With the 4th of July around the corner, I’ve been thinking about my American identity. I’ve had an evolving relationship with it, which has everything to do with my cultural heritage.
I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, not looking like anyone I saw outside my immediate family. My mother told me I came home from first grade crying that everyone had blond hair but me. The blond cry was soon replaced with one begging for straight hair, prompted by the misery of rampant curls.
Looking different brought more than a longing to fit in. It also brought questions from others. Even at an early age, I remember people struggling to categorize me – label me. They asked if I was Mexican. I don’t remember any judgment in the question, people just wanted to know where I came from.
For the record, Mexicans tend to have beautiful straight black hair, not curly, and skin the color of a deep Arizona tan, not olive. There was simply no other bucket to put me in, and knowing the right bucket seemed to be important to people.
In my twenties, people started asking if I was from Europe. They couldn’t place the country, but they were convinced they knew the region. Really?!
A Bit of Family History
All four of my grandparents immigrated to the US through Ellis Island. My father’s parents arrived from Syria, met and married in Ohio, and raised their family there.
My mother’s parents married in Russia and had their first child there before settling in Ohio, where their family grew. This latter set of grandparents were Jewish.
My father often proclaimed that I was Syrian. The Russian / Jewish half disappeared in his version of my story. He had pride in his heritage, as well as pride in being an American.
Both my parents bought into the metaphor of the US as a melting pot – a place where immigrants add their culture to all who came before them. Today I wonder, did we melt?
Becoming an American
Apart from New York City, my home for the past 14 years, the question of where I came from has followed me. I’d respond that I was an American and was then asked where my parents were from. Ohio.
I knew what they were asking, but the question made me uncomfortable. I just wanted to fit in, and people kept pointing out that I did not. Finally, I settled into a canned response about my heritage.
One of the most bizarre experiences came when I lived in Los Angeles. A man leaving a restaurant as I was entering stopped in the doorway, looked at me with incredulity, and asked where I was from. It was a painful interaction.
Let me note that I never felt that people were belittling me or negatively judging me. There was simply this need to understand why I looked different from others. It was as if they would know me by the box I sat in, which is simply not true.
When I arrived in South Africa after living in Los Angeles, I was again asked where I was from. By that time, I had given up and said I was half Syrian / half Russian Jew. And then something remarkable happened. I heard, “Oh, you’re American!”
My accent gave me away, and suddenly I was in a brand new bucket!
I have since had the opportunity to visit multiple countries around the world for work and for pleasure. I love immersing myself in each of the cultures I have experienced. When overseas, I am once again an American. No one asks about my grandparents.
Labels
My identity grappling may seem an odd topic for one who writes about intentionally honoring communication and the mindset that enables it. The connection between the two is all about labels.
I am hopeful that I have been questioned out of curiosity, though how the question was asked could benefit from some work. Where labels turn dangerous is when they are used in place of seeing us in the fullness of our unique selves.
Those labels can also appear in self-talk. We tell ourselves things like I am old, stupid, fat – and we sit in those buckets of our own making and see nothing else.
Reflecting on the Melting Pot
I had never questioned the metaphor until writing this post. Was the intent that we blend into one homogenized soup? Or was it that generations of marriage outside of each immigrant community would break down the dominance of any one ethnicity?
Or maybe it was just marketing.
What I know is that I am more than a sum of my parts – as are we all. I can have my heritage and still be an American. All our families came here from somewhere else in the recent or distant past. That’s the basis of this country’s unique diversity, and that is something to celebrate.
Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans and to all who celebrate with us!
I think this is a perfect example of you honoring communication and the mindset it enables. Thanks for writing and sharing this.
Cathy, I'm sorry you struggled so much with looking different as a child. Your piece reminds me that we need to be more sensitive about asking people where they're from.