Culture

Saturday, January 28

(I shock myself every time I write the date, realizing that it’s winter and snowy and cold in Wisconsin.)

Today I was sick, coughing a lot and feeling feverish, so I stayed in bed most of the day.  [Read: I didn’t have any friends to do anything with and was too shy and nervous to go out meeting people…especially because I felt under-the-weather.]  I picked one of the five books I brought with me and began reading.  I bought the book Dirty Girls Social Club for a class about Latina Identity, but we didn’t end up reading it in class.  It has been called the “Latina Sex and the City;” how appropriate for a lazy day of reading in Ecuador, right?

Well, I read the entire book—and not because it was the only thing I did all day, but rather because it was so damn good!  The stereotypes of “Latin culture” were described hilariously and accurately, only understandably so after personally experiencing some of the stereotypical situations described in the book.  While reading, I was laughing out loud, then sobbing, then reminiscing.  Call it a cheesy, romance, silly novel if you want, but I was sucked into these women’s lives.  It was a good book.  It was a thought-provoking book.

The six dynamic (fictional) women whose stories are told through the book are all “Latina,” but all completely different.  They each had their own struggles or issues with identifying as Latina and dealing with conflicts among their upbringing, personal goals and perspectives, and society’s expectations of them based on their last name or skin tone.  It was very apparent that the diversity within “Latin culture” is as diverse, if not more, than the diversity between “Latin culture” and other cultures.  This insight is absolutely obvious, right?  Reading this book made it utterly apparent that my conception of “Latin culture” was not only over-generalized, but very narrow.  I felt like a complete idiot, writing how I am obsessed and “passionate about Spanish and Latin culture” in the Who I Am of this blog.  How completely narrow-minded and ignorant!

Am I ashamed of unknowingly proclaiming my shallow understanding of “Latin culture?”  Yes, maybe a bit.  But I’m not going to change the Who I Am section.  May it be a product of “writing like there’s someone reading,” or may it be my romanticized version of what I really think and believe and feel, who knows.  I’m still working on articulating what I really think and believe and feel, so bare with me.  But what I truthfully do believe is most important is that I reread what I wrote, apply my new understanding, and learn.  How can I be ashamed of a mistake if it slapped me in the face and helped me develop a deeper understanding?  I often think of a mentor’s blog, and how she so eloquently describes the fear and rush of blogging, as well as the challenge of identifying one’s self.  Please read her blog (Why I Blog… and Who Am I?, as well as her many beautifully-written, insightful, inspiring reflections).

Reflecting on Dirty Girls Social Club, I smile, understanding why we’d read this sexy, silly, thought-provoking novel for an undergraduate course on Latina Identity.  As much as I have wanted to identify with “Latin culture,” I cannot, by any means.  I now realize that my description of “Latin culture” was merely stereotypes based on my short time in the Dominican Republic, and a few other experiences of what I thought were this culture.  I wanted to be a part of something about which I knew relatively little.  I’ve struggled to identify with “American culture” because I felt I could not describe it…I did not feel like I belonged to a specific culture.  However, by questioning my own culture and seeking another to be a part of, I’ve developed my perception of what it is and how we come to identify with a culture.  I think I really just wanted to understand what culture I was a part of.  As a friend has tried to explain to me when I complained (on multiple occasions) about being “cultureless:” we don’t know our culture because we live it.  (Check out this friend's blog, too, although not about culture, also very eloquently-written.)  I must again reference the above sited blog, noting the Who Am I? section on identity.

Right now I’m craving Girl Scout cookies (Thin Mints, specifically…with ice cold SKIM milk, not the thick, unrefrigerated stuff they drink here…).  Hmm, is this a product of my culture? hahaha  :)

(More recently, after the thought of this blog was almost fully written, I was waiting for a class to start here at the hospital.  The medical resident waiting with me asked me why I was fidgeting (playing with my phone, tapping my feet and hands).  I told him I was anxious, impatient that the class was supposed to start over an hour ago and we still had no idea when the professor would arrive.  He didn’t understand why I was going nuts waiting for this class, when he was perfectly content to sit and chat with me.  I may be over-generalizing again, but I felt the best way to describe our difference in understanding was the values or mind-set developed by our culture.  What do you think?)