Duality

27 thoughts on Duality

1. For me it’s been a bit of both, more of the latter than the former, although it used to be the other way around. One can still find someone who feels the same way, just not someone who feels the same way about everything, which I think would be boring, but this way can be a bit lonely.

2. In White Teeth, Zadie Smith said of one of her characters, Millat Iqbal, that he was basically one of those people who belonged nowhere and hence really belonged everywhere. I think there’s something to that.

   It’s kind of how I view myself. Or, at the very least, it’s kind of how I’d like to view myself. 😉

3. As a Jew in the US, I do feel this way – both of and not of. I’m aware of the ways in which assimilation has moved me closer to white American culture and simultaneously of the distance from the roots of Judaism (or at least of Ashkenaz Judaism, which is my background). It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where this feels like a gift rather than a loss, and I don’t think it’s either/or; I think it’s both/and. It’s a gift and a privilege to live in relative safety and actual luxury; it’s a loss of connection to both cultures in some ways.

4. Great post, Chally.

   While the issues are very different for me..I identify with some of this. The US/UK divide is so strange, because it’s both not there and there. I don’t really quite fit in America; I never could find a place which felt permanent. But at the same time, there’s so many things in the UK that I just don’t get and don’t know if I ever will. (People here don’t comprehend why anyone would eat peanut butter and jam on a sandwich. I can’t comprehend why anyone would eat gelatin and ice cream together.)

   I tend to lean towards the soul split, but I’m hoping that that’s only because I’m fairly new at this. Hoping, anyway.

5. I’ve grown up moving every two years between countries, so that relates very closely to my experience. Between living between all these cultures, I’ve had to create one of my own. There is even a term for it: Third Culture Kids (and adults). Sometimes I feel a bit like I am missing something and I did lack a lot of the support my extended family could have given me and the security and stability of one home, but overall, I think of it as a positive change and difference. It opens your eyes to different perspectives, and that ability is really useful. On the other hand, when I live in the US, I feel more latina, and when I live in south america, I feel foolishly “agringada”.

   I do get a kick from calling myself “a citizen of the universe and all parallel dimensions” because as far as the average person is concerned, I don’t really belong anywhere. And that’s somewhat okay with me, as I have found other Third Culture Kids, and belonging to them has given me roots – even if these roots tangle with theirs in thin air and we aren’t supported by the ground. I used to work harder at identifying myself mostly by my abilities, interests, accomplishments – “I draw” “I study a lot and get good grades” “I like to travel” etc – but if you can come to terms with being of two places and not really, you get to, say, drink from two wells.

6. I’m in that position too (even down to the language-not-learned thing). I love this sunburned country, and no, I don’t quite fit. I’ve never fit, I never will fit, and its more than simply looking not-quite-white.

   But I don’t really care. I don’t quite fit in anywhere, and that’s just me. I honestly think that for some people, we don’t quite fit anywhere, so we’re quite happy anywhere too. Neither of my parents quite fit in their ‘original culture’ either – we’re all just a little disconnected, and that’s OK.

   Quite frankly I used to wonder if I were a changeling baby when I was a child, because being a misplaced fairy made more sense than my classmates ever did.

   The only thing that annoys me is that immigrants (of similar background) assume that I agree with them about stuff I have never heard of and don’t care about (my response: if you don’t like it here then f*ck off back to where you came from. And take your this-culture-isn’t-good-enough whining with you).

7. Thanks for your comments, everyone. 🙂

   Gumnut mate, I was with you up until your last paragraph. Telling people to go back to where they came from if they don’t like it here has a pretty fraught history coming from white racists. (I’m sure you’re familiar with ‘f- off, we’re full,’ in a similar vein.) There are lots of reasons to have problems with the culture here, especially given the racism, for instance – or anywhere, really – and it’s not cool to tell people complaining about it oughtn’t feel that way. It’s just how they feel.

8. Chally, I agree with you when it is a case of POC immigrants coming into a white-dominated culture because of problems in their own homelands–more often than not caused by the legacy of colonialism. In those cases, it’s the height of hypocrisy and ignorance to throw out the “we’re full” and “go back where you came from” lines.

   However, a lot of places have the problem of rich, wealthy, privileged incomers moving in, then refusing to integrate socially or culturally, and criticising the local cutlure nonstop. I’ve encountered this type of person in Spain with the Brits and Germans, and in Wales with the English. These people are present-day colonisers, who talk about “the locals” in much the same way as 18th Century imperialists talked about “the natives.” They sneer at any aspect of local culture that they don’t understand, refuse to learn local languages (thereby contributing to linguicide and the gradual erasure of local culture), and make no attempt to contribute to the communities they live in.

