JE #3A

What does "cultural schizophrenia" mean to you? In a 10-minute freewriting write about how you feel pulled in opposite directions between mutually exclusive or contradictory cultural values, religious mores, or social expectations. Has this ever led you to feel like you're having an identity crisis, a disconnect between how you see yourself and how you are seen by others?

Cultural schizophrenia can be explained and experienced in different ways depending on the person you are asking.  For me personally, I think cultural schizophrenia is never being fully comfortable with your identity, feeling as if you are being pulled from different cultures to fit in, having to hear how others perceive you, etc.  Like the mental disorder,cultural schizophrenia can lead to discomfort, paranoia, and even a social isolation.  Growing up, I never really felt like I had to deal with this.  Even looking back at my childhood and adolescence, I don't remember ever feeling pulled in any direction.  I was Mexican-American.  I was proud of where my family came from, but I felt like I was just another American.  It wasn't until I attended UCLA that I really started to feel this discomfort of being pulled in opposite directions.  Coming to a much more diverse area than from where I grew up, the fact that I was Mexican stood out and people were quick to point it out as well.  I will never forget one experience in particular when an acquaintance said she always assumed my parents were farm workers because we were Mexican, yet both my parents work in the education system.  Back home, I was "white-washed" but I never saw it that way until I attended college.  Here I felt like I didn't fit in with my own Mexican peers, yet I never really felt like I actually fit in with my white or "American" peers.  I struggled a great amount trying to find my place here.  For the most part, the people I thought I would associate more with almost looked down on me, joked about my accent that I didn't even know I had, and were very quick to make assumptions.  It wasn't until I got into the Chican@ major that I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin.  I learned that there are so many of my peers who have gone through almost the same if not similar experiences as I have.  I think I still deal with cultural schizophrenia every day because of the way our society is, but I am learning to just accept it for what it is.  I may not be the kind of person people think I am, but I'm just me & I'm okay with that. I believe that accepting who you are is one of the first steps to overcoming this cultural schizophrenia.