As aggressively as the plane took off, the touch-down hurled without disappointment. To clear my mind off anxious thoughts, I conversed with an older woman who sat next to me. Carrying a Barbie doll house, a purse, and a vase containing the ashes of her ex-husband, she told me of her entire life. During her 56 years of existence, she lived in a small city in Honduras, in the department of La Paz. She told me of her difficult childhood and tumultuous adulthood while living there. While I listened, I tried to understand why she just didn't move to another place.

“But do you like living in Honduras?” I asked right after landing. “You said you've visited other countries.”

“Of course,” she answered, “it’s my home.” Right there, the plane door opened, and she quickly exited the plane. Following along with the crowd, as did I.

At the age of 19, after eight desolate years, I stepped onto Honduran land. It felt overwhelming, yet hollow and empty. Once in the airport, I walked hurriedly through a gloomy corridor. The hallway, decorated with old propaganda posters, felt impersonal. I just wanted to get out.Thankfully, I made it through and found myself in front of two immigration lines: one for Honduran citizens and the other for foreigners. I felt uncomfortable, certainly out of place, having to step in the line for foreign citizens, even if I am a Honduran-born native. Slowly but surely, accompanied by other travelers, I endured immigration, registration, luggage, and I fearfully went to the pick-up gate.

At the time, I had last seen my sister eight years ago. Time robbed from me so much, and I imagined everything I missed as I anxiously strolled to find my family. Emotions ran rampant through my soul, causing me to feel physically unwell. It was all too much. When I reached the meeting place, I came across a giant crowd of screaming people -- happy, cheerful Honduran faces shouting for their family members and friends. Suddenly, someone violently hugged me without warning. I saw the figure and assumed it was my now 14-year-old nephew, Angel, whom I last saw when he was just six-years-old.

“Oh my God, it’s you!” he said repeatedly while planting his face on my shoulder. “I can’t believe this!”

He handed me a handful of balloons, and then, from afar, I distinguished my sister, Griss, running towards me. She, too, gave me a furious hug. She recorded every moment with her phone--digital memories to be enjoyed when I left once again. Griss tried creating coherent sentences, but all that came out of her was “Oh my God, I’m so happy," and “I love you.”

“I love you more,” I responded.

The three of us paced out of the airport, my body was sweating profusely as I entered this unfamiliar temperatures. Through the chaos of the crowd, we hugged and walked, trying to enjoy every second of amazing surreality. Yet, undoubtedly, I could sense natives glaring at me. I disregarded it, but it came back to haunt me.

As we drove down the highway, I tried to familiarize myself but it was all in vain. I couldn’t recognize any buildings, any roads, any neighborhoods. Trying to scrape affinity from my early childhood memories, I forced my brain to identify; to remember; to live through these lands once more. Yet, as hard as I endeavored, I felt indifferent and disconnected.

A few days passed, and after traveling through the city, I still lacked any recognition of what seemed to be unexplored surroundings. The day came to visit my grandma for the first time in almost a decade. From the moment I was born, to the moment she accompanied me to the United States, I had never been separated from her. I was only eight-years-old back then. I went back when I was 10, but everything still felt the same. Not anymore. Eight years is a long time. Others can say they haven’t been to their country of birth for longer periods, but for a developing child, eight years changes everything. Eight years is a lifetime.

We were waiting for the taxi to arrive, the one that was taking us to my grandma’s house. I took the time to pace around the rooftop with my nephew, making small talk. Out of nowhere, Angel looked at me and said, “You walk like an American.”

“What?” I asked.

“You walk like an American, I don’t know,” he responded.

“What do you mean?” I asked somewhat perplexed.

“I don’t know, you just walk like an American,” he responded.

I stayed quiet for a few moments. I just reflected on the fact that the way I stop myself from falling is the American way.

“You just act like an American,” he said a few seconds later.

