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dandyfelines · 1 month ago

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Anon wrote: Hi! Thank you for running this blog. My dilemma is about cultural identity. My family immigrated to the US 26 years ago and I (24 INFJ ) was the first to be born in America. My older siblings eventually forgot how to speak their native language since they were four and five, but they understand it really well. My native language is English and I don’t understand our heritage language much at all. My parents speak it to each other, but they always spoke to us in English 95% of the time. In our country, there isn’t much national or cultural pride so I don’t think they thought it was important.

However, I feel like I don’t belong at all when they have family friends over or when I’m there. I want to learn it. I have a book for it, I found an online tutor, and I can practice with my parents. However, I carry so much resentment towards that country while also wishing I belonged. Our family is the odd one out in our social circle because we have the least money. The kids of one of our family friends told my siblings that they used to pretend they didn’t speak English so they wouldn’t have to talk to us. When I used to ask people what certain words meant, they pretended that the word is too complicated to explain even though they speak fluent English and I know enough to know the word is simple (I knew that this word meant “then” and that’s how they acted).

Also, the country is very misogynistic as in women are expected to be seen, not heard, as if they are children. Being a woman, I’m glad I’m from America and not there. The sexist culture also makes me resent that country. I go through phases where I decide to learn the language, but then I tell myself that there is no one from that country I want to talk to.

Basically I want to belong so badly (Fe) but I try to convince myself I don’t need to belong and try to excise that need I have (Ti loop). How can I reconcile this desire for a cultural identity when I feel bitter and rejected? The people we know there are the educated and upper class whose values are not the same as the majority of the people who are poor. I know not all people from there are just judging people for how much money they have, but I still tell myself everyone there is fake. My blanket criticisms are just coming from a place of hurt.

I don’t feel particularly American, most people of my race who live in America have been here for a really long time and they have their own unique culture which I admire but it doesn’t feel “mine” either. I used to think of myself as a “stateless person” even though I know that’s a legal term that doesn’t actually apply to me. I wish I could be one of those people who don’t care about any of that. Why is cultural identity important to some people and not others? What advice do you have? You said you have lived in many countries and have worked with third culture kids.

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Since cultural identity is important to a lot of people, I think it's worth going into detail about it.

On Language

Yes, I grew up in a culturally diverse place with a significant population of third culture and bi/multiracial kids and I've also worked with immigrant/emigrant populations. I'm not at all saying this qualifies me as an expert, but I can at least empirically observe that your experience is quite typical. I don't know if that's a comfort to you.

It can indeed be very frustrating and even depressing to feel like you don't really have a home in either culture. And it's not just third culture kids, sometimes the immigrant parents also struggle with the same issues but they don't let on to their kids.

Yeah, language is often the first and most significant barrier. You do require a certain language level in order to socialize more smoothly and bridge the cultural gap. Unfortunately, language is sometimes used as a weapon to exclude. The best way to prevent it being used against you is to learn it.

It might seem like a negative thing to you, "exclusion", but immigrant populations, due to experiencing a lot of prejudice and discrimination, have very good reason, historically, to be protective of themselves and only welcome members who are truly devoted to preserving and honoring the culture. From this perspective, consider language learning as an "initiation ritual", as proof of devotion. Many groups have initiation rituals, spoken or unspoken. It seems you are not fully aware of how important language can be in this regard.

Of course, not everyone is linguistically gifted, so it can be very hard to keep up with language learning. Also, children are individuals and some simply don't have the interest to learn. Immigrant families tend to be geographically isolated and/or struggle financially, especially in the early years, so resources and opportunities for language learning can also be scarce in some cases.

One of the great things about being a philosophy major is that language learning is implicitly encouraged. Reading Hegel, Descartes, or Zhuangzi in English always leaves things lost in translation, so the solution is to learn their native language and read the primary sources, or at least learn some terminology to get a deeper understanding. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means any kind of language phenom. I learned enough to do a bit of light reading (and I've now mostly forgotten it) but never enough to be fluent.

Because of my unusual language learning experience, I always tell people about how language proficiency can really open up a whole new world. A large portion of how humans think is related to their language structures, so learning a new language is sometimes like learning a whole new way to think. There are certain ideas and concepts that simply cannot be translated and you must learn the language and understand the cultural context to really get it.

