One of the loveliest but trickiest things about being both Dominican and American is balancing and integrating our close-knit community values with the concept of independence, introversion and boundaries. In many, if not most cultures around the world, setting certain boundaries (like even just closing your bedroom door) can be considered rude, dismissive and/or selfish. […]
Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, coastal Colombians, coastal Panamanians, Argentinians, and even the Andalusian/Canarian Spaniards generally tend to omit certain syllables and letters in our Spanish accents. For example “Como tu estas?” can easily be said “Como tu ‘ta?” when we speak. We can shorten words to make our language flow smoother and faster. Similarly to […]
“BUT… where were you born?” “BUT… where is your family now?” “BUT… do you have a home in X location?” How many of you guys get these types question after stating that you are a cultural/ethnic hybrid? Or the product of more than one world? Or the byproduct of a space within another space? Such […]
What does it mean to be an American? We are a 236-year-old relatively nascent country of immigrants, influenced by cultural values from around the world. Every few decades a new wave of immigrants enter and form their own diaspora communities for a few generations until they slowly assimilate into what we call the American culture; but […]
“I wish I had your perfect life.” An Instagram user sent me this message recently. It isn’t the first time someone has sent me some variation of that message this week. These, coupled with the growing accumulation of other questions and comments from readers and Instagram followers has motivated me to finally clear up a few […]