there's no place like home

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" was a great story to end on. Not only was it a quick read, but also it was really interesting. Changez, who comes all the way from Pakistan to attend one of the most prestigious American Universities and takes a job with one of the top consulting firms in New York City, struggles with imposed identity. Since he stepped foot in America he felt like he had to compromise his own personal identity just to fit in. He was bombarded with pressures from all aspects of his life. Erica was his symbol of America, as she pranced around in her Mickey Mouse t-shirt, she represented what he couldn’t ever have, or be.

We see a distinctive transformation occur gradually. The first physical sign is the long beard. The mental transformation began before he left for Buenos Aires. It seemed like he had already made up his mind that he was done with it all and it was finally time to return home where he could be at ease and be himself. Then, he met Juan-Bautista (who was one of my favorite characters in the book). For me, Juan Bautista was like the voice of reason, you know, that little guy that stands on your shoulder and tells you the right thing to do (and Erica was like the little devilish figure, drawing him back to old habits and trying to make him keep trying to be American).

I think this story has a lot to say about identity and how we perceive ourselves. What Changez went through was a lot like mine and Chaz’ abroad experiences. We both struggled to fit in. We tried to alter our clothing to seem more authentic and we adjusted our accents to sound more local, but when it came down to it, we were both just American students, studying abroad. For Changez, no matter how hard he tried, he was bound to return home to the places he belonged.

So what does this say for Charlie and me? Was there any value in our European travels? Were our efforts of cultural acceptance futile? I think not! I think our experiences taught us a lot about ourselves and gave us the opportunity to see what it was like to be one of them (or at least try). I can only speak for myself, but I think my experience abroad made me proud of my identity. As much as I wanted to fit in, I did not hope to compromise my own identity to do so. And yes, I sighed a big breath of relief when stepped foot back in American and again felt like I was an “us” again. There is definitely something to be said for the comforting feeling of being home.

I guess Dorthy did know what she was talking about....

the day Jim became Marcus

We’ve talked about identity quite a bit, but today something really weird happened. Jim told us that his real name is Marcus. WHATT?? Why would you have people call you Jim if your name is Marcus. Well, Jim (Marcus) explained that his middle name (Jim) came first on his American passport, and so that’s how his named appears on ACES. He said that it has just been easier to go by Jim.


This kind of changed my perception of how important a person’s name is to their identity. Whether he was called Jim or Marcus wasn’t really all that big of a difference, but it got me thinking. What if my name wasn’t Haley? What if Charlie’s name wasn’t Charlie. Would our personalities be different? Would we act differently? Do we identify ourselves based on the name that we are given?


This also made me think about when I was abroad and my Italian professor couldn’t pronounce my name. The H gave him such trouble. It was slightly amusing to hear him struggle each day. Ahh-Lee. He would call me. It was silly. But it was interesting in a way. The hard H of my name was something that so clearly marked me as American and made me wonder about Jim. Did going by Jim make him feel more American or did it make him feel like he was an outsider?


Also, while I’m on the topic of identity and abroad, since Chaz went on a whole long schpeel about his murce (man purse) and how it made him feel so in the French circle, I should probably tell you about my attempt to fit in while I was in Florence. I thought that the only way I was ever going to look, act and feel like a local was if I wore a leather jacket and a scarf. So, I set off on the journey to find la giacca di pelle perfetta. I searched long and hard, until I stumbled upon Massimo. I tried on probably every jacket in the store. It had to be perfect. It had to make me look Italian. Two hours later, I immerged from the store clad in leather, kissing Massimo on the left then the right cheek, “Ciao Ciao!” I said to him. And as I strolled through the leather market back to my apartment, I finally felt like I was one of them. I waved to the venders as I normally did, but this time they responded to me in Italian. I guess there are a lot of things that contribute to a person’s identity. For the Fiorentinas, the leather jacket meant I was one of them.


I guess for Marcus, going by Jim makes him one of us (Americans).

An American in Paris or How I Bought A Murse

During my time in Paris last year, I experienced a sense of US and THEM. It is interesting to me how much the way that I dressed determined the way that I was perceived and how I was able to enact a high degree of personal agency in changing which line of the US/THEM I found myself standing in.

