The Heritage I Don't Hear in My Music (Or Talk About Enough)

 It's Hispanic Heritage Month.

And, well, fuck it.

I'm Hispanic. More specifically, I'm Salvadoran.

I've spent years writing about music, books, science, and whatever else is on my mind, and I almost never talk about this part of myself.

Here's the thing that makes it stranger: for a lot of people, music is where heritage lives loudest. It's the songs playing in the kitchen and the sounds that mean home before you can explain why. That isn't really how it went for me.

The Music I Grew Up On

The music I grew up on was rock, mostly. Later came metal, then hip hop and reggae. Barely any of it was Spanish music.

So my relationship to my heritage and my relationship to music have mostly run on separate tracks. I'm Salvadoran, and the soundtrack of my life has been guitars, distortion, and beats that came from other places. Both things are true, and I'm still figuring out what to make of that.

Being Mixed, Being Hard to Categorize

My heritage is mixed. I'm Salvadoran, but I also have Polish, Austrian, German, and French ancestry. For this post I want to focus on the Salvadoran side, the part I've rarely centered in my writing or my identity.

Music lovers know the feeling of an artist or song that won't stay in one genre. Record stores never know where to file it. It's a little of this and a little of that, and it refuses the box.

That's a pretty good description of my experience with race and ethnicity. Depending on who's looking, I can benefit from some degree of white-passing privilege. I've become more conscious of that over the years. Privilege doesn't mean you've never experienced discrimination. Sometimes you exist in a weird middle ground, benefiting from one part of how you're perceived while being vulnerable to another.

I can be perceived as white by some people.

I can be perceived differently by others because of my heritage.

Both things can be true.

I want to be clear that I haven't experienced a tremendous amount of racism for being Hispanic. That's my experience. It doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, or that other Hispanic people haven't dealt with far worse.

When It Becomes Real

The first time I clearly experienced something aimed at my heritage was around 2020 or 2021. A friend I'd had a falling out with contacted me after I'd made it clear I didn't want to hear from him, and he called me names related to my Hispanic background.

Then, earlier in 2026, I was on a train with my mom when a man began saying things to both of us, some of it aimed at my heritage. It was awful. I don't think prejudice stops being prejudice depending on who it comes from.

I don't want this to become a story about either of those people. It's about what those moments did to my sense of myself.

It's one thing to know intellectually that racism and ethnic prejudice exist. It's another thing entirely to have it pointed at you.

There Is No Single Experience

Because I've been lucky, I don't want to pretend my experience represents anyone else's. There isn't one universal Hispanic experience, one Salvadoran experience, or one experience of being mixed. People can share a piece of an identity and have completely different lives, shaped by what you look like, what your name sounds like, where you grew up, and what assumptions people make when they meet you.

It's like two people who love the same genre and hear completely different things in it. Same music, different lives underneath.

Jaime David

Which brings me to my name.

Jaime David is my pen name, and in hindsight it's oddly fitting. "Jaime" can be ambiguous depending on pronunciation. I say it "Jay-me," like the people who know me do. "David" probably conjures a pretty specific image for a lot of people.

I didn't choose it to make a statement about identity. It came from my middle name and my confirmation name. That's all I'll say about that.

Music has a long tradition of chosen names. Artists take stage names to reinvent themselves, to protect their privacy, to fit a genre, or just because the name feels right. Mine wasn't a costume, but it turned out to be a name that can be read more than one way. That's me. I'm mixed, I'm complicated, and I don't always fit the box someone expects.

Learning, Not Competing

The biggest change over the past several years is that I've become more socially aware. I've learned more about racism, prejudice, and privilege, and how different people's experiences can be even when they share a broad identity.

I've also learned I don't have to pretend I know everything. I can listen. I can recognize where I have privilege and where I don't. I can accept that someone else's experience may be completely different from mine, without turning it into a contest over who has suffered more.

If I have some degree of passing privilege, I think I have a responsibility to be conscious of it. Maybe it also gives me the chance to talk about things that others don't have the same freedom or safety to talk about. That doesn't make me a spokesperson. I'm one Salvadoran-American person with a complicated mix of ancestry, experiences, privileges, and contradictions.

Why I'm Writing This Here

I talk about music, writing, books, science, mental health, and society. I talk about whatever the hell is on my mind that day. Somehow I've rarely talked about this.

I don't need to make my whole creative identity about being Hispanic. But heritage can sit quietly in the background until you stop and ask what it means, the way a song you've heard a thousand times can suddenly sound different once you know what it's about.

For me, being Salvadoran is one part of a bigger identity. I'm also Polish, Austrian, German, and French. I'm mixed and ambiguous, and I'm still learning.

So, yeah. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month.

If you have a favorite Salvadoran artist, or a song that connects you to your own heritage, tell me about it. I'd like to hear it.

From one Salvadoran writer who probably should have talked about this sooner.

I guess I'm talking about it now.