Wednesday, June 2, 2004

is a boy raised by wolves a boy??



a friend of mine said something to me while i was drinking. and i didn't have enough time to think about it then, or maybe i didn't have the brain capacity, and attentionspan... but it stuck with me cause it was rather weird for me to hear and comprehend. she said that she doesn't consider herself american. she feels she's taiwanese, because her parents are taiwanese. she was born and raised in southern california, but considers herself loyal to an island on the other side of the world.



that made me ponder... what am i? shoud i consider myself 1/2 persian, 1/4 welsh, 1/8 german, and 1/8 norwegian? i mean i've never been to iran, whales, germany, or norway. if i went to either of the countries i don't think i'd fit in either. but in southern california, i feel home. i relate to the people. this is my culture. this is my homeland. i can't relate to how people back in the countries where my ancestors used to live. so how can i then call myself any of these ethnicities. yes i do carry some of the customs and traditions from them, and i do relate with some of their cultural beliefs but not all of them. and they don't agree or relate with some of mine. it makes us different. it makes me an american. and i feel that the term american means just that. people from somewhere, came here and started new, but still held on to some of their old customs and beliefs but still started something a bit different. i can go to a different city like chicago and point out how different everything is there. how the people, the language, styles, all this stuff that i can't relate to... i'm not a chicago-an but we're all americans.



so i asked her. do you not feel like an american, you speak with a southern california slang, you know the area, you have lived here forever, relate to people who live in the area that are of the same situation as you by having family come from far away and reside here... and most of all, if you went back to your place of ethnicity, you wouldn't fit in!!!



america is a melting pot, but it melts in clumps. thus chinatown, little italy, koreatown, etc are born. you get people grouping to their old cultures but they are at the same time making new ones.



what really baffles me is that there was a group of 30 or so who were playing catch phrase at 2am and had the police break it up we reverted to talking about this. intresting? maybe maybe not, but don't expect to get invited to one of these parties. for most, it's simply too much to handle.

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