Published by Leea Ivanel -- May Issue -- Narrative
Alien. Foreigner. Outsider. Immigrant.
I used to think that those were the only words that mattered when I described myself to people. At the same time, I used to dread them.
I come from Romania, a tiny country in Eastern Europe that borders the Black Sea, Hungary, and Ukraine. When I was 10 years old my mother told me that we were going to move to America so we could be with my stepfather, and at the time my 10-year-old brain didn’t really mind.
By the beginning of the summer of 2010 we were in an airplane, flying away from everything I had ever known, and after 12 hours of sitting in a tiny chair surrounded by screaming children and bad food we finally arrived to America.
Strangely enough, the first thing I noticed about America were the highways. Giant, giant highways stretching five lanes across, winding and dividing into bridges and, most fascinating of all, left lane exits.
It’s odd to describe, but those highways represented America as a whole to me: big and strong and with opportunities to exit and become something else at all times. Somehow, it felt powerful to be on those highways -- it felt like being on top of the world.
That was the moment I decided I wanted to be an American.
At first, I didn’t really know how to do that, so I just tried doing small things to like saying the Pledge of Allegiance, (which I didn’t even understand at the time), and trying my best to learn the language and make friends. It was all about trying to understand the people around me and acting like them back then.
After a while things changed. My “Americanization” project started to become more about what I shouldn't do, than what I should do. Soon I was cringing when people mentioned my accent and, not long after, I had stopped speaking Romanian in the hopes that I would be able to leave it behind.
Unfortunately, that is indeed what happened. In less than two years I had stopped being fluent in Romanian and had almost completely forgotten how to read and write, two talents I used to pride myself on back in my home country.
Eventually, I reached a point where I no longer wanted to be Romanian. How could I tell everyone that I am from a county that is less than half the size of the state they live in? How could I tell everyone that I was from a place they didn't even know existed?
After about four years of being in America I did not want to be foreign anymore. I hated when people asked me where I was from, and I could barely stand being with my parents in public because of their accents.
To me, America was everything a county should be; vast and strong and prosperous and made up of united people, as everyone seemed quite fond of reminding me. On the other hand, Romania was just a shameful little God-forgotten country on the edge of the world.
America was everything, and Romania was nothing.
However, during my fifth year of living in this country, I started to realize that America is, indeed, not perfect by any means, and that it frankly has flaws left and right. It is a great country, but a flawed one nonetheless.
That realization made my brain click, and made me question everything I had thought up to that point. Why should I be ashamed to be from a foreign country, when the country I was in had many of the same flaws as my country did?
With that question fresh in my mind and a new awareness for the actual reality of things, I visited Romania that summer.
In the month I was there I saw everything I had forgotten about the place I was from. The beauty of the language, the humor of the people, the green hills and vast untouched forests, the food and the architecture and the religion; it all reminded me that being Romanian was something to be proud of.
That summer back home reminded me of the beauty of individuality -- of the sheer importance of diversity and the necessity for culture and heritage.
So yes, I might come from Romania, a tiny country who half the Americans I talk to think is part of Russia and the other half don’t even think exists. I might come from a county where the economy is not even one quarter that of California, with a government stuck in perpetual chaos and a kingdom of stray dogs on every street.
But I also come from a county with hundreds of churches that are twice as old as America is, full of people with style and culture and history, from a family whose heritage dates back to the royal families of the Byzantine empire. I come from a country whose capital was once called “Little Paris” -- a country with castles and amazing food and a diverse people full of life and hard work and talent.
Just because my country might not be as great or powerful as America-- just because it might be flawed and somewhat dysfunctional -- doesn't mean that I should be ashamed. It doesn't mean I should forget the country I am from.
It doesn’t mean that I can’t be proud of my country.
And that’s really what should be taken away from all this: that you should be proud of where you are from and that you should be proud of who you are and how your culture has shaped you.
You should embrace that you are foreign, not push it away for the sake of fitting in.
So, talk in funny sentences. Write in weird ways. Make jokes people don't understand. Have an accent. Speak your language in public. Dress differently from everyone else. Have a unique way of seeing the world then those around you.
And the next time someone asks you, “Where are you from?” Don't be ashamed to answer.