Nationality
Apr. 1st, 2006 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bending_sickleWritten March 29, 2006 for French class
I have come to dread the question “where are you from”.
My father is Mexican and my mother is Spanish. I have never, till the past six months, lived in Spain. I lived in Mexico three years. I was in my late-teens.
When I was in Mexico, my friends kept forgetting the Mexican half of my heritage, considering me Spanish. I didn’t know the history, culture, youth slang, anything. I didn’t have the same accent or tastes in food. The same, to an extent, has happened in Spain.
I have never felt less Spanish or less Mexican than when amongst my compatriots. Which means that, while I feel alright saying to foreigners that I am Spanish or Mexican, I feel like an imposter saying the same to compatriots.
It’s even worse when actually in the country, because then they ask what region, what province, what city I am from. I instead tell them where my mother or father is from and claim it as my own.
Some people say that where you were born is where you are from. I remember one boy in my class asking me that. I answered, “Belgium”. “So,” he said, “you’re Belgian.”
Except I’m not.
I left Belgium when I was little over one year old. Neither of my parents are Belgian. I don’t have any papers ascribing Belgian nationality to me.
This last is because my father is a diplomat and didn’t exactly choose to live in Belium.
When I tried to explain this to the boy, I said, “If I were born on Mars, would that make me a Martian?”
He thought it would.
But then he was born in the States and magically became American.
The next criteria people use to determine where they are from is where they grew up. By the time I graduated from high school, I’d lived in six different countries, spending an average of three years in each.
My early childhood was spent in Kenya and Italy. My teenage years in Costa Rica, Canada and Mexico.
This criteria doesn’t help much, does it?
The final criteria is, “where do you feel you are from?”
Having spent the last – and most formative – years in Canada, I’m tempted to say that I feel closest to this country. I’ve grown used to its people, culture, language (where else do they call a cap a "tuque"? or a cornerstore a "dep'"?), food, geography (I could once name every river and hydroelectric plant in Quebec)…
But I know that, were I in Canada, I would be unable to say I feel Canadian.
I suppose, then, that I feel like a very vague North American of European descent.
North American because I have spent the last 14 years in North and Central America. North American culture has been a constant for me all through my life: I’ve gone to International schools, always in English, so the language and all that comes with it has been a constant for me. My knowledge of literature is reserved to the English-language. I grew up with C.S.Lewis and Roald Dahl. I think and write in my diary in English. I would never consider writing a story in any other language than English and, in fact, have a wider vocabulary and style-variability in English than any other language.
Spanish was reserved for family interchange only. When I was little, the only Spanish I wrote was in letters to my grandmother.
The only music that I could hear in any and every country where I lived in was American. Television shows didn’t change when I moved borders. (Language maybe: I remember watching McGyver in Italian.) The bulk of the internet deals with this one world-wide culture we all have access to.
So I’m a North American Europeanized cosmopolitan girl.
ETA August 28, 2008:
I've also spend three whole summers in Athens, Greece, when I was in highschool and starting university.
I'm also now lived two years in Barcelona, Spain, setting things up for a postgraduate program, and utterly failing to acclimatise.
Since mid-2007 I'm living in the Netherlands, doing a two-year program. Whether I'll stick around after graduating depends more on where the job that I eventually find is than anything else. I accept living here indefinitely, but don't want to live here definitely.
I have come to dread the question “where are you from”.
My father is Mexican and my mother is Spanish. I have never, till the past six months, lived in Spain. I lived in Mexico three years. I was in my late-teens.
When I was in Mexico, my friends kept forgetting the Mexican half of my heritage, considering me Spanish. I didn’t know the history, culture, youth slang, anything. I didn’t have the same accent or tastes in food. The same, to an extent, has happened in Spain.
I have never felt less Spanish or less Mexican than when amongst my compatriots. Which means that, while I feel alright saying to foreigners that I am Spanish or Mexican, I feel like an imposter saying the same to compatriots.
It’s even worse when actually in the country, because then they ask what region, what province, what city I am from. I instead tell them where my mother or father is from and claim it as my own.
Some people say that where you were born is where you are from. I remember one boy in my class asking me that. I answered, “Belgium”. “So,” he said, “you’re Belgian.”
Except I’m not.
I left Belgium when I was little over one year old. Neither of my parents are Belgian. I don’t have any papers ascribing Belgian nationality to me.
This last is because my father is a diplomat and didn’t exactly choose to live in Belium.
When I tried to explain this to the boy, I said, “If I were born on Mars, would that make me a Martian?”
He thought it would.
But then he was born in the States and magically became American.
