Angeles Patoussias - Blog #3 (First Blog) - My Birth

Prompt: Reflect on your own "birth"—not only biologically, but culturally and existentially. What were you born into? What aspects of your identity did you inherit? How has this shaped your worldview, values, and assumptions? After having spent close to a week in Japan, in what ways do you see yourself differently?

Like many people who were born into Hispanic families, I grew up surrounded by Catholicism, family-oriented traditions, and more conservative ideologies. I spent most of my time during my childhood with my aunt and uncle instead of my parents, and this was simply due to work since we relied on their double income. My aunt and uncle, although had lived in the United States for decades already, still held on with a tight fist to their cultures and perspectives. Tattoos were disgraceful, women stayed at home, men didn't cry, and most importantly, family always came first. As young and ignorant as I was, ideas such as these still influenced the way I thought about those around me who fell outside of the traditional Hispanic standards, and for the longest time, my aunt made sure to always remind me not to "end up like them." This led to my avoidance of socializing in general and although I hated the feeling of not being able to fit in, I couldn't seem to break my walls down. During my time spent with family other than my parents, I was developing an awareness of the culture I was growing with, and learned from it as my guide to how to view life. A specific cultural difference that I always remember was the way that I interacted with friends. Since I went to a white-dominated school, one of my closest friends was a white, middle-class girl who had moved to California from Alabama. She was out-going, confident, and practically the exact opposite of me. I remember always thinking how weird it was to me that she spoke so casually to teachers and staff, and how weird it was that she paid no attention to her volume, meanwhile I couldn't comfortably ask for homework help without the anxiety that I was stepping outside of my role as a quiet, respectful student. The culture that I was born into constantly filled me with anxieties such as these because of the importance I felt of being who the adults in my life expected me to be. Soon enough, being quiet and observant is what I felt the most at ease and comfortable with, and although I've grown out of this conformity, it still forms a mental safe space for me to go in. In my culture, religion also took up a good part of it. My aunt and uncle made sure to take me to mass, teach me about the saints of Catholicism, and ensure that I understood that I, along with everybody else in the family, was catholic. I understood the importance of the title in my culture, but I didn't actually identify with or understand the fundamentals of it all. It didn't even really matter to me. As time went on, I entered high school, my parents had more time to be with my sister and I, had financially better jobs, and my aunt and uncle moved back to Mexico to take care of their house and land. This is when my values and world views actually started developing and changing to become my own. I wasn't as surrounded as I was before by a religious family or expected to be a quiet well-disciplined girl, and this allowed me to share what I was curious about, what I thought about things, and have better and more interactions with others. Now that I'm old enough to vote and do most "adult" things, I've realized that I don't hold any more of the values that I once did. I'm not Catholic, I care about women being where they want to be, as well as men, and I hold a great importance on holding family accountable, especially in the culture that I grew up in where everybody ignored each others' faults. Although it seems like my Hispanic culture surrounded me with nothing but semi-negative experiences, it's just like any other culture, with so much good to it, and some bad. I'll keep growing and gaining new values, and after Japan, I've learned to appreciate the quietness that I've always been told is a bad trait of mine. Sometimes, people just need a moment of silence, and Japan has plenty of that!