Back to Reality

I'm officially back into the swing of things... had my first day back to work, my sleep schedule is back on track, and I am currently working on my 12 page paper due in 3 weeks. This paper has already had a few different paths, but has now evolved into the EU and how they promote "nationalism" within the context where they oppose "Muslim culture" which seems like just their excuse for opposing different cultures and identities. My experience in Europe proved to show a lot of similarities to how we treat minorities in the states. You are allowed to be called, "European" - but the European Identity has strong ties to Christian beliefs and would rather not have anything different representing or challenging those continuation of struggles to keep "western" ideals alive and well.

I am excited to continue my research on this topic as it hits close to home for me... Being multicultural in America has its challenges... although I am certainly more mature and educated than in my youth, I still feel a twinge of anger when people ask me "what I am" or "how long I've been in this country". Let me break it down for you... I was adopted when I was a year and a half years old. I am a U.S. citizen, have no accent and Identify myself as American. So when people ask me "what I am" I find myself now telling them American. Yes, I am not white - but why does that give people the right to decide that white is what Americans are, and any other ethnicity means that you are not actually American - but something else that needs to be explained.

I understand that many people are just curious, but what they don't realize is that asking questions and separating themselves from people who are residents in this country by asking questions like where they are from or what's more offensive "what are you" only perpetuates these stereotypes that white is the starting point of how a society can identify their culture. All others are outsiders left to either by too ethnically different for whites to accept or too "western" for people of their own background to accept.

Nationalism and Cultural Identity is something that fascinates me. Growing up as a multicultural person, I've always been interested at labels and expectations of the preconceived notions of what society wants you to be. They want you to be an expert on where you came from, but since we are products of our environments - many of us only know the cultural traditions that our families have made here in the states.

I hope that people will evolve into the next chapter of awareness and can look at all the different types of people in the states as simply North Americans. Some of us transplants, some of us with long historical family tree lines within the states, and some of us who have lived their whole lives as a non-white person but wholly an American citizen.

What does citizenship mean to you? How will you set aside your upbringing filled with propaganda and illusions of what it means to be part of a bigger national citizenship?

GOOD NEWS: one of my most favorite and influential professors has asked me to do paid research for her this summer. I feel extremely honored and look forward to going through this experience and hopefully learning a lot from this extraordinary woman. There goes my summer off!