Ever since reading Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" it's never been so clear to me on how I feel about my own culture.
From a very young age I found myself identifying as Mexican because that is where my parents are from and that is where most of my family was located. My older brothers teased me and made fun of me, saying I was a wanna-be Mexican because I was a "gringa." It didn't make sense to me at first, but as I grew older I started understanding that people basically said they were from wherever they were born, and since I was born in Colorado that officially made me an American. After that I'd identify myself as American, and continued to be bullied by my brothers who would give me a hard time of being a fake Mexican.
While I was in middle school, I came to a horrible realization: I didn't understand my fellow American classmates. Besides the fact that I taught myself English and was self-conscience about speaking, I also didn't understand how American culture worked. I mean this in that when I went home after school, I was used to the way my family behaved, which is in more Mexican ways than American ones. It was difficult for me to relate to my non-Latino classmates, and as much as I tried to fit in, I was oblivious to the fact that my classmates themselves were leaving me out of the circle because I was considered "different." I looked very much white, with light skin, colored eyes and light-colored hair, but everyone sensed I was like "them," I didn't act American.
It wasn't until high school that I found the Latino group of students and quickly adapted the Mexican label again and immediately dropped the American one. While I lived abroad and had to attend several events with fellow exchange students, I constantly struggled to get away from my American label. I hung out with the other Mexican exchange students, posed with the Mexican flag for pictures and what not, but when it came down to it our guardians forced me to join the Americans because that is who I was officially being sponsored by: The United States.
And it was always so, a constant struggle to understand what I was and where I came from. When I started college, my oldest brother and I came to an agreement. We were neither Mexican nor American. We were in this middle no-man's-land, not truly belonging to either side. We considered ourselves American in the fact that we were born here, but that was all. We considered ourselves Mexican because that is where our roots come from, but our customs and habits could not fall under one specific category.
To come back full circle, it was when I read in Huntington's article that "People have levels of identity" (24) that it all finally clicked in my head. Yes, that completely summed me up: I have different levels of identity. I am part of many different communities and sub-cultures, making up my different levels, and that is why I could never really feel at home in either the American or Mexican culture.
It would be easier to just tell people that I too, like the Greek philosopher said, am a citizen of the world. But, that never satisfies anyone's curiosity. People always wanna know what you are. American? What kind of American? Irish? Italian? Hispanic? What kind of Hispanic? Mexican? Spanish? Argentinean? I think it's important for people to understand that just because you are labeled as a specific race doesn't mean that defines you as a person. I may still have trouble understanding and socializing with Americans, but I'm always willing to learn more about others, and maybe one day the "clashing" of cultures will stop.
From a very young age I found myself identifying as Mexican because that is where my parents are from and that is where most of my family was located. My older brothers teased me and made fun of me, saying I was a wanna-be Mexican because I was a "gringa." It didn't make sense to me at first, but as I grew older I started understanding that people basically said they were from wherever they were born, and since I was born in Colorado that officially made me an American. After that I'd identify myself as American, and continued to be bullied by my brothers who would give me a hard time of being a fake Mexican.
While I was in middle school, I came to a horrible realization: I didn't understand my fellow American classmates. Besides the fact that I taught myself English and was self-conscience about speaking, I also didn't understand how American culture worked. I mean this in that when I went home after school, I was used to the way my family behaved, which is in more Mexican ways than American ones. It was difficult for me to relate to my non-Latino classmates, and as much as I tried to fit in, I was oblivious to the fact that my classmates themselves were leaving me out of the circle because I was considered "different." I looked very much white, with light skin, colored eyes and light-colored hair, but everyone sensed I was like "them," I didn't act American.
It wasn't until high school that I found the Latino group of students and quickly adapted the Mexican label again and immediately dropped the American one. While I lived abroad and had to attend several events with fellow exchange students, I constantly struggled to get away from my American label. I hung out with the other Mexican exchange students, posed with the Mexican flag for pictures and what not, but when it came down to it our guardians forced me to join the Americans because that is who I was officially being sponsored by: The United States.
