America’s Bicultural Identity Challenge

If we don’t feel like we’re part of this country, we’re less likely to actively participate in our communities.

ANDREA MARQUEZ is a Mexican-American writer and journalist. (@andreamhere)

If there’s one thing that we’ve learned to do very well in America, it’s to check boxes. America’s pedagogical mask ingrained in us the need to define ourselves in one or two words. Those words are usually chosen for us.

In this continuous act, we question our identities; where we belong in this fragmented nation. For those of us who identify in more ways than one, it comes at a cost. 

Though it’s difficult to measure the percent of Americans who also have another nationality, there has been a rise of dual nationals living in the United States since more countries began allowing multiple citizenships. This duality causes an inner conflict that many of us are still learning to deal with every day. 

It isn’t a recent occurrence but the Millennial generation is part of a lineage: a dilution of our sense of identity and heritage.   

“It’s a conflict I experience in the little things, even though I’ve been living in the United States for many years now,” says Andres Garcia, 28, a Mexican-American.

It could be in an accent or a face. 

Our minds are not yet conditioned to understand beyond what we see and so when one doesn’t “look” or “sound” American, it also means one can’t be American. 

When Ji Su Kang, 28, a Korean-American, was adopted by an American family at the age of six, her grandfather made sure to tell her one thing: “he told me that my face isn’t gonna change.” 

A young woman, in the Navy Reserve studying American military law with the intention of serving in the United States Military, should not feel like she isn’t “American enough.” Yet, Kang constantly feels as if she’s straddling two different worlds, both that don’t seem to fully accept her. 

It’s not only about how she looks, it’s also about how she identifies and the boxes that she needs to check.

Like Kang and Garcia, Alejandra Valdez, 27, a Mexican-American who lived at the border of Texas and Mexico for most of her life, identifying with two different cultures has led her to simultaneously defend her “Americaness” and her “Mexicaness.” 

Valdez says, “It doesn’t seem to be enough on either side. I’m either too Mexican here or not Mexican enough there. But I was born here [in the United States], I studied here, I work here, and my life is here. But my heart is also there [in Mexico], because my family is there. I was raised with those values … Does that make me any less American?”

We feel forced to split ourselves into two versions of who we are. But this feeling of dual identification will continue to rise among young Americans until the very meaning of “Americaness” is also about being Mexican, Korean, Spanish, French, Chinese or any other country. 

When President Trump emerged as one of the candidates of the Republican Party, he promised to go back to an America that was founded on certain ideals. But the idea of being American is changing along with how Millennials self-identify. Many of us no longer adhere to the same ideals of past generations because our level of interconnectivity has redefined how we interact with the world. 

Being American represents something for Americans and something so much more for non-Americans. 

Jose Andres Gonzales, 35, a Mexican-American businessman, says that being an American “is no longer about blood but about what you bring to the country … It doesn’t matter if you’re not from here, as long as you understand that being here, you owe a debt and if you pay that debt, then you’re American.”

It’s not as simple when there’s a strong force pulling someone in different directions, as is the case with Kang. 

She believes that part of the reason that her brother and her decided to join the military was because they felt they had to prove to the United States that they wanted to be here. Once she was adopted and left Korea, she never thought that she would lose her right to be seen as Korean as well. “Koreans don’t let me speak about Korea and Americans don’t let me speak about America. So where do I belong?”

The feeling of not belonging is only heightened when one of those identities is American.  

“Because it’s the golden ticket. It’s the dream … and you don’t realize it until you’re also from somewhere else,” says Valdez. 

As the largest group of immigrants in the U.S., Millennials are working to bridge the gap between what it means to be an American while also maintaining their cultural heritage. 

And it’s only the beginning. 

In a study conducted by two social psychologists in Canada, they found that there are three categories to cultural identification: “categorization, where people identify with one of their cultural groups over others; compartmentalization, where individuals maintain multiple, separate identities within themselves; and integration, where people link their multiple cultural identities.”

Individuals who have been able to integrate their multiple cultural identities have been able to describe themselves in more coherent and positive ways. 

But it’s a work in progress. 

“Because I’m a Korean living in America, I’m more Korean than someone living in Korea because I have to constantly defend my Koreaness in America,” says Kang. 

The conversation on duality is at the forefront of American politics. We see it in how political candidates attempt to reach out to minority voters.

When it comes to Latinx voters, candidates believe sprinkling their speeches with a bit of Spanish will convince voters of a candidate’s commitment to the issues that are specifically affecting the Latinx community.

Though this tactic hasn’t carried the weight candidates expect, language is one of the strongest elements of dual cultural identification. Our form of communication is how we find where we belong. Trevor Noah, a celebrity who frequently speaks about his dual identities says that even when we look differently, when we speak the same, then we feel as if we must be “part of the same tribe.”

But the conversation can’t stop there, especially if candidates want to get minority voters who are able to vote, to actually vote.

If we don’t feel like we’re part of this country, we’re less likely to actively participate in our communities. 

When candidates change the political narrative to a cultural one about inclusivity; when they rethink the boxes, maybe we can all address the larger issues that stem from a lack of feeling like we belong. 

Perhaps it’s about time and about how Millennials will raise multicultural families who refuse to limit themselves to the boxes that have been presented for them. 

They’ll fully understand that they don’t need to choose between two, when those two halves are what make them a whole.