   I have no problem at all telling them to go back to where they came from.

9. Yes, white immigrants are often contemptuous of local cultures and it’s certainly a different dynamic than with the POC immigrants we were talking about. I agree that it’s pretty troubling.

   I can see this turning into a big derail, so I’m going to request we keep this on topic, that is, the discussion of people’s personal experiences with multiple cultures.

10. Crys T – that’s exactly the point I was making. 🙂

    Chally – I’m not talking about those people who for whatever reason were fleeing war or whatever. I’m talking about those people who have money, education, who would come here and be ‘middle class’, who do *not* associate with Aussies, who *don’t* try to assimilate, who keep to their own little group and bitch and moan about how things were better in the old country.

    I should know, these people are my *relatives*. If you want servants and to bitch about politics of the homeland and refuse to join the rest of us Aussies, ffs go back!

    (I will cop that ‘go back where you came from’ is/was a pretty common epithet hurled at immigrants. I’ve had it told to me a few times, but there’s a difference. Maybe I should have phrased it better, but it’s bl**dy infuriating when you have people come over and refuse to adapt. If you *chose* to move here, you’d better like it. Else don’t come.)

11. Whoops, just saw your comment about thread derail, heh you’re right.

    (Hope that my previous comment cleared up what I meant though).

    Personal experiences of not being one or the other?

    I’ve thought about it a bit more since, but I would not have fitted in either of my parent’s ‘original’ cultures no matter where I was born/grew up, I think. Partially because of society would have thought of them/me, but mostly because I and my parents have that ‘never quite fitting in’ thing that I think is just us. (So I guess not really applicable to what you were looking for, now that I’ve thought about it for a while).

12. Well, I disagree, but thank you for moving back to the topic.

    That’s something I hadn’t thought of, one’s own culture(s) aren’t always accepting of individuals, are they? *sigh* I’m sorry that’s been your experience.

13. Thanks for your sympathies 🙂 Not really needed though – I was lucky in that my parents did shield me from a good chunk of the bad family stuff, so I wasn’t really affected. (Some context – my parents eloped because neither side approved. It’s funny story now, but not so much back then as you can imagine).

14. @ Crys T

    I could not disagree more and moreover, I have to say, I find it rather irksome when people apply what is mostly an American view of immigration and assimilation to the inter-Europe situation. Arrogant colonial attitudes are objectionable sure, but arise mostly with the presence of westerners in former colonies – certainly not in the case of Germans or Brits in Spain! Are the Spanish the helpless natives in this scenario and the Brits and Germans conquering white super-powers? I think all three nations would object to this world-view. Sure, it can be frustrating when a foreigner does not show respect for the culture they’re living in, but I honestly see no obligation of Europeans to “integrate socially or linguistically” in each others nations, while retaining your own culture and heritage does certainly not contribute to “linguicide” or the “erosion of local culture”! The EU has established a principle for the free movement of persons, while what’s more within the Union all Member States are on an equal footing. Europe is about celebrating differences not eradicating them, living side by side even while speaking different languages. The very motto of the EU is “United in Diversity” and it’s a good one in my opinion. Arrogance is never pretty, but let’s get a sense of perspective here: inter-EU immigration does not involve any power imbalance – The Spanish are not dependent on the English for preserving their language and culture! To the contrary, speaking as somebody who grew up bilingual with parents from two European nations, who has moreover since moved from one European country to the other more than once, I have to say that in my experience it is probably the immigrant who is at a disadvantage – even if white and middle-class. Locals so often seem to begrudge you the right to hold on to your own roots, to not openly admire everything about their country, to not gleefully copy their every habit, your right to reminisce about things that you do think are actually better back home… I am interested in exploring the cultures I’ve lived in, but not in assimilating. I have my own identity (which in itself is a complex, nationality-bending one) and it suits me just fine.

15. There’s this fascinating book called “Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds” which talks about growing up with multiple cultures (either two of your own or one of your own and one in your host country).

    For a lot of people, being a third culture kid is a big stress in their lives and this book helps them with that. For others, being a third culture kid is a boon and this book helps them explore that.

