the gusto of the Latino Heart simply because after sixty three years of living in the U.S. has not dampened the spirit of my roots, and I am not unique in this. Many of my Latino friends go about our business of living very much the same way, so I am sorry - I don't need a month to realize who I am, where I got started and where my lineage comes from - I celebrate who I am three hundred and sixty five days of the year. I don't need society's permission to show who I am. Freedom to be who I am is stamped deep in my soul, very much like it is on all those other monthly celebrants of being gay, Black or whatever. I don't believe on commercializing our roots!

In my years, life has been filled with that sense of wandering just to see what is beyond the hill, and at every time, I have found enjoyment, but with another hill in the horizon to fuel the wandering of what else is in store. That is what we all should attempt to do - To let the soul fly free and discover, with no limitations. You want to celebrate something? Celebrate Life! Celebrate the joy of being able to share time with loved ones, strangers and more - At the end of the day - Enjoy the Sunset and look forward to another glorious Sunrise. Celebrate the daily cycle of being free to do as you please, whomever you are, where you come from. You really don't need a month for that, you have been given a lifetime for it!