Citlali Avila-Cabrera: Civil Identity and Cici’s Identity

I write this paper under a name that most people do not know me as: Citlali.

Most everyone knows me as Cici. 

Try to say your foreign name and laugh

I know that you feel loud, so different from the crowd

It is easy to tell when people came into my life based on my name: if they call me a mispronunciation of my name, they’ve known me since I was in grade school. If they call me Cici, they’ve met me while I have been in college. If they call me Citlali, they met me in DC.

The sound made by the ‘tl’ in my name was always the struggle. My name—Citlali—comes from the Nahuatl word for star and I found it impossible to anglicize. 

From K-4 through senior year of high school, I went by a mispronunciation of my name that I never bothered to correct: Sit-la-lee. The mispronunciation never bothered me, it was something that I had accepted and learned to expect. I winced in every class as teachers or substitutes prepared to go down the roster, knowing they would freeze and widen their eyes whenever they got to my name. I look back and realize that my indifference towards the pronunciation of my name was just one of the many ways that I conformed to the comfortability and expectations of others rather than my own.  

You'll grow up

And grow so tough and charm them

I graduated in 2020, meaning I had about three months between my last day of classes and my graduation, during which I did a lot of reflecting on my life. Conformity had influenced me in ways as simple as how I dressed down to the extracurriculars I pursued. When asked about why I had interest in things, I could never answer since I had usually just opted to pursue things that seemed to be expectations. It would be several years after my high school graduation before I found my “why.” Still, I realized the importance of opting to live on my own terms rather than of those around me, and it started with going by the name I wanted to go by. At my high school graduation, hearing my name mispronounced once again and promising myself I would leave that mispronunciation of my name and my desire to fit in behind.

My first semester of college, I had the chance to start anew; I could be whoever I wanted to be. This would be a difficult task to embark on considering I stayed in my hometown for college-- meaning that a lot of my peers still knew me by a mispronunciation. For the first semester, I tried being Citlali but I quickly grew frustrated at having to explain my name every time I met anyone; I was also terrified of correcting my professors whenever they mispronounced my name. It didn’t help that I would instinctively introduce myself by the mispronunciation I went by throughout grade school. About halfway through my freshman year, some of my friends started calling me Cici. It was the first nickname I had ever had and it made it significantly easier for me to introduce myself. And unlike the name I had used in grade school, Cici was not a name based on a mispronunciation of my name, it was a name used affectionately.

So for the last three years, I have been Cici Avila-Cabrera.

The things you thought you'd never do

I wish I could go back and give her a squeeze 

“Buenos días, Citlali.”

It was the summer of 2023 and I was interviewing for an internship with the Organization of American States (OAS). With one singular line, all the preparation I had done for my interview went out the window because hearing my given name had been such a rarity in my life that hearing it completely unfocused me. When I applied to the OAS, I knew that I would be using both English and Spanish in my role, but it had not crossed my mind that being in a Spanish-speaking environment would mean that people would be able to pronounce my name. It came down to two extremely good internship opportunities but at the OAS, I would be immersed into Latin American culture and topics that interested me. I could also introduce myself as Citlali without people—including myself—thinking twice about it. At this internship, I would have no ties to anyone who knew me or who had even heard of my hometown—a tabula rasa. 

Ironically enough, my internship with the OAS was spent working on the Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas (PUICA). Countless hours of my semester were spent researching the topic of identity and the importance of civil and legal identity—while I myself was developing my personal identity. During my workday, I would read about the impact of intersectionality on access to identity, translate project proposals to help more people gain access to a legal identity, and write about ongoing PUICA projects. Working with human rights often made my own problems seem trivial in comparison: my struggles with figuring out if I should introduce myself by my government name or my nickname were insignificant compared to thousands of people losing their nationality over a court decision. When I started my internship, I did not entirely understand how identity was tied to human rights but the more I learned about it, the more I understood its vitality.

During my semester in DC, I looked at my Mexican birth certificate for the first time in my life. Though I was born in Athens, GA, my parents registered me with the consulate when I was around thirteen, but I had never looked at my birth certificate. Among other things, my Mexican birth certificate listed my birthday, the time of my birth, my name, my parents’ name, their parents’ name, and our nationalities. A year ago, I would have thought little about my birth certificate but my internship completely altered my perception of legal identity. Having the luxury of knowing where I came from and specifics about myself down to the time of my birth is a privilege. I could go by a hundred different names during my lifetime, but at the end of the day, I will always be Citlali, but I needed to figure out who exactly Citlali was without school or external influences—two things that had always been present in my life. 

At my internship, I was known for being quiet and serious—words I am sure no one at Lander would ever use to describe me. Silence makes me uncomfortable so I often talk to fill it in, but in a place like DC where there are thousands of people trying to talk at any given moment, I was able to take a backseat and let my more introverted nature take control. I tried so many new foods, new hobbies, new interests and discovered things that I liked (i.e., bouldering, Ethiopian food, arepas, theatre, early bedtimes) and things I disliked (i.e., expensive coffee shops). I found my confidence in DC—as a professional and as an individual. Everyone in DC new me as Citlali or Cici, not once did I think to introduce myself as Sit-la-lee. Though I introduced myself as Cici, my housemates frequently made the effort to pronounce Citlali, despite my constant assurance that I like being called Cici.

Coming back from DC, I have gone back to being Cici to everyone around me. It is a name that has grown with me for the last four years and most of the people who know me in my professional life know me as Cici. It seems that the days of being Citlali full time are over for now. In my mind, Citlali and Cici are different versions of myself that have had to learn how to coexist since I got back from DC—it has been a struggle. Cici is the version of me that is more extroverted and outgoing, I would describe Cici as being very comfortable with where she is but very wary of others’ opinions. Cici is the version of myself I need for job interviews: comfortable and capable of making people feel like we’ve known each other for years. But Cici is still running away from being Sit-la-lee, and sometimes still introduces herself as that.

Keep on going with your silly dreams

Life is prettier than it may seem.

While I was in DC, one of my favorite artists by the name of Laufey (pronounced lay-vay), released a song titled “Letter to my 13 Year Old Self.” The song is—as it says in the title—a letter to the thirteen year old version of the artist. She talks about having a foreign name, feeling different, being an outcast, but encourages resilience and talks about the beautiful experiences she will have later; it is a song that resonates with me. DC was once something that seemed more unreachable than a dream, but I will be forever glad I had the experience that I did.  

*

Citlali Avila-Cabrera is from Greenwood, South Carolina. She is graduating in May of 2024 with a B.S. in Political Science, with an emphasis in public administration, and minors in international studies and pre-law. Following graduation, Citlali plans to dedicate time to her research, professional development, and traveling before attending graduate school.