Upon my arrival, I stuck out like a sore thumb. As you can see from this picture, I was pretty American looking: with my backwards hat, fleece vest, baggy clothes, and overly enthusiastic facial expressions. I expected and initially embraced my American-ness; however, it started to impede me improving my French and making French friends. The longer I was there the more I wanted to practice my French and see if I was fluent. Most Parisians, seeing that I looked American, spoke to me in English. I finally broke down and asked my host family why they thought I looked so American. The answer: my clothes.

My clothes had been keeping me outside of the group of US and made me a THEM, just like the other “human kinds” Berreby explores in his chapter Understanding the Tribal Mind. Parisians would make initial judgments when they looked at me and they would label me as a THEM. Someone who couldn’t speak the language, who didn’t understand the culture: an outsider. I knew it was time for a wardrobe make-over. I had to become a THEM, no matter what.

It was a struggle to try on my first pair of skinny jeans (both literally and figuratively) but I noticed a change in the way that people approached me when I traded in my GAP blue jeans for my H & M black ones. There were less sideways glances and noses in the air when I got on the metro or when I walked into my classes. Next I traded my bulky backpack for a Longchamp briefcase (affectionately nicknamed the “murse”) and lastly I abandoned my Northface fleeces for a more mature black military-ish peacoat. By my last few days in Paris, I had completely transformed (my long hair also fit in with the bohemian teenagers I became friends with). I felt Parisian and I felt like a member of the group of “US”, fully embraced by other French people: no dirty looks or mocking American accents. It felt great to belong again.

Then I experienced a reverse culture shock upon my return to Duke in January. I came back to all of my American friends, some who stayed in Durham and others who were abroad as well, and I noticed that I looked like a THEM again. My transformation was ill-received: how could I wear my skinny jeans and v-neck t-shirts amongst a fraternity of pastel polos and khaki shorts? Instead of adjusting myself like I had in Paris, I explained to my friends that this is how I dressed, that my time in France was important and that I liked feeling European. The feeling of being a THEM faded and I was welcomed back into the US. “The feelings that you belong is something that comes and goes” (Berreby 214) and it might have meant that my “murse” didn’t belong, but just as I have been an US before I left for France, I still was when I returned. I took control of the US-THEM code, just as Berreby says that each individual has the power to do, and I was able to maintain an US feeling even though I might have looked like a THEM (and I still might). These groupings of US/THEM can be artificially created and the differences that the mind (and the eye) sees may not be as much as a reality as we think on first glance.

A Russian, An American, An Enforced Identity: Antibes

After today’s class when we discussed The Culture of Lies by Dubravka Ugresic, I immediately thought about an experience I had when I was in high school when I lost control of my own identity and it was imposed on me by others.

When I was fifteen I spent part of my summer studying abroad in the south of France, in a beach-town called Antibes. Instead of doing the “boutique” American programs that my other friends did where they lived with other students in dorms and barely took any classes, I enrolled in an international program that required a homestay, hoping to gain more than they had. I was supposed to master the language and dive, head first, into the French culture.

In my apartment, I lived with three other students (from Ecuador, Sweden, and Germany), my host parents spoke no English and they babysat for two Moroccan boys all day every day. Upon arriving at the Nice International Airport and meeting this group that almost felt like a walking advertisement for United Colors of Bennetton, I knew I was in for an interesting experience. Pillowtalk and dinner conversations during my three week stay ranged from cultural comparisons and popular culture similarities (and cross-overs) to our impressions of France and our host family. There was little tension in the house of Paul and Marie-Therese and we all thought of each other as individuals seeing beyond our cultural and linguistic differences. Class was an entirely different experience.

For the first week, everything went well: we were unified in our desire to learn more French and more about the French culture despite our differences. My class was composed of kids from all over Europe and the world: Spain, China, Germany, USA, Argentina, etc…Our unity started to fall apart the day that Cédric asked us to identify stereotypes about different people’s cultures and say whether or not we thought they were true. Everything seemed pretty tame when Europeans were discussing other European cultures. The Spanish and German students talked about dialects and rap music. Then Yuriy, a Russian boy, decided to talk about American stereotypes. The mood changed drastically.

