Vblurb

A lot of people say I'm lucky. I speak three languages fluently, I've lived in four different countries and I can adapt pretty easily to a lot of places. Those are the obvious pros of having divorced parents coming from different countries, the only side people see and accept.
People from the countries of my languages (France, Italy, US), think I'm a native when I speak because of my accent, or rather lack thereof. But if they listen out longer, they hear there’s something fishy, in all three languages actually. Ironically enough, English, which is my 3rd language, is also my best written one, because I’ve studied it more.
My languages, which aren't perfect but almost, are only the tip of the iceberg of an identity problem: I can't identify with anywhere, I never fit in completely.
I usually describe myself as French because I've lived there most of my life but I'm not really sure how things work in the senate, I don't know the children TV shows my friends know, I can't write good academic language, I lack obvious cultural references like big French singers whose names I recognise but whose music I don't know at all... This puts me out of conversations at parties, where no, I don't drink red wine and, no, I don't smoke... So saying I’m French, especially if I then mention my italian-sounding name and say I was born in Switzerland, doesn’t really cover it. Nor does saying I’m Swiss, I don’t even know who the chief of state is there and even what you call it. As for America... I know how things work - sort of - and I'm starting to understand how interactions work, but even if I manage to crack through the walls of an American and make friends, and become pretty close, I feel like a complete outsider as soon as they speak to someone they hardly know but share all these American references with. I then become the odd one out. I feel excluded because however much people may doubt it at first when they hear me speak, no one in my family is American, I wasn't raised there, I didn't go to an American school, I just happen to have an american-sounding accent.
As for England, the other country I've lived in, I love its history, literature, music, theatre; I know all this and I know it way better than for any other of my countries. So I'm pretty good there really. Except, I only lived there as a child and as a student in a university so I don't know what "real life" is like and however much I like to call it home, I know it really isn't and that no one from the UK would ever see me as a compatriot.
So I can’t really call myself French, or Swiss, or British, or American, that's not even an option...Which leaves us with the international crowd. They would accept me, you'd think, what with having lived in 4 countries and having two citizenships, right? Except, once again, I don't fit in totally. What kind of a double nationality is French and Swiss?? They're right next door! They say. And so what you lived in the UK for four years and in the US twice for a year? It doesn't really count, it's not like you moved continents every 3 years with your parents...
The hardest to digest it that my torn cultural identity is ignored, never acknowledged or understood. Yes Lugano, my birth town, is extremely different from Paris, yes I was greatly influenced by both cultures and by British culture, yes I've had to adapt to the US, twice. So for fucks's sake, I am an international. Why won't that be granted to me by the internationals themselves? And I have a cultural split and a feeling of lack of root, however much the girl whose family come from Africa and India and who's always lived in France may sneer at me when she learns I was born next door in Switzerland and refuse that I might suffer from it in a similar way that she does.
There is nothing to label me with. I have no sticker to wear and proudly carry to define me. Behind this jumble of identities and origins, I am just me. And this "me" is my only protection, my only definition, and believe me, it's fucking hard. It's sooo much easier to hide behind a lable. But for me it's a never-ending quest for identity, as though adolescence and the fight for self-identity were a life-long struggle, that nobody even acknowledges. I mean what am I complaining about when I fit in so well? Right? And they all try, they really try, to label me, the American saying “you’re French” or the British saying “so where in America are you from?” Why do they all want to fit me in boxes, never their own? They all fit me in the wrong ones, or ones that don't fit, and then they’re surprised when details don’t match and I don’t fit. And the worse part is, I want to fit, I long to fit, I feel lost without the proper box to fit in and the pretty label on it because I have no where I can really fully call home. I have no language, not one, in which I can express myself fully, completely, without having to use another or without sounding foreign or awkward. I never really have an evening I don't feel excluded from at one point or another because I have no clue what every one else is referring to. There is not one person who can understand the full range of my experiences. Imagine having to explain the whole university system to your boyfriend before being able to say what on earth the degree you're doing is. I always have to explain so many things. I can't share naturally.
Btw, what am I doing in NY?
I'm not a student, yet that's what my student ID says and I live on campus, I'm not faculty but I can get free breakfast at the faculty dining hall and I teach, I'm in classes but I can only audit them so I'm neither in not out...
I'm never 100% part of, always partly so.

Note:
I wrote this for a project we're doing with Elizabeth. The original theme was oppression so I tried to write about how my identity discomfort is ignored, brushed away and not understood. We're changing the piece now to move on toward stereotypes more and I thought I'd still share this because it is interesting to me and a part of me that I have only recently really accepted to look at. It's not really finished or polished so you could call it work in progress.

# posted by V @ 12:14 AM