Blending Cultures, Blurring Boundaries.
For a few of my past posts, I have been exploring the difference of my childhood upbringing of being German-American. While I believe my nationalities are very similar, they do have some differences. Overall, I believe they are similar on a fundamental level both being Western societies. I wanted to see how other bloggers were also approaching their cultures and how parallel or perpendicular the lines were. My lines are parallel due to similar governmental structures and western beliefs. However, I wanted to see how others expressed their opinions on their heritages.
I have been searching for other German-American bloggers to see if anyone was posting anything similar to myself. On medium I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Most of what I found consisted of Americans enjoying Germany or Germans enjoying American, which I do both of. I adored my time in Germany and definitely wish to return there one day as an adult. I clearly enjoy life in America as well since I have stayed here ever since I have crossed the pond. But these lovely pieces didn’t fit quite right. (Perhaps a different blog post topic) I then looked to other cultures which could remain similar to the US but would have a wider lens that people would be willing to discuss about. I left Europe for this and looked on the western hemisphere and went just a little south of the border for bloggers to talk about their cross-cultural interceptions, Mexican-Americans. I found two blog posts/bloggers that I wanted to focus on because of detail they put into their stories. One is an American-Mexican boy, born in America and later moved to Mexico after his father decided to move the family back to his home country. The second is a similar situation to me, someone born abroad to American parents.
Emiliano was born in Maplewood, Minnesota. In his early tweens, Emiliano’s family moved back to his father’s native Mexico. “When my parents decided we were leaving America, I was mad. Especially because we certainly didn’t make the decision as a family. One day I got home, and my parents had put a for-sale sign up in the front lawn. That’s how I found out. But my dad wanted to come back to Mexico because he couldn’t take the winters.”
Emiliano living in Mexico does what he belives is comparable activities to the American friends he left behind. He is main goal is to not repeat a year in school. He rides a motorcycles, a gift from his Dad who he sometimes assists in the family ownered tatoo parlor. Emiliano after homework skates with his friends in their spare time. Nothing unheard of for a 17 year old boy.
Eric is now a college student at UT. He like me debates the meaning of his cultural combination. “I wanted to figure out how to be a better Mexican American, someone who was in touch with his culture and cultural history. I also chose Mexican American Studies as my minor and for the same reasons. I am Mexican American, but I often struggle to figure out what that means. Yes, even now the question can quickly become mind-boggling.” I enjoy this sentiment because I became a German studies minor in college for the same reason.
“I had to find my own answers to what being Mexican American means. My family has always casually blended the American with the Mexican or the Tejano. My grandmother is as likely to sing along with Elvis or the Beatles as she is to a mariachi band. My mother has a playlist of Madonna and Thalia. We’re as likely to have tamales at Thanksgiving as turkey or green bean casserole. We hung up flags of the U.S., Texas, and Guatemala in the house. Being Mexican American involves blending cultures, blurring boundaries.”
I think people blog about this so that way others can learn from and view their perspectives. It is interesting to learn from someone who has different live experiences than you do. I believe it is also important to hold onto past cultures that way the can survive and live on into the future. I think it would be awful to have a repeat of a language or an identity like speaking Latin fluently. So many languages have derivates from Latin and yet it is partially lost from history since it isn’t a spoken language anymore. I and other bloggers with the same ideas, are trying to something like that from happening to our cultural identities so that way people in the future can experience them too.
