On Frustration and Dissipation

The year is 2009. A six year old boy walks outside to play with other kids and he is avoided and made the subject of isolationary remarks. Before this boy knew any play, he first learned how to be totally silent. In 2001 a nine year old boy is brought into the United States and is turned into a recluse, finding joy only in Pokemon; the others will not be his friend. In 2014 a 12 year old Russian boy was brought to the United States, he was never understood, and seldom hugged. In 2013, Rory Allen Phillip Ferreira sets out on a mission to kill loneliness, and to make armor for suicide note authors. R.A.P. Ferreira will rap forever. 

There is something sensationally depressing about weird boys who will never be heard. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that they have not gained the license to behave differently, and thus they are shut out. The six year old boy had to write poetry to gain his license, the nine year old had to assimilate, the 12 year old had to make art of wood for his license to behave differently. In none of these situations were any of the boys given the freedom to express themselves naturally and without restraint. These three boys lived on the line between two cultures and their growth. The critical intersection of struggles for these boys breeds questions we have not garnered answers for; the initial struggle of being bicultural, the secondary struggle of being made quiet, and the tertiary tensions of development from these dispositions initially outline a question of what are they supposed to do? 

The Struggle of Biculturalism

The first struggle of biculturalism introduces questions around authenticity, identity, and dissatisfaction with being outside of a pendulic state dichotomous between two cultures. Biculturalism is illustrated by Seth J. Shwartz and Jennifer B. Unger in a paper titled “Biculturalism and Context: What Is Biculturalism, and When Is It Adaptive?” in which they introduce it as such:

Biculturalism has been defined in a number of ways. Most generally, biculturalism represents comfort and proficiency with both one's heritage culture and the culture of the country or region in which one has settled. It is applicable not only to immigrants who have come from other countries, but also to children of immigrants who – although they are born and raised in the receiving society – are likely deeply embedded in the heritage culture at home with their families. It may also apply to individuals living in ethnic enclaves, where the heritage culture is likely to be maintained across generations, as well as to individuals from visible minority groups, who may be identified as different from the majority ethnic group even if their families have been in the receiving society for multiple generations. The ethnic component of biculturalism is not only a reactive response to discrimination, as Mistry and Wu appear to suggest. It also represents a sense of pride in one's heritage, and a desire to hold on to that heritage.

And truly, there is “a desire to hold on to that heritage,” but what happens when that heritage and culture rejects your identification? Where does the isolated one go? And more importantly, how do they respond? A common response is an overcompensation to belong in only one culture, and in turn the other culture is rejected. This response is a difficult one to navigate as there is often a mix between the external, perceived notion of what a member of that culture is supposed to appreciate, and what the in-group of that culture subconsciously appreciates. An example of this is in the way young Mexican-Americans oftentimes learn to appreciate and love classical Mexican music, but within the in-group of Mexicans, classical music is an unpopular taste for the youth. The origin of that initial appreciation, however, may have come from an Americanized view of what Americans believe Mexicans appreciate and value. Therefore, the response that the Mexican-American has to being too dissimilar to Mexicans results in behavior that may be called “fitting the stereotype.” 

A self-respecting Mexican-American must ask at that point, “was that the goal?” And the answer may very well be that it was, but one might doubt that they leave that conclusion with dissatisfaction of their initial discomfort in cultural identity.

Works Cited

Schwartz, Seth J, and Jennifer B Unger. “Biculturalism and Context: What Is Biculturalism, and When Is It Adaptive?: Commentary on Mistry and Wu.” Human development vol. 53,1 (2010): 26-32. doi:10.1159/000268137