In order to feel like a part of a culture, you have to be able to think in the ways of that culture, right? Language is indeed an important missing piece of the puzzle, so I would definitely encourage you to learn. On the other side of the coin, I always strongly encourage new immigrants to English speaking countries to improve and polish their English. Language skills help smooth out every interaction in life, so it has a huge influence over whether a person feels well-integrated into a group or society.

On Illogical Thinking (and the False Dilemma Fallacy)

While your feelings are valid and a typical part of the immigrant family experience, the thing for me to address is your perspective and the flawed thinking underlying it. Unfortunately, the dilemma you're describing is a false dilemma. A false dilemma (aka false dichotomy) is a logical fallacy that happens when people, intentionally or unintentionally, grossly oversimplify a situation to the point where it seems like there are only two options, usually two diametrically opposed options.

In psychology, the false dilemma fallacy is related to well-known cognitive distortions such as all-or-nothing, black-and-white, and either/or thinking patterns. The problem with dichotomous thinking is it easily becomes extreme and prevents you from developing a more realistic understanding of the situation from which to make sound judgments and decisions.

People indulge dichotomous thinking because it works as an ego defense mechanism. It can protect you from feeling too challenged (by uncomfortable ideas), from having to confront your own intellectual shortcomings (of being unable to handle complexity), or from feelings of failure or inferiority. It's good that you at least recognize you're making blanket statements, but being unable to stop means that Ti remains too immature to be helpful. In terms of critical thinking skills, bad habits like blanket statements and stereotyping are indications that one's thinking has become terribly oversimplified and/or extreme.

[As an aside for anyone interested, the false dilemma fallacy is so pervasive that it feels like a perfectly normal and acceptable human thinking pattern. Most people can't detect it in themselves even when they know about it. In politics, people in power use this fallacy intentionally to divide and conquer the public. It's a way of pitting people against each other into "teams" or "camps" and then forcing them to pledge loyalty to one side or else get branded a traitor (i.e. us vs them). If you don't want to be easily manipulated by such rhetorical tricks, it's important to improve critical thinking skills and learn how to identify logical fallacies.]

As you mentioned, due to frustration and hurt, your thinking on this matter has become much too reductive and negative, for example: acceptance vs rejection; this culture vs that culture; me vs them; etc. Part of this has to do with the friction that naturally arises between the old culture vs the new culture. Part of this has to do with the friction that arises between Fe vs Ti development. Part of this has to do with the friction that arises between the adolescent need for social acceptance vs the adult need for independence. When you're constantly feeling torn in half by such forces, it's very easy to start thinking in dichotomies and believe that they are real.

How can you tell when a dichotomy is real or false? There's a very simple question you can ask: "Are those really the only two options?" Basically, to combat the false dilemma fallacy, you have to cultivate the ability to consider all possibilities. If you discover there are more than two viable possibilities, the dichotomy is immediately exposed as false, nullified. At that point, new doors should suddenly open up for understanding the situation with more nuance and complexity - the keys to wisdom.

The term "third culture kid" comes from the idea that the parents express the "first" culture, society expresses the "second" culture, and the "third" culture comes from a unique and complicated blend between the two. Already, the term "third culture kid" implies that there are more than two options. To be fair, you did address a third option in the form of the immigrant population building their own unique subculture within the larger mainstream culture, but you seemed to quickly dismiss it, thus leaving you feeling stranded. The solution to your (false) dilemma lies in the third culture option, so you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

On Culture

At the risk of sounding elitist, I believe that most people have a very superficial understanding of culture, and chances are this includes your family and their immediate social circle. Unless they are expert historians or academics who specialize in Society & Culture, I wouldn't trust them to teach me about culture, or at least, I wouldn't use them as my only source. Why?

For most people, cultural identity is simply an inheritance. For example, parents act out certain beliefs, values, and practices that they got from their parents and their parents got from their parents and their parents got from their parents, and so on. And now it's your turn.

Most of the time, people don't know the full historical roots/context of their cultural beliefs and practices; they were merely socialized to adopt them unconsciously by default. That's why people tend to stick with the religion they were born into. It's the path of least resistance. In other words, people use culture to conform and fit in but they don't really understand the concept beyond that.

What immigration does is disrupt the path of least resistance. Suddenly, culture is pushed to the forefront, rather than seeping in quietly through the back. Suddenly, culture becomes a thing, a tension, a friction, a clash, a problem to be solved. This can be a bad thing if it produces unsettling divisions. But it can also be a great thing because awareness can lead to freedom.