He explained, in his perfect French accent, that he thought all Americans were selfish and wasteful. He was thorough in his analysis providing statistics about the amount of gas we use, the types of food we consume, and the way that we watch TV and buy into popular culture. He was brutal in his attacks and my French retorts fell on deaf ears. All of the Europeans seemed to agree about Americans and the five of us in the class couldn’t defend ourselves. Instead of being another student in Cédric’s class just trying to improve my French, I became an American student in Antibes. Suddenly, I embodied McDonalds, baseball, the mid-west, and even George W. Bush for the 15 other students in my class. Despite the fact that none of these things were part of my life, they came to define my identity.

I was not American the way that they thought I was. I am from New York and I don’t identify with any of the traits that Yuriy accused me of having; however, there was little I could do to change the minds of my classmates after Yuriy planted the seed. Whenever I would mispronounce a word or answer a question incorrectly, I would catch the rest of the class giving me dirty looks revealing that they weren’t surprised I couldn’t speak French well since I was American or that they weren’t surprised I didn’t understand French culture because I was American.

This experience could have broken me down and made me feel like learning about other cultures was a lost cause since others would always think of me as an American instead of anything else. However, they made me more passionate about French and understanding French and other cultures. I had to find away to gain agency in defining my identity if I wanted it to be American, French, or completely individual. I would no longer let “American” define me or serve as a modifier to my name when I introduced myself to others.

This is similar to the way that Ugresic lost her identity when Yugoslavia broke up and she was forced “to be born again in the creation of the Croatian state” (Ugresic 210). And a second time when the European Union was formed and Croatia was excluded. Without having any control, say, or personal agency, she twice had others tell her was she was: Croatian and a non-European. An outsider.

vamos a costa rica

Before my senior year of high school, I spent four weeks in Costa Rica. While there, I had the opportunity to live with a family, do some community service and play soccer.

Week One: Immersion Other than a few family vacations, this was my first real abroad experience. I was extremely nervous to live with a family. My Spanish was pretty good, but I didn’t know if I would be able to understand them. What if they spoke really fast, what if they didn’t like me? When I finally met them, my fears began to dwindle away. It was me, Roberta-Maria, Anielka and Daniel. They were so inviting and accepting. They welcomed me into their family and treated me as one of their own. During my week with them, we eat together, talked together and danced together. On the second to last night, they even invited me to come to a party with them. At the party, I got to meet all of the other kids in the neighborhood. We spent the evening eating and talking and salsa dancing. It was this night that really made my experience with the family so memorable. I was an outsider, an American; my skin was different, my accent was different, my clothes were different (I definitely stood out in my bright blue tshirt with “ABERCROMBIE % FITCH” written across it.) But to them, it didn’t matter. I was there, trying to learn about their family and their culture. They appreciated me for it, and vice versa.

Week Two: The next week I spent in a small village called Cano Negro. Our project for the week was to help lay the flooring for a new community center and repaint the walls of the local elementary school. From this experience I got taste of aid and development. Throughout the week of our stay, I got a chance to talk with some of the locals, play soccer and see what life was like in a rural Costa Rican village. My time was so short lived that I couldn’t help but think to myself if my work was really even meaningful. I was only 16, so I don’t think I fully grasped the reality of what I was doing there, but as I look back now, I wonder if I really did do any help. Thinking about it now, I am not so sure I did. I was only there for a week; was my work really helpful? Would it really have a sustainable impact on the rest of the village? Or was my time there really just a selfish cultural exploration to see how the others live? .

Weeks three and four: I spent the remainder of my time on somewhat of a road trip, traveling to different towns to play soccer. One of the most memorable stops was at the Arenal Volcano. Here we got to play some indoor soccer against a local girls’ team. During the game I took note of some of the ways that these women played the game differently. They had some different rules and different names for things. But it was cool that even though there were differences, we all understood the universal object of the game and that we could all come together to enjoy the game of soccer.

I think I chose to write about my summer in Costa Rica because it marked an important time in my life. It opened my eyes to the world around me. It got me interested in excited about other cultures and I think this is what ultimately attracted me to ICS. After this experience, I new that I would not be satisfied with a major that would not allow me to explore people and places outside of my world. I don’t know if my life goal is to save Africa or cure world hunger, but I do know that I want to do something in the international context. Crossing borders and boundaries, experiencing new people and cultures is something that I love and want to continue to do.