IslandMix

In Caribbean studies today we discussed pluralism and hybridization. Though it didn't hit me then, thinking on what I had learned in class made a lot of things clear to me, especially my identity, which has been somewhat muddled. What follows is basically my personal revelations, and for some reason I decided to post them to the world. I realize all these things are blindingly obvious... Hindsight is 20/20 though.

In my youth I was blissfully unaware of the truths of the Caribbean. I had my white friends, mostly my cousins. I had my black friends, people I usually met and played with at school. I lived in Anguilla all my life, and that was all to me. I didn't really think much of it until I got older...

I knew I had been born in Canada, but the only life I knew was Anguilla - the exact same thing my mother had been through. I had a friend with expatriate parents who was born here, who often claimed himself more Anguillian than me. When I was young, I never realized how wrong he was. I took a lot of things he said seriously when it was really nonsense - but that's a different childhood issue. My mother had always told me he was wrong - that I was more Anguillian than even a lot of my friends at school. I didn't understand. I didn't know how far back our roots went, how much my ancestry was tied into Anguilla. So I felt like an expatriate in my own country.

I got older. More kids teased me about it, more kids pushed me away. I didn't know my roots enough to disagree, and so like a rootless tree I fell over. "Go back to Canada" some had told me. "I can't..." I would tell myself, "I've never really been there". Which was mostly true... At age 11, I had only been in Canada when I was born. I began to feel like an outcast.

I got older still. I really started listening to my grandfather, appreciating our history. I found a true national pride and a sense of patriotism. I was Anguillian, I was adamant about it, I was proud, and I knew why.

But I was still an outcast.

Why, as an Anguillian, was I so different? Why when my grandfather was so totally ingrained in Anguillian culture, had I become so lost from it? Was it because of my birth place? I realized I was ashamed of my Canadian passport. I wanted to be disassociated with the country. I lied. Instead of saying "I'm Anguillian, but born in Canada" to the question "Where are you from?" I would lie and say I was born in Anguilla. I wished I had been. I cursed my mother silently for having me in Canada. I often looked to my younger brother, who was born here. He seemed to switch between Anguillian and whatever I was. Why couldn't I do that? Was it because of where he was born?

But the truth is that was just my personality. I was just too wrapped up in my own world to pay attention to the world outside of my room. Time changed that - I started to venture in the world and socialize. Once again, another childhood issue to itself... Suffice to say I made it in to the world, and when I did, my horizons expanded and things began to change.

So I was Anguillian, proudly Anguillian and began to act it - if only because that was the world I was in, and that was how you interact with that world. Partially due to my conscious effort to make it out, broaden my horizons and break out of my shell, and partly because of the world I broke out into. I was an outcast only because I made myself so - the only stigma against me was the one I perceived.

So I was a proud white Anguillian, no longer and outcast but still different... Why?

It was obvious, but I never really wanted to admit it. Socialization and culture do start at home after all. But to admit my home may not be Anguillian? To raise any question to my Anguillian-ness? I was not prepared to do that, I was still insecure in my identity.

Until today.

Pluralism refers groups within a culture maintaining their own traits. This is the key trait in West Indian culture - all of the races and people with their own identity, but collectively of one culture.

That was what I was - I had nothing to be ashamed of anymore. My differences aside, I was still Anguillian. I was Anguillian even because of it. Perhaps my identity was complicated by my ancestry, my Canadian maternal grandmother, and my British father... which have driven me further from my home culture. I am a product of globalized hybridization - a white Anguillian with British and Canadian influence, and no longer ashamed of it.

It took me 18 years to figure it out, and to come to terms with it, to be proud of it. I realize I had it right when I was youngest - I was who I was, and I didn't think into it more than that.

Would I have been different had I been born here? Perhaps the questions I'm asked so often would be more easily answered. Perhaps some would be more willing to accept me for who I am instead of labeling me as from some place else. I certainly would have had an easier time working out who I was. But the truth is, It was only when I listened to others, did my insecurities arise, did they worsen, were they exacerbated by my hiding away in my own world. Only through the struggle did I become who I am, with as much love for my country as I have. So when people ask me, I tell them.

I am Anguillian.

Mannnn, U R a CANADIAN living in ANGUILLA.

you are whatever you choose to be, but that does not change what others will perceive you to be

I knew you missed me!

That was something I had to come to terms with yeah... But what I've found is the more grounded I am in my identity, the more others have accepted my identity... More because they realize I'm no longer aggravated by their (for lack of a better word) teasing. My peer's reactions were more of taking advantage of something I was insecure about - because when you're young, picking on the insecure is what it's all about really.

Are you eighteen?

Yeah, I'm young.

I'm not sure to find out who you are is so hard... so , if I were born the other country but japan and my parents were japanese, I could see what you are feeling .
but I am japanese who live here and my parents are japanese.

so,.. all I can say is you are happy living your island. and I would like to live in Caribbean island someday.
sorry , my post is not that good answer for your thread .but this is my thought, after I read your post.