    I simply love being a third culture kid. Yes, I’m always a foreigner, I have an accent in all the languages I speak but I embrace that. And the funny thing is that third culture kids tend to feel most comfortable not with a particular culture, but with other third culture kids. I suppose we’re making our own culture! 🙂

16. Hey, you know what, Charis and anyone else who wants to veer off topic again? I think I made it exceptionally clear what’s appropriate for this thread. I’m about to go to sleep, but when I wake up I will delete any further off topic comments.

17. Chally, I posted that reply before you submitted that request to stay on-topic. But I’m a bit confused, both by the request and by your belligerent tone. It’s ok for people to bash immigrants on this topic for “refusing to adapt” to behaviour that they arbitrarily consider acceptable, but not to defend said immigrants? I’m not sure how you wish to discuss experience of multiple cultures while ignoring what is in fact the biggest problem for people with diverse national or ethnic backgrounds: the refusal of those around them to let them indulge in the multiple facets of their identify and instead order them to change or go home.

18. I didn’t see your comment in moderation or in spam, so my mistake.

    No, it’s not okay at all, and I thought I made that clear. I really wanted this to be a space where people could discuss their personal stories, that’s all.

    ETA: Actually, the timestamp on our posts are around an hour apart, mine before yours?

19. I’m not really sure what to say to that… This kinda is a huge part of my personal story: feeling it is not ok to be yourself around members of the dominant culture for fear of being told that you ought to be other than what you are, put on a show of integration or… leave. Sorry it wasn’t the story you wanted to hear.

    As for the time-stamps, I actually don’t have access to them, but all I can do is reassure you that I did not see your comment before posting. Possibly you posted it while I was still composing mine? I’m at work, so I wrote it while doing a number of other things at the same time and it took some time to finish.

20. When I was in Malaysia, I was out of place – too loud, too opinionated, too Westernized. I can only speak English.

    When I moved to Canada, things were fine for a while. I seemed to fit in just fine here, and still look like I do. But this is more luck than anything else. Eventually, now, I feel out of place – I don’t get cultural references, don’t understand the politics, don’t agree with their policies which purport to be multi-cultural but to me, aren’t, really.

    I used to be proud of being a person between worlds, because I thought it made me feel so transcendental, so beyond petty nationhood problems. Instead, that attitude made me a futz. I wouldn’t want to belong to someplace specific, either, but it gets lonely trying to find others like me. If that makes sense.

21. Charis, I don’t think that the problem was with you sharing that aspect of your story — I think the problem was with it being addressed in the specific context of a derail that Chally asked for people to stop engaging in. Now, if the comments were crossed, okay, honest misunderstanding. But I just want to reiterate as another mod that Chally specifically asked folks to keep this a thread for sharing/discussing personal experiences, and seemed to me to squash the derail in attempt to keep this thread a place where everyone could feel comfortable doing that rather than one where people feel the need to debate and defend themselves. Let’s please respect that.

22. Chally: Sorry to have opened that can of worms! Is there somewhere else to take this discussion? An open thread, possibly?

    Just for the record, I am bicultural (however not biracial) myself and have first-hand experience of trying to reconcile the two different halves of my identity. Since I haven’t spent any appreciable time in the US since 1991, I certainly don’t consider myself American, yet in Spain I sometimes get treated as a foreigner, because I do have some different body language.

    Now that I’m living in Wales (and yes, Charis, I DO speak Welsh, as a matter of fact), it’s still an issue: because when I speak English I have an American accent–well, for some reason it’s now apparently Canadian–people assume that that’s what I am. And even when I tell them explicitly that I am Spanish, that I do not even have US citizenship, all they want to know is “where in America” I’m from. I guess I ought to walk around in a traje de sevillanas with a rose in my teeth, periodically shouting “Ole!” so people get the picture.

    Do any of the rest of you have the problem of others who are outside of either (or any) of your cultures insisting on defining you? I have to admit, it gets up my nose. Why can’t they accept what I say about myself?

23. Emily – That’s exactly what I was talking about. I’m a Third Culture Kid who just feels at home with other TCKs. They understand! I’m pretty sure that if I were to marry, I would want to marry another TCK and have happy TCK children – heh. I don’t think I will ever stop moving.

    Crys T- I get that a lot, even from people from within my cultures. I’m very white, because of a European grandmother, so people don’t realize I’m latina until I tell them and speak in Spanish (I don’t have an English accent when I speak Spanish but I do have a subtly funky accent). I’ve even been told I sound Swedish when I speak English, and people just don’t really compute me as hispanic at all. And since I identify far more as Bolivian, it really irks me. I’m too white, too educated, too bookwormish, too artsy, don’t dress … whatever it is I’m supposed to wear. On the other hand, when I go to South America, I usually pass as a latina from another country… if I’m in Peru they’ll think I’m, say, Argentinian, and vice versa. I both feel dread and amusement when I wait for people’s reaction to my explanation to their “where are you from?” question.

