Benjamin @ 2019 JC Candanedo
Ancestry and identity are two different things. Ancestry speaks of your predecessors, of the people who mixed up to create the gene pool in you. In this sense, we are all mixed, and we are more similar to each other than some are happy to admit. But, identity speaks of your tribe, your community, your cultural heritage, and how you fit in with those you identify with. Some people have very defined identities, but for the rest of us, especially those who come from mixed ethnical backgrounds, trying to fit into one single group can often lead to an identity crisis.
Throughout my life, my identity has often been defined by how others perceived me. Growing up in Panama, most people knew that I was from European descent even if they really didn’t know where in Europe was Catalonia located. When people asked me “where are you from?” and I responded saying “I’m from here, I’m Panamanian”, people would often ask me “yeah, but where is your family really from?”.
This experience repeated itself in other parts of the world where I’ve lived. In Barcelona, I wasn’t Catalan enough. I was always deemed as Latino or sometimes southern Spanish. In New York, I was Latino and, more specifically, Mexican. For the people who I met while living in France, I was Catalan from Barcelona. While in Sydney, I was from London. And now that I live in London, the majority of people see me as Catalan even though I always say that I was born in Panama.
After the question: “Where are you from?”, there is always an internal dialogue: “Where am I from?”. When my friend Patricia told me about her son’s potential identity crisis, I couldn’t help but feel completely related to his story. Patricia and her husband are first-generation Brazilian immigrants in London, but their son Benjamin was born in the UK.
At home, they speak Portuguese, trying to keep their Brazilian culture and heritage alive. But Benjamin speaks Portuguese with a strong British accent, and when in Brazil, some of his relatives call him the “little Briton”. Patricia worries that Benjamin will never fully feel Brazilian, but, like me, it’s in his hands to define his own identity.
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Photo credits: Benjamin © 2019 JC Candanedo
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