When you wield freedom intelligently and responsibly, it can produce new-found appreciation of cultural practices, improvements and upgrades to cultural beliefs, as well as the formation of new and more meaningful cultural identities.

Being a country of immigrants, the US is full of cultural/ethnic enclaves. Observe them on any given holiday celebration and you'll see people pulling out their traditional ceremonial dress/regalia, their best cultural artwork, cultural music and dance, and of course their favorite cultural foods.

It is often the case that these people wouldn't make such a big fuss about the holiday celebration had they stayed in their home country. However, being away from home for so long, cultural practices and traditions take on a whole new flavor, a much deeper meaning. Celebration isn't just routine but something one feels one must do in order to affirm one's identity and preserve one's cultural heritage.

On Cultural Identity

When you are the dominant cultural group in society, you're not forced to think about culture, so culture doesn't seem very important. Born and raised in the US "melting pot", maybe you want to lean in that direction. I don't think you fully realize that one of the greatest things about being an immigrant is that it puts you in a position to appreciate just how important culture can be in strengthening identity and adding meaning to existence.

It sounds like you haven't done enough to understand your culture because your view is too narrow and one-sided. You toss around ideas related to culture, race, nationality, society, and politics very carelessly, conflating concepts that ought to be kept separate.

For example, you claim that your country of origin doesn't have much national pride, but I don't know how that's relevant. We're not talking about nationality. We're talking about culture. Every area of this earth where people live has a culture because there is a rich history of how they got there and how they came to be what they are today.

I would say that your understanding of culture is too limited to be useful. If that's true, it's no wonder you don't feel any belonging. You can't be a meaningful participant in something that you don't understand. You can't have a cultural identity when you don't know what culture really is.

Over the years, I've met a lot of older "dissidents", people who fled communist regimes such as the former USSR, China, Albania, Vietnam, etc. Some of them have never had the opportunity to return home or didn't want to. At this point, their idea of what counts as "Russian Culture" or "Chinese Culture" is very different than the current citizens of those countries.

Is the immigrant who holds tight to certain traditions from before the communist revolution more or less righteous than the current citizen of the country who views them as backward? You could say that the immigrant has preserved and honored the culture that was lost, which is an important service. Or you could say that the immigrant is stuck in the past and needs to get with the times.

Who gets to say what counts or doesn't count toward a cultural identity? Who gets to say which cultural beliefs, values, practices, and rituals persist and which get abandoned? These are not easy questions to answer but they reveal just how complicated culture and cultural identity are as concepts.

If you were to sit down and learn about your culture as an outsider, like opening up a book in the library, your experience of the culture would be quite different, wouldn't it? It's not unusual for a third culture kid to earnestly get back in touch with their roots, starting from scratch like an elementary school student, only to be surprised and amazed by its great complexity, a complexity they weren't able to access through their parental social circle alone.

If you think cultural identity is merely what you inherit from your parents and their one generation, then you're always going to struggle with it, because who wants to be just another cog in that long assembly line? However, if you're able to think about cultural identity in a more objective way, in broader historical terms, you'll start to understand that cultural identity is never just one thing and it certainly isn't fixed. It is always evolving.

You can be part of cultural evolution by transforming culture into a meaningful identity for a new era. You can patiently negotiate the tensions and synthesize the best of what the culture has to offer. But this requires reflection and learning. It takes work. Are you willing to work for your cultural identity? This is what it means to take full advantage of the third culture option.

For instance, over the years I've known several Muslim colleagues with similar ethnic backgrounds. I met them independently, so they are not related to each other. The way each of them chooses to express the culture of their home country is quite different, yet still deeply meaningful. One wears a hijab, one doesn't. One is strictly halal, one is more flexible. They all identify as feminist, which they complained that many people found hard to believe.

I would say all of them are equally devoted to their cultural identity. And even though they largely share the same cultural identity, there is still space for diverse individual expression, because they themselves made the space for it. It may console you to know that all of them, no matter the generation of immigrant, had to go through a difficult process of negotiating with their culture in order to find their own way of expressing it comfortably.

On Type Development (Especially Fe)

For INFJs, long term struggle with belonging is usually related to immature Fe and Ti loop that leads you to believe there are only two choices, either conform or rebel (and be lonely) - it is a false dilemma.

