Being Bi-Cultural Is Like Sitting Between Two Chairs (and why It’s a good thing)
By: Melissa Marin
Tags: Latinx, Colombia, Diversity And Inclusion, Diversity In Tech, Hispanic Heritage Month

Little me on the left. We’re celebrating my 9th birthday in Medellin, Colombia. Back then, I only sat in one cultural chair. These are the friends I grew up with, and whom I left behind to only reconnect, 20+ years later.

Spending your childhood in one culture, and your teenage years in another, imbues you with the power of seeing life through more than one lens. With this gift, you realize the power of choice.

Medellin, Colombia

I grew up in the small and bustling city of Medellin, Colombia. People from my city are known as “Paisas,” and they’re considered by other Colombians to have a notorious sense of regional pride and distinct culture.

The word Paisa means a conglomerate of things to people. A Paisa is entrepreneurial, optimistic, and a world wanderer. Most noteworthy, Paisas deeply live the value of hard work; so much that our ancestors invented a colloquial word widely used today — berraco — to express their unique sentiment for “tenacious work” and “positive resilience.” In other words, someone who intentionally chooses to take herself through any challenge with hard-work and an impossibly positive attitude.

I witnessed berraquera everywhere growing up in Medellin. Starting with my maternal grandparents, who raised 13 children (not a typo) on a remote farm in the middle of the Andes mountains, where the closest town was three hours by horse.

Imagine trekking down these mountains for three hours to arrive at Pueblo Rico to sell your coffee beans. My grandfather did this once a month. It took him and his mules three hours to arrive!

Even more incredible is story of my uncle, Alberto, who at thirteen years old left the family farm and migrated to Venezuela to find work, save up, and accomplish the goal of relocating his entire the family to Medellin, where they could have better access to resources, education, and opportunity. He worked grueling labor in diamond mines until he had saved enough to buy a home in Envigado (a neighborhood of Medellin), and move all the children, my mother included, to Medellin.

These stories of incredible spirit persisted and spread among the children too. Take my aunt, Luisa, who I consider my second mother, as another beacon of resilience. Out of all the 13 children, she was one of the very few who was able to graduate from high school, obtain a college degree, and earn a PhD. She did this working throughout her entire middle school and high school years to finance her own education. Can you imagine your eight-year-old today child waking up at 4 am to cook and clean for students in her school in order to finance her own education?

What’s even more amazing is that she did this by lifting others too. The lucky benefactor of this life commitment to berraquera was my mother, Aura. She too finished school thanks to the financial support from my aunt’s savings.

Paisas also embody the values of entrepreneurism. The best way I can describe it is an innate understanding that the world is malleable; with a little bit of luck, an abundance of discipline and resilience, you can shape-shift reality to what your mind envisions.

An old photo of Itagui, Medellin. My childhood home is in front of the white vehicle at the top of the hill.

I can’t think of a better example of the value of entrepreneurialism than my own mother who started her own enterprise in the neighborhood of Itagui (in Medellin). She called it “Marbella.” I witnessed my mother work tirelessly to lift the business from a simple idea to a well-oiled machine. She always embodied such a positive light and strength despite what life threw at her.

It was also my mother who showed me the spirit of adventure when she decided to venture to the United States when we lost absolutely everything we owned to the chaotic violence, instability, and financial recession in Colombia.

How does a woman raised in the mountains make the decision to move to a country that she had only visited once? Motivation: her children. Source of strength: her values. She grew up seeing herself as a wanderer and a berraca, just like her parents before her.

My mother arrived in Boston, MA with a photo, a name, and the hope her friend’s daughter would show up. It took her two years to save up enough to pay our airfare. Yes, she did not see her two children throughout those two years. Meanwhile, my brother and I moved in with the very aunt, Luisa, who had paid for my mother’s education. Life has a way of creating these beautiful story circles across generations.

Next in the generational line comes my brother and I, also embodying the very values we saw in the people we loved. We arrived in New England, with one luggage filled with a summer’s wardrobe, in the middle of November in the early 2000’s.

I don’t know how else we would have “avoided” an almost irreparable amount of emotional scarring if we had not been raised with the values of “positive-resilience,” hard-work, discipline, and the spirit of adventure. In the midst of all the confusion, nostalgia, and challenges, we always had this irrational confidence that we would eventually be okay.

Back to the start of the story — so how does living in the U.S and learning a different lens teach us the power of choice?

Well, for one, I learned that hard work is a solid foundation, but at its peak of success, it is married to long-term planning and strategic thinking. The world is but a massive system that can be broken down to small pieces. Understanding the levers within such systems enables you to work smarter, not harder. It also enables you to sequence out which lever to pull first.

I also learned that loneliness was a big societal challenge in the United States. Part of the root cause, I’d argue, is the weight independence has in American society. Aging adults are one of the most affected generations. Would I be able to sleep at night knowing my parents experienced loneliness?

I made the intentional choice that my life was not independent from my mother’s, regardless of how well-accepted it is within American society. Each choice is so personal for each family. Each choice so precious. This is the choice that worked for us. I instead worked closely with my brother and his family to define appropriate boundaries of financial and emotional support. Don’t tell our mother, but we very intentionally embedded her in grandma duties to fight this common “illness”. Today, her time is spent volunteering at a non-profit and spending time with Celeste, my niece. She beams with joy.

There is an analogy that being bi-cultural is like sitting between two chairs: You want to sit in one but neither captures your full essence and authentic self.

I think there is some truth to this statement; once you learn to see through more than one lens you can no longer deny the existence of other equally valid points of views. For me, and others like me, this means that the concept of “home” somehow feels foreign. Paradoxically, home could be anywhere, and nowhere at the same time.

I would argue, however, that within the tension the gift of choice is born.

I am thankful for having been gifted this special power. I can shape shift and code switch from my American and Colombian self depending on where I am. In Latin America, I lean more into my Colombian side to deeply connect to other countries with a lens closer to theirs.

When I am in the United States and other parts of the Western world, I lean towards my American culture. I sit and plan my life long-term, often mirroring what I witness in the way our communities are organized. This longer-term planning is apparent in how cities are designed, the longer-term investments the U.S makes to advance a specific field, and even the access to credit that eventually creates more jobs.

Perhaps the concept of sitting between two chairs can be slightly reframed to two chairs literally next to each other, with no space in between. You actually have more space you can use in your favor; you can shift a little to the left or a little the right. As long as you’re in your chairs, you are your authentic you.

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