Today I have been spending over 4 hours straight in the library, and I’m expecting to spend 324,989,843,839 hours more. This lovely thesis is keeping me engrossed with numerous books and articles about identity. It’s funny how I am having the hardest time coming up with the benefits and reasons why my thesis topic of ethnic identity development is important to research. You would think that I would know the answer right away. Wrong. Well, at least I thought I knew all the reasons. Frustrated I went to the restroom for the 100th time in order to clear my mind.
After doing my duty, I looked up into the mirror while washing my hands. Well, there it is, my reflection staring right back at me. I noticed my black curly hair surrounding my face and my brown eyes staring right into my own soul.
I was looking at my identity.
My heritage was screaming from my features.Taking a deep breath, I freaked myself out and walked, very fast, out of the bathroom.
Strolling back to my seat through the bookshelves, I was looking at all the titles and noticed I was in Anthropology section. Then the Latin American books popped out at me. I couldn’t resist. I sat for about 20 minutes flipping page after page of images of the beauties of Latin America. At the same time, my mind began to fill with my own memories. Then I picked up the Guatemala book.
I seconded guessed if it was wise to go through that book. “Oh, what the hell”, I said to myself.
The images of the Maya Indians and the scenery pictures did more justice that I thought it would. With a pull at my heart, I placed the book on the self and walked back to my seat.
Papa Lima is driving from Guatemala to Houston as I type this. I was so jealous that he was able to go back to the Motherland. Reconciliation needed to happen. The next time that I will go back to Guatemala, it will be by myself. No external influences; just me, the motherland, and anti-diarrhea medicine.
My obsession with Identity development started in my senior year of undergrad, right after my study abroad experience (hence the thesis topic). I was doing an independent study in Cultural Anthropology, which then added fuel to the fire. When I read this quote in Anthropological Insights for Missionaries, by Paul G. Hiebert, it all made sense to me:
“We who live in the bicultural community are generally marginal people who in many ways do not fit anywhere. Since we live on the borderline between different worlds, we find that no matter where we are, we are not quite at home. We are never fully assimilated into our second culture, but after a while we no longer fit our first culture either, because we have been changed and influenced by our experiences... This loss of identity in our first culture is not only social. It is also cultural. When we return, we can no longer identify uncritically with our home culture, nation, or even denomination. Consequently, when we criticize them, we so arouse the suspicions of our relatives and friends that they accuse us of disloyalty and even heresy…
Psychologically, because we internalize two persons belonging to two worlds, we face an identity crisis and need to find out who we really are. As we have already seen, we may choose to reject one or the other of our two identities, but thereby we kill part of who we really are. We can compartmentalize our existences, living as one person in one world and as the other person in another world. The result is cultural schizophrenia. Or we can seek to integrate our two selves into a single integrated whole, but this is a difficult process, for we must find a resolution to the fundamental differences that do exist between our two cultural selves.”
As I am on this journey of finding my cultural identity, I know that I have one identity which beats out all theories or studies. My true identity is in Christ. Hands down. Yes, I have dark crazy hair and can't say all the English vowels correctly, but I am a child of God.
I am His daughter. I am His beloved. I am called to live that out every day.
My friends here in Indiana are His too. It’s not just my identity in Christ but they have it in Him too. We are called to come together and “become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
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