Personal Narrative: My Personal Identity

Growing up with divorced parents from two radically different cultures was at first difficult. My mother’s family was from Peru, while my father’s was from Bangladesh. In my young mind, there was an internal struggle with what my identity actually consisted of. I wasn’t wholly from one culture or the other, and felt like a black sheep when interacting with either side of my family. Due to this, I attempted to keep these cultures partitioned. At the time, they were different portions of my life that simply couldn’t intermix. This mentality in turn led me to foolishly shy away from my joint heritage. I kept myself enclosed in a box, blind to the beauty of my surrounding culture. However, as time progressed, I knew I had to make a change in my understanding.
I began to interact regularly with my extended family and familiarize myself with the antiquities of Peru and Bangladesh. These histories, which I once attempted to ignore, now innately fascinated me. The most prominent insight gleaned while educating myself about my cultures however, was that they weren’t so different after all. Over time, I integrated various aspects of my heritage in its entirety. At the core, my cultures were intertwined. It was not solely one or the other that helped define me, but an amalgam of the