24. This is something I can kind of identify with? I’m not of multiple ethnicities, but my family moved between Germany and the US a lot in my childhood. I’m actually a German/US dual citizen because I was born in the US, I learned English when I was five and was in US schools up until the age of eleven…

    Where I differ from most of the comments is that I do feel as if I have one single identity and US culture feels as if it’s been forced on me. I’m German. My whole family is German, my cultural background is German, I don’t know of a single ancestor from outside the German linguistic area, my native language is German, for me there’s really no question. I’m only American by virtue of being born there and having… lived there for most of my childhood. Which does, actually, mean I picked up quite a bit of US culture and there are some things in German culture I don’t get (this one is tricky because I’m also an Aspie and therefore bits-I-don’t-get could be both thanks to the US influence and thanks to that). And… I *hate* it. It feels like I never asked for it, as if someone’s come and stolen my culture away from under me. It triggered a bout of anti-Americanism that I’m still working against (sorry all! :/) and a whooole lot of issues surrounding culture and traditions and identity.

    The absurd thing is that I then went to the UK to study, and I *think* this was partially due to the fact that living in Germany was forcing me to confront the places where I wasn’t German. Which was a massively short-sighted thing to do – sure, living in Britain it was a lot easier to identify as German and when I met other people we focussed on the commonalities and the things we found strange about Britain. At first. Slowly I had to start adding “but I’m doing my whole undergrad here, I’m not just here for exchange”, then “but I did my undergrad in [British uni]”, and now it’s “but I did my undergrad and a postgrad course in Britain and I’ve never actually gone to university in Germany.” (Even more confusing because the place I say I’m from in Germany, where I lived from eleven to eighteen and where my parents live, is an *extremely* famous university town.) I have never lived any of my adult life in Germany, at the end of my PhD I will have lived in Britain longer than I have ever lived in any country at one stretch, and now if I ever go back to Germany to live I will be even more foreign than before and I’m really not sure I could take that. Or, you know, I could just stay abroad (I do think I have a very nomadic urge in my bones) and lose bits and pieces of my culture at every step. But then again, I have to tell myself that I will go back someday – eventually – in the vague and fuzzy future – because I have such issues attached to the concept of immigration (not in general, just as pertaining to me) and if I consider the concept of never living in Germany again I want to start crying.

    I’ll stop here because otherwise this will get absurdly long – I think I should probably write a post on this stuff myself to get my head clearer – but I have tangled with some of the issues here and they are incredibly painful for me. And I get incredibly frustrated when people say that there is only one white Western culture, or that there are only very minor differences between European and US cultures!

    (As an aside, the “family moved around a lot” is something I often hear about in terms of US military culture, but there’s another societal group where the kids often wind up being dragged willy-nilly across the globe – academics. My brother and I were lucky to get off with only two languages and two countries, and up to six years spent in one place; a girl in my class had lived in five countries with four different languages.)

25. I’m not biracial (I’m all white) but I’m from more than one country and trilingual (if that’s a word). I also didn’t grow up with the culture from any of the countries I come from (my parents joined what many call a sect before I was born). Which means I never really feel like I belong anywhere.

    People usually don’t notice this. They usually think that I’d fit in pretty much everywhere…

26. @Mortality: yes, “trilingual” is fine. You could also say “multilingual.”

    @Kaz: your experience sounds similar to mine in some ways. I also came to the UK to study, and have ended up staying here much longer than I ever intended. Now, I feel even more estranged from Spain, as so many changes have taken place in the past 10 years. I want desperately to move back there, but due to the economic situation (global in general and my own in particular) I just can’t right now. And I feel myself moving farther and farther away from where and who I want to be.

    @Cami: Ha! Again, your experiences are sort of similar to mine. Since most people in the US don’t really know what “Spanish” or “Spain” mean, I always used to get a reaction of “Spanish, but you’re not dark!” in America. Then when I was in Spain, a lot of people thought I was Latin American. Don’t know why, other than there are quite a few Argentinians in Barcelona, and they didn’t identify my slightly odd Spanish as being influenced by English.

    When I learned enough Catalan to get by, I used that instead and all of a sudden I became a local! Unless I got a sunburned face, then all of a sudden, no one could understand a word I said.

Comments are currently closed.