And it was always so, a constant struggle to understand what I was and where I came from. When I started college, my oldest brother and I came to an agreement. We were neither Mexican nor American. We were in this middle no-man's-land, not truly belonging to either side. We considered ourselves American in the fact that we were born here, but that was all. We considered ourselves Mexican because that is where our roots come from, but our customs and habits could not fall under one specific category.
To come back full circle, it was when I read in Huntington's article that "People have levels of identity" (24) that it all finally clicked in my head. Yes, that completely summed me up: I have different levels of identity. I am part of many different communities and sub-cultures, making up my different levels, and that is why I could never really feel at home in either the American or Mexican culture.
It would be easier to just tell people that I too, like the Greek philosopher said, am a citizen of the world. But, that never satisfies anyone's curiosity. People always wanna know what you are. American? What kind of American? Irish? Italian? Hispanic? What kind of Hispanic? Mexican? Spanish? Argentinean? I think it's important for people to understand that just because you are labeled as a specific race doesn't mean that defines you as a person. I may still have trouble understanding and socializing with Americans, but I'm always willing to learn more about others, and maybe one day the "clashing" of cultures will stop.
Yessenia,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much of your post. I really appreciate your discussion of your different levels of identity. While Huntington's discussion (as we mentioned in class) was very broad, I was really curious to hear you weigh in on his discussion of Mexico as a nation trying to establish its cultural identity to align itself with a civilization (stuck between Western and Latin American) and see if you at all related to that concept.
While I have no personal experience of this kind of balancing of identities, the reading and the idea of "levels of identity" really made me think of my Lithuanian grandmother. My grandma immigrated from Lithuania before WWII when the threat of communism in Eastern Europe began to intensify. While my grandmother married another Lithuanian immigrant and never went back until after the fall of the Soviet Union, she was lucky enough to eventually secure a farm that her family owned in Kaunas almost 40 years after she left. She now spends half of the year in Dallas and another half on her farm in Lithuania and I was actually lucky enough to visit her two summers ago.
Anyway, what I find really interesting about her situation is that I have always considered her very Lithuanian. She has a very heavy accent, only really has ties to Lithuanians in her American community (many of which are family), and I have always grown up experiencing and valuing her Lithuanian roots, stories and traditions. On the other hand, she told me that when she goes to her farm in Lithuania, all of her neighbors there and friends refer to her as an American. I found this both shocking and fascinating when I heard this because it contradicted the identity that I have ascribed to her my whole life. Sure, she is an American citizen and has spent most of her life here, but I am pretty sure that she has always considered herself a Lithuanian through and through and thus I assumed so too.
I think that looking at her situation shows how blurry the lines can be between these cultural civilizations that Huntington describes. Yes, she has a shared family history, language and religion with her Lithuanian neighbors, but her cultural influences are more American. What about the million of people in the world, just like my grandmother, who could be a part of two or more civilizations? Does that negate the chances of conflict? Is this phenomenological view more realistic and more along the lines of Appiah? While Huntington's argument makes sense and is well-reasoned, in looking at my grandmother is it really that cut and dry? The more I think about it, and in using my grandmother as and example, the more I think that these lines of seemingly unavoidable conflict between civilizations may be an underestimation of the fluidity of people's identities and the ability for us to overcome these seemingly rigid boundaries. Would Huntington say that my grandmother was a member of both civilizations or neither?
Thanks for sharing this. I'm actually half french (my mom was born and raised in Paris), and thus have dual citizenship. I can't say, however, that I've similarly struggled with my identity. Perhaps that's due to proximity issues, or because I mostly spoke English at home. I've never felt a part of the French community, though again, that's probably because that community hardly exists in Kansas City. My identity struggle has more been with my Judaism -- balancing my cultural Judaism, using the Torah to be a good person, with the fact that I don't believe in God.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever feel one identity, or level of identity, is stronger than another in different circumstances and contexts?