I don't know how my parents did it. My dad hopped a plane to Miami in 1982 from Colombia with two blue suitcases and my mom arrived at JFK airport on Thanksgiving of 1992 with my older sister who was two at the time. They did not know the language, they did not know the culture, they barely had anyone in the United States to help them out. Now, I am aware that I am not leaving my family behind in my home country in order to immigrate to France and build a life here. However, it sure felt like it when I first left the doors of the airport.
After settling into my living space, I began the daunting task of the beginnings of any new group setting: ice breakers.
During our orientation, we all had to go around and do the typical introduction we always have to do : school? major? hometown/state? fun fact? It's always the fun fact that trips me up. For this one, I thought to myself, 'well might as well' and when it was my turn to participate in this quote-unquote ice breaker, I said: George Washington University, Political Science, Paterson New Jersey, and my fun fact is that I am fiercely latino.
Now, I have no idea what that actually means. What does being fiercely anything mean? But for me, being fiercely latino was the only way to describe my pride of my heritage, background, family, history and current identity. When I said that, I heard some chuckles, and some snaps, but mostly I felt like there were some people who were a bit lost. And honestly, I didn't care.
In the United States, it wasn't until I moved to college that I was outside of an environment where I didn't have to qualify my identity or worry about how other people were going to perceive it. It was and remains one of my biggest challenges at GW, but it has only increased the esteem I have for my identity. See, it's not really about being a person of color or coming from a place in our country where you never will have to worry about being judged for your identity, regardless of where you go-- It's about being validated and recognized as equal despite our differences.
I have been lucky enough to find others amongst the group whom are in similar categories, white, black, hispanic, asian, queer, straight, -- allied together in this big adventure we call study abroad.
Identities are a funny thing when you leave your comfort zone -- everyone is put on a level playing field when it comes to trying to make your way past ordering dinner in French and butchering every other word.