Is the problem really found in the culture/society out there, or is the problem more about how you don't feel understood, because you don't really understand yourself? Perhaps it is easier to blame culture/society for its deficits than to confront the emptiness of your own identity? At least you can feel fake powerful as you sit in judgment and resent "them" out there? This way of thinking isn't uncommon for loop prone INFJs, it's just that your case has the added element of cultural identity.

It seems you haven't given enough serious thought to the CHOICE you have as an individual. This could be related to a weak sense of self that arises from immature Fe and/or lagging ego development. At the age of 24 and coming much later in birth order, you probably haven't yet established full psychological independence from parents/family, so you still struggle with personal agency.

It's hard to feel like a culture is "mine" when you haven't done enough to actively connect with it. The way you talk, it's like you expect a group to warmly accept you when you've done nothing to show that you are a deserving member (e.g. you haven't even passed the initiation ritual of learning enough of the language). Too many third culture kids assume automatic membership through their parents, but if you can't hack it on your own, what's going to happen once your parents are gone? Does your cultural identity die with them?

You're also still thinking like a teenager in terms of "I have to do it their way, or their way"… but what about YOUR way? It may sound counterintuitive, but feeling acceptance and belonging is much more difficult when you don't know yourself and haven't found your own independent voice, let alone your own cultural voice. Perhaps you assume individual expression of identity is all well and good but it doesn't lead to belonging when you're the only one.

Actually, real acceptance and belonging - not to be confused with conformity - can only come when 1) you know yourself well enough to 2) express and assert who you are in a way that helps others understand and embrace you.

Fe is not about you standing there, like a sad sack, staring longingly out at the world hoping to belong somewhere, anywhere. It's about you actively communicating who you are to people in a way that helps them understand why they ought to like you and connect with you. Do you understand the difference? In other words, you have yet to learn and express the "e" in Fe and actively integrate yourself into the relationship, group, organization, culture, or society.

Many people unconsciously seek to find themselves through belonging to something larger than themselves, especially if they were deprived of belonging in adolescence. But when you don't have a strong enough sense of self to begin with, belonging easily morphs into conformity and losing what little self you have (see cult members as an extreme example).

As an independent adult, the idea of conformity should seem distasteful, but the answer doesn't have to be the complete opposite of going it alone. Rebellion is just a knee-jerk reaction, an immature expression of resentment or hurt. There is a more nuanced and complicated third option of establishing the right balance between the opposing forces of individual and collective. But that's only possible if there is a solid enough self to work with in the first place.

You have to get in touch with your needs and wants, be honest and open about what they are, and work to get them fulfilled in healthy and productive ways. You have to develop yourself enough to know your strengths and positive attributes, so you have something to offer to the relationship or group. You have to explore the culture enough to know what you like or love about it and want to adopt as part of your life. Finding your voice and using it is a necessary step to healthy belonging.

As for other steps, don't discount your peers. One of the great things about living in a country of immigrants (let's leave current events in the US aside for this discussion) is that there are plenty of third culture kids just like you, going through similar struggles. If you didn't have much exposure to them growing up due to the demographics of your area, you can always go looking for them as an adult. They are uniquely positioned to relate and understand. And they don't necessarily even have to be from the same culture.

Just the other day, I witnessed a Nigerian and a Chinese immigrant bonding over the fact that they both grew up in a rural environment and they didn't understand how Westerners could enjoying camping, because they fought tooth and nail to get out of those living conditions. I heard the Nigerian say, "I feel like I'm looking at another black person because our experiences are so similar!" Another thing they didn't know they had in common is that both cultures highly value education.

There are so many ways for people to bond through culture because culture is very broad and multifaceted. Fe tells you to build on the commonalities/likes instead of always fixating on the differences/dislikes. If you truly want to find yourself within a culture, it's not going to happen through constant criticism of it, because then you're blinding yourself to the good and the valuable. By damning the world, you damn yourself, because you are a part of the world regardless of believing/feeling otherwise. Living a life of the damned doesn't sound very appealing.

Through commonalities, third culture kids can come up with creative ways to express cultural identity positively and meaningfully, to build community and belonging for each other and support each other through struggles. Again, express the "e" in Fe and create what you need instead of waiting to be catered to.