The next criteria people use to determine where they are from is where they grew up. By the time I graduated from high school, I’d lived in six different countries, spending an average of three years in each.
My early childhood was spent in Kenya and Italy. My teenage years in Costa Rica, Canada and Mexico.
This criteria doesn’t help much, does it?
The final criteria is, “where do you feel you are from?”
Having spent the last – and most formative – years in Canada, I’m tempted to say that I feel closest to this country. I’ve grown used to its people, culture, language (where else do they call a cap a "tuque"? or a cornerstore a "dep'"?), food, geography (I could once name every river and hydroelectric plant in Quebec)…
But I know that, were I in Canada, I would be unable to say I feel Canadian.
I suppose, then, that I feel like a very vague North American of European descent.
North American because I have spent the last 14 years in North and Central America. North American culture has been a constant for me all through my life: I’ve gone to International schools, always in English, so the language and all that comes with it has been a constant for me. My knowledge of literature is reserved to the English-language. I grew up with C.S.Lewis and Roald Dahl. I think and write in my diary in English. I would never consider writing a story in any other language than English and, in fact, have a wider vocabulary and style-variability in English than any other language.
Spanish was reserved for family interchange only. When I was little, the only Spanish I wrote was in letters to my grandmother.
The only music that I could hear in any and every country where I lived in was American. Television shows didn’t change when I moved borders. (Language maybe: I remember watching McGyver in Italian.) The bulk of the internet deals with this one world-wide culture we all have access to.
So I’m a North American Europeanized cosmopolitan girl.
ETA August 28, 2008:
I've also spend three whole summers in Athens, Greece, when I was in highschool and starting university.
I'm also now lived two years in Barcelona, Spain, setting things up for a postgraduate program, and utterly failing to acclimatise.
Since mid-2007 I'm living in the Netherlands, doing a two-year program. Whether I'll stick around after graduating depends more on where the job that I eventually find is than anything else. I accept living here indefinitely, but don't want to live here definitely.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-01 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-02 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-17 01:54 pm (UTC)I've found to this post via your User Profile, if you're wondering - I'm currently trying to update my own, but I never know what to write. As it happens, I'm pretty much stuck on that whole iz confused about nationality, too, although it should seem like it's a simple either-or. *facepalm*
... that said, sorry for creeping about your journal, my Sickle lady. ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 09:55 am (UTC)I'm pretty much stuck on that whole iz confused about nationality, too, although it should seem like it's a simple either-or. - Oooh, so German and...? (And that's all I'll ask! I swears!)
Creep around my journal all you want, darling :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 10:49 am (UTC)You can ask me all you want, but I swear it's really boring. My peoplez have lived in Russia for several decades, but my mother's parents were German - my father is Russian. I've been born in Russia, too, and have lived there for seven years, but then my parents decided to move here to be nearer to my grandmother, because of work etc.
And now here I am. Not really German, not really Russian - and at least in my mind, a tiny little bit English.
*shrugs* My father's always pissed when I'm asked where I come from and I don't answer Russia. But what the hell does he expect? Gah.
(By the way, what have you been up to in the last several days? I'm... jonesing.)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 11:08 am (UTC)I've been...gah. My parents were supposed to come, right, but that's been cancelled (stupid volcano) and now my mom's Monday flight is looking a bit Not Happening so I'm starting to freak out a little because I have a lot of stuff and I can't just throw it all away! Or take it on the plane! so cue panic.
Apart from that, I sold my bike but utterly failed at haggling for a good price (curses!) and spent yesterday wandering around Amsterdam, watched Case 39 (scary! and no one tried using salt lines, the idjits!) and had a drink with a friend. Today is looking like Massive Avoidance Day, so...I don't know what to do.
Your turn! *snuggles*
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 01:01 pm (UTC)*curses the volcano right along with you* Although I have been following the news regarding that thing, and apparently Lufthansa was doing test runs at the moment and the evil volcano cloud didn't actually do anything to the airplanes, so People In High Places are calling bullshit, at least over here. Things might be looking up?*huggles you*
I want to wander around Amsterdam with you. :( ... and sorry about the bike and the books, gah. *huggles some more*
After Friday - opera and all - I haven't done much of anything. I haven't even left the house, for god's sake. I feel pretty pathetic, but I was so tired yesterday that I almost blacked out, although I can't even begin to fathom why. All I do is pissing away my time on the internets. Gah. Maybe I'll watch the new Doctor Who today, but mostly... *headdesks*
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 01:11 pm (UTC)And yeah, why would volcano ash be a Black Cloud of Death to airplanes? When they can deal with clouds and smog? Feh.