Why being a citizen of the world also means you belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time
By: Daniela Michel
Tags: Integration, Diversity, Immigration

Why being a citizen of the world also means you belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time Daniela Michel Apr 22, 2020·5 min read

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

As the child of several generations of immigrants and being an expat myself, I know a thing or two about feeling like you belong in different countries at the same time, and how this can also result in the opposite: feeling like you don’t quite belong anywhere.

My grandmother was born in Spain, but she and her family had to leave the country — like many others after the Spanish Civil War, fleeing misery and looking for a brighter future. She was 10. Young enough to adapt quickly to her new country, Argentina, but old enough to already have a strong Spanish accent, which, together with the fact that nicknames stick really quickly, resulted in her becoming the gallega* in the neighbourhood. (Gallego/a is the way Argentinians call Spaniards when they mean it in a pejorative way.)

I know for a fact that my grandmother always felt Spanish at heart, but obviously after 50 years living in Argentina, she was really more Argentinian than Maradona (her accent, her habits, her cooking — everything was pure white-and-blue style). When she turned 70, she moved back to Spain. And guess what? After being called the Spaniard her whole life, now she became the Argentinian. One could guess that the sense of not belonging comes from the fact that natives make the immigrant feel like they are different, but that would be too simple a conclusion. In reality, the immigrants themselves often contribute in making others notice their foreignness. Let me explain.

I remember that, as a child, whenever my grandmother visited us in Spain, she would very often compare both countries and the ways people had of speaking, treating each other, preparing food, etc. As I grew older, I realised often the country where she was not presently in was the winning one. For example, if she was talking to me she would say “this would never happen in Argentina”, but if she was talking to someone in Argentina, she’d praise the qualities of the Spanish health system, or so on.

I used to think this was not the right way of doing things if you want to be accepted, right? Of course, I was judging without having gone through her experience.

Now I have. I know many of you have too, and you probably recognise yourselves in what I’m saying.

I was born and bred in Spain, lived there for twenty years but grew up with half of my family being Argentinians, which means I travelled there very often from a young age and ADORED everything related to my “maternal” country. I even had a strong Argentinian accent, until one day at school (I was six) I was made fun of because I sounded funny. I learnt to keep my accent for home and be like everyone else at school (how’s that for feeling that your difference is something to be ashamed of…but that’s not where this article is going. At least, not for now).

Then I became a teenager and well, everybody knows those are particularly though years for almost everyone. In my case, my greatest difficulty was feeling that I belonged. I had to wait until my Erasmus year to meet people from different countries and cultures to find my tribe. After that, and like so many others from my generation, I moved abroad for love and discovered a country I almost instantly loved. After a few years living in France, I noticed I was doing the exact same thing my grandmother used to do. When in France, I tend to highlight the beauty of Spain’s culture, how people are warm and life is more relaxed, how the days are longer even in winter, etc. Is it because it makes me feel like I have something superior compared to the French? Is it simply because I miss my country and talking about it soothes this feeling? Probably both. But then I go back to Spain for holidays and start boasting the thousand ways in which France is amazing: the bread is better, the labor market is better, the respect of schedules for a healthy lifestyle is better, the bread is better…Sorry. I already said that.

I find it quite contradictory because on the one hand, I think it is natural that individuals want to feel like they belong to a group and in order to do so, they have to be more or less similar to one another (that’s why “black sheep” is rarely used to describe someone in a positive way). But at the same time, we also like to feel that we are unique (and I guess that is why, as immigrants, we always talk about what makes us differ from the country we’re in).

But let’s go back to the “black sheep” situation. Would we even have this bad feeling at all had differentiation not been stigmatised for such a long time? School is probably the first place where we learn that in order to fit in, we have to be like everyone else. If you excel and have great grades, your classmates are very likely to make fun of you. If you wear glasses when nobody else does (yet), if your skin is a different colour, if you are a tomboy, or a little effeminate. Bullies always focus on someone who is different.

Only recently have we started to see efforts to raise children to believe that being different is not only acceptable, but also cool. That it’s what brings richness to a group, it’s how people become better persons. I’m thinking about children’s books like Elmer, which tells the story of a colourful elephant who brings joy to his whole herd by being different. I’m thinking about t-shirts with inspiring messages like “different is cool”. I’m thinking of Benneton’s campaigns that celebrate diversity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe in a few generations’ time, when being different really becomes acceptable in society and not just on slogans, maybe immigrants will no longer feel bad about not belonging anywhere, and instead embrace that they are a unique mix of cultures that makes them all the more interesting and whole.