Do I really? After living in the United States for 12 years, I never felt like an American. Who is the average American? While living in a big city most of my life, it’s difficult to tell. But everywhere else in the country, I think of a white guy in his 30s being the regular American. According to an ad by trivago.com, a hotel website, the regular American human being really is a white guy wearing cowboy clothing. If that’s the case, I’m nowhere near average. So, am I really American? Too many cultures and ethnicities splice and interact in the United States, so what can the true American culture be, if there is any? Underneath the football, the apple pie, the baseball caps, the 4th of July -- in the deepest depths of America’s existence -- what is the “real” American way of life? This absence of culture left me empty. And even with the lack of a true American lifestyle, after interacting with different people in different parts of the country, I’m always given the feeling that I somehow don’t belong.

It's insurmountable the amount of times I’ve been told that I’m not American. It goes beyond my color of my skin -- although, it’s a large contributor to the problem -- and more onto my identity. To start: I know I’m hispanic. I’m fluent in Spanish; I eat Hispanic food; I went to a high school that encompasses the Hispanic identity; and last but not least, I connect to other Hispanics. Yet, I see them connecting with their national roots, with the persona given to them by their motherland -- their own culture. But I neglected the Honduran identity by leaving the country at such a young age. Even so, I never felt comfortable to encompass the American one -- despite its scarcity. All of this led me to an empty limbo of cultural crisis.

It gets worse: People like Donald Trump tell me I need to get out of his country. What about him makes him the true American? And also his constituents -- why are they the real Americans? That they were born in US soil? That they’re mostly white? That they live in the suburbs with some money and social status? Similar to Donald Trump, “real Americans” are the offsprings of immigrants that migrated to his land. That doesn’t sound profoundly American, yet they claim themselves to be. And if so, how are they different from me? While I wasn’t born in the US, coming in such a young age, my cultural sense bared empty to be filled with America, but it lacked a concrete existence. And now, as a 20-year-old, I find myself out of place. Between Honduras and the United States, I end up getting hurt from an absence of recognition and blatant disdain towards outsiders.

In Honduras, I’m too American; in America, I’m just another foreigner taking up space. I lack patriotism, belonging, and attachment to either country. And because of all of this, wherever I go -- whatever country, continent, state, or department I find myself in -- I’ll always be the foreigner; I’ll always be the “other.” So what am I left with in the end?

On my last day in Honduras, as I passed immigration once again, this time to go back to Philadelphia, an airport officer halted me. She told me that I couldn’t board the plane to Miami. “What do you mean?” I asked furiously.

“We can’t let you get on that plane,” she repeated. “According to your American passport, you’re a Honduran-born native. And because you’re not 21, we need a letter from your parents to let you leave Honduras.”

It took all of my strength not to have a full-blown panic attack. For the past 10 days, I had dealt with human beings who rejected me, judged me, and criticized me for being “too American.” All I wanted to do was to go back to the land of, fundamentally, other direct and indirect immigrants. After some discussing back and forth, the officer allowed me get on the plane.

“This is the only time this can ever happen,” she said sternly. “Next time, you need that letter, or we won’t let you leave.”

“Believe me,” I said, “there won’t be a next time.”

I recollected myself, took a deep breath, and made my way upstairs to the terminal. Once on the plane, I kept thinking to myself. I felt confused as to why I told her I would never come back to Honduras. I told myself it was the obvious stress talking for me -- a sort of I-won-this-argument-type of phrase. But surely there were layers upon layers of reasons that simply wasn't the case. Unexpectedly, the cabin started shaking violently, momentum threw me back against the seat as the plane took off. Once in the sky, the plane rising brilliantly, the Honduran landscape slowly disappeared behind a wall of clouds and blue. "Goodbye, Honduras," I whispered to myself. It was all bittersweet.

A few hours later, I looked out the plane window. From such a high altitude, I started to see the tip of Florida. With its rich marches and deep greens, my soul succumbed to the excitement of being back in the US. As I left the airplane and walked through immigration, I joined other American citizens in the line designated for us. It seemed all but real to be true. Waiting for my plane to Philly, I felt confused as to why I had an urge to be back in this country. Far more than simply being “too American,” as Angel told me, this nation holds something that I dear endlessly.