The real big identity speech I had from my family did not take place before me heading to Singapore for study abroad but actually when I first embarked in my college journey. Indeed, Singapore wasn’t my first real relatively long term adventure away from home but going to the US for higher education after graduating high school in Morocco was. My whole community was encouraging me to make a choice of staying closer to home where most graduating teenagers from Morocco went: France. In that way, they wanted me to remember where I came from and be able to come back home to a certain comfort and safety as often as possible. However, I made the decision to cut ties and fly away to the destination that had the education and life I thought I would flourish the most in. The thought of being independent and learning to make myself safe without the shadows of my community was vital. However my family did not understand this aspect at first as I was leaving to a deemed very far place compared to the average high school graduates. The first support I had from my family when they started to be more understanding of my decision as I was preparing to leave across the ocean was my mother and grand parents filling a whole luggage of Moroccan food and sweets to store when I arrive so that a piece of the culture would stay with me as I settled in the new foreign environment, an idea that I thought was very important to sustain. I remember having a conversation on the phone with my mom about a month after moving in my campus dorm and starting my first semester of freshman year—she reminded me that even though I saw people doing things I was in no way obligated to do the same things just to try to fit in. In that same conversation she also made sure to remind me that people are raised with different values whether they are cultural or religious and in some cases that meant you won’t feel the same excitement about doing some things. And most importantly she told me that this didn’t mean that I couldn’t fit in, quite the contrary, differences make people more interesting and are an incredible way to keep an open mind and learn about each other but only when respect and tolerance are strong foundations. This speech still resonates with me today every time I travel some place new in the world for whatever purpose. The respect of diversity has been such an important thought to me ever since and it helped me build and maintain life long relationships throughout the past few years shaping my current identity. I learned to be able to stand up for my beliefs and never feel constrained to act in some ways for the simple satisfaction of feeling like I belong somewhere. If anything is meant to happen then it will find a way to see life and anything feeling forced shouldn’t be entertained. That is the main thing that I was taught by my community every time I went away and that shaped who I am today and how I engage with both the world and people. I always felt like my identity is constantly changing but it was never really challenged until I crossed national borders and was left to grow on my own and adapt in unfamiliar settings while still remembering and being proud of my original sources.