Sure, not every third culture kid cares as much as you do, but you only have to find a handful that do. One great thing that came out of the "woke" Obama period was that more immigrant voices felt empowered to talk about and even write about their experiences and what culture means to them. Read those memoirs and stories and you'll see just how not alone you are.

It's important to remember that there are different kinds of friends that serve different kinds of purposes in life. You should absolutely have some friends that help address your cultural needs. It's unfortunately too common for INFJs and introverts in general to feel excluded because they don't understand that the magic of friendship is found in the diversity of perspectives they can bring you. Don't lock yourself into thinking that friendship has to look one particular way, otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of good socializing opportunities.

Unfortunately, a lot of third culture kids grow up isolated and don't really get a full appreciation of their culture until such time that they intentionally EXPAND THEIR SOCIAL CIRCLE to include 1) more third culture kids from outside of family, and 2) more people with deep knowledge about their culture's history and language.

For example, taking a proper language course at your local college would expose you to people who really love the culture for a variety of reasons. That could open up your eyes to the positive aspects of the culture and inspire you to keep learning. Also, going out of your way to get involved in the culture beyond your family's social circle could grant you a more well-rounded perspective of the culture.

Being academically inclined, one thing I liked to do when I lived abroad was take a deep dive into the culture's history. I would investigate their most well-known thinkers and philosophers. I would also spend a lot of time learning about musical history because I love history and I love music, so why not combine them? It was a very enjoyable way to understand the culture's language, values, and preoccupations over time.

Music was an especially great way to bond with people at outings and celebrations. This was my way to actively search for things to appreciate and love about the culture, through which I could actively facilitate relationships with people of that culture. They would sometimes be amazed that I knew more than them. This is the advantage of coming at culture from a more objective vantage point, rather than relying solely on family inheritance.

Express the "e" in Fe to expand your cultural horizons and you'll be surprised at how much easier it is to integrate into a cultural group. People are much more welcoming when you show that you appreciate the culture right at the start. But when you approach them in a way that screams "outsider", such as bothering them to explain simple language you could easily look up on your own or only being able to think of what sucks about the culture, don't be surprised that they give you the cold shoulder. Don't make it so easy for people to exclude you by giving them every reason to.

We all have our own set of challenges to deal with in life. You have to gracefully accept that cultural belonging will be a part of your developmental path because of being from an immigrant family + the importance of Fe in your stack.

Why waste mental energy envying those who don't face the same challenges when that energy could be spent more productively? For example, would you seriously rather sit stuck in resentment forever than learn a language that would open up the door to the belonging you seek? That's not a rational choice, is it? It's self-sabotage.

A friend of mine is like you, born to immigrant parents in the new country, and they don't have any connection to their culture and can't speak the language. While cultural identity might not be subjectively important to them at this time in life, objectively speaking, they are missing out on something valuable and their existence is more shallow for it. Deep down, they know it, but they just don't want to put in the work. They don't prioritize cultural belonging, which is their valid choice to make, but it does leave them adrift and lonelier in life.

A white (Canadian) friend of mine once said something in passing that I thought was very interesting. He said he envied people with a rich cultural heritage because he felt so bland or "vanilla" by comparison. This kind of sentiment isn't uncommon and it reveals just how much of this topic is a matter of perspective.

You have to put in time and effort to expand your perspective beyond the subjectivity of your personal upbringing. Do you honestly believe that your family's social circle (and its unhealthy dynamics) or the current political regime in your country of origin is fully representative of the entire culture and its rich history?

Take Afghanistan and China as two good examples. What's currently happening in those countries is actually not very useful for understanding the richness of their cultures. Imagine that I had dismissed my Muslim friends because I hate the Taliban or my Chinese friends because I hate that communist government. I'd get called a bigot, but aren't you doing the same kind of oversimplification of your own culture with your blanket criticisms? It might even be a case of internalized racism. You recognize that "they aren't all like that", well then, go find the ones who aren't, rather than only paying attention to the ones who confirm your biases.

If you are serious about cultural identity, then you have to see past the hurt. When something is important to you, own it rather than deny it, otherwise your needs will go unmet until the day you die. You owe it to yourself to get out there and learn as much as you can about the culture in order to have enough to work with for building a cultural identity for yourself. The process would also help you develop Fe. Two birds with one stone.

#inspiration

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