Day Five of SIAD Blog Tour - Roxana Obregón
Roxana, a fellow Northwestern graduate chipping away at saving the world, is the kind of person who helps you feel at home in a room regardless of the baggage you walked into the room with. Today, she shares about her experience finding home in herself, even or especially as someone slightly different than her peers. Read on:
I was born in the U.S. and have lived here basically my entire life. While I am a proud American, I can date my inner turmoil with my American identity back to Kindergarten. First-generation Americans whose ethnic makeup doesn’t resemble that of their friends, or whose home language may be something other than English, may understand this sentiment. Identity crises may be seen as a rite of passage for those of us whose heritage is derived from a “homeland”; those of us who are constantly navigating the helm of a bicultural, bilingual, or multi-dimensional experience.
Growing up in an English-Spanish speaking home meant that from a young age I was collating and analyzing information from two different inputs. Though not always cognizant of this, I came to realize later that this experience of oscillating between English and another language wasn’t the experience of every American child.
There is a family story circa 1992, starring toddler me, in which my family and I were going on our weekly grocery store visit. As an inquisitive 2-year-old, I was happily grabbing all items at my reach. In order to prevent what was bound to be an unfortunate incident, my uncle picked me up and carted me on his shoulders for safekeeping.
Still restless, I began imploring him repeatedly with, “Down!” Given how he was playfully ignoring my request, my petitions were to no avail. My grandpa, hoping to attenuate my frustration, looked at my uncle and told him emphatically “Bajala!” “Put her down!” My ears perked up at this as my burgeoning mind somehow deduced that the phrase my grandpa had spoken probably had a better chance of reaching my desired goal than “Down.” “Bajala!” I repeated earnestly - the beginning of understanding that others wouldn’t inherently comprehend me.
Flash-forward to Kindergarten four years later - the first time there was a zealous push for my classmates and I to take up reading. In my classroom everyone was stratified into three literacy levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. The beginners used picture books devoid of text; intermediate books held images tied to a couple of words per page; yet, the advanced books contained cohesive sentences throughout.
At this point, I was the only person reading at this “advanced” level. It took months for another peer in my 20-person class to join me in that category. Because of this, my teachers identified me as a smart child. This surprised them, however, since despite my precocious reading ability, they had actually mulled over whether or not to enlist ESL help for a 5-year-old that spelled chimney like “chi-me-ny”. They assumed on some level that Spanish would eventually become a hindrance to my ability to learn.
Back in 1996, educators never ascribed bilingualism as a mechanism for augmenting ones development, nourishing ones attention, or fostering ones problem-solving skills. This vanguard of thought wasn’t popularized until recently. Although I didn’t know the purpose for their watchful eye, I recognized I was excelling. I assumed the reason was because of the Spanish textbooks my parents frequently read with me, and I felt a sense of pride in that.
Later that same year was the first time I realized that I was not “white”, in the conventional way that is used in the American context. It started with a seemingly innocent question. Bryce, my fellow classmate and friend, asked me what the color of my skin was.
“What do you mean?” my young self questioned. “Well, I’m white,” he uttered and pointed to himself, “and Dorian,” he motioned to our classmate, “is black. So, what are you?” As I looked down at my own latte-colored skin I could clearly see it was not of the same dark complexion as Dorian’s, but wasn’t quite the fair epidermis attributed to Bryce either.
Yet, even with the visuals before me, I had trouble answering his question. Funnily enough, back in my parent’s native Mexico, I was affectionately dubbed “Snow White” by my relatives, a moniker bestowed upon me because of the paler complexion I had when compared to my cousins olive tones.
“White?” I replied with little confidence, inferring correctly that this answer was not going to be satisfactory. “I don’t think so,” affirmed Bryce. I wasn’t sure either.
Coming of age in a predominantly white, monolingual small town did not help me easily synthesize the multimodal landscape I found myself in. All of my dear friends at that time were the descendants of German-Polish-Austrian-Irish Americans, or “white Americans” - a sort of privilege I would never experience. I didn’t have someone to speak with about my own unique experience until I arrived at college.
As a person who grew up with two cultures and two languages, I grew up having to balance two strong worlds to form a singular-self. Alyssa’s book, Somehow I Am Different, speaks to this journey to consolidate sometimes-competing facets of oneself into a comprehensive image we not only respect, but also appreciate. This is what forming an identity is about.
Forming an identity can be a struggle mired with a sensation of not belonging. Yet, like the people whose stories we are fortunate to read, the voyage hopefully comes with meeting others who help supplant that loneliness with a feeling of admiration and joy. Like illustrated in the experiences Alyssa described, as I grew older, I too found my community with which to grow - a group of friends who shared back stories resembling mine, in the way that they similarly struggled to discern their place in their worlds.
Kindergarten was a transformative year. It was also the first time I distinctly remember deriving a feeling of delight in who I am. Now, I attribute part of that to my Latina heritage. I have come to relish being part of a diaspora, in the same vein as several of our protagonists, I feel like I am representing something I can take pride in.
Pride in who you are, especially while living in a country that is teeming with divergent thoughts and experiences, has become one of my favorite motifs in my own life, and it is my favorite theme in this beautiful anthology.
Thank you for sharing your beautifully raw and insightful insight with us, Roxana. You set an example for many of us still answering many of those big questions, and I look forward to the strong and influential future you will lead.
If you are interested in your own copy of Somehow I Am Different, please visit us on Amazon. If you’re interested in learning more about the book more generally, check out our website here.