FEATURE
Embracing Biculturalism Words & Design | Giselle Martin Gomez
The United States is often compared to a mosaic or a salad, with the idea that our nation has multiple cultures that don’t blend together but rather keep their own identity and live together. For individuals with a multicultural identity, it can go one of two ways: their cultures either blend together or they cohabitate while keeping their individual identity. For Noelia Gramajo, a junior majoring in international studies, Spanish and communications, growing up was a fight to embrace and maintain her identity. “My mom is from Mexico, and my dad is from Guatemala, but I was born here,” Gramajo said. “Growing up I always went to bilingual school because I never wanted to lose my Spanish. Even outside of school all I listened to was music in Spanish, and all I watched were TV shows and movies in Spanish.” For Der Yang, a senior majoring in psychology and art therapy, the way she was immersed into American culture is a
Gramajo enjoys her time in Mexico while wearing a traditional artisanal Mexican top. Photo provided by Gramajo.
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little different from Gramajo’s experience. “I am Hmong. Originally, we are from China, but me and all of my family was born in Thailand. We migrated to the United States in 2005 as refugees, so I first came to Sacramento, Calif. and then recently moved from there to here (Milwaukee, Wisc.) four years ago,” Yang said. “I was five years (old) when I came here (United States) and then I moved from Cali to here when I was 17, so I am 21 now.” Although she had a strong grasp on her Mexican culture growing up, Gramajo struggled to embrace her Guatemalan identity. “I guess growing up it was kind of hard to embrace my dad’s side of his culture because there wasn’t a lot in Milwaukee,” Gramajo said. “I feel like there were a lot of things I didn’t know until I traveled, and I actually went to go see Guatemala.” This struggle bled into Gramajo’s experiences as she traveled abroad to her heritage countries. “Compared to going to Mexico the first time, I kind of knew what I was doing and how to talk to people, but in Guatemala it was completely different,” Gramajo said. “I feel like if I would have had a little bit of that (exposure to the culture) here, that would have been really helpful.” Gramajo felt out of place among her Guatemalan family, simply because she felt unaccustomed to the culture. “They were super nice, super welcoming, but you still feel like a stranger, you don’t really know these people and even like their accent and stuff, like some words were so different… it was hard,” Gramajo said. Gramajo expressed, however, that she has experienced exclusion in all of her cultures to a degree. “I would say in all (cultures), especially when I went to high school, it was mostly African American and white students, we (Hispanics) were a very small population. When they would talk about classic American movies, summer hikes and road trips, stuff like that, I wouldn’t be able to relate because I had never done that in my life,” Gramajo said. “I felt like I was falling behind, and it did not feel good.” Much like Gramajo, Yang has also faced difficulty fitting into American culture. “In American (culture), yes, I do feel left out sometimes because me being too much of Hmong I don’t have much knowledge from the Americans,” Yang said. “For example, my best friend would hang out with her friends, and they would talk
