The place where one distinct biome comes face-to-face with another is a place of dynamic change. No wonder borders are so fascinating. And so ripe for academic and cultural study.
I have lived in the place between cultures my whole life. I am not alone; there are so many brilliant books written on first generation vs immigrant, mixed race vs less-mixed-race, mixed-religion homes, etc. However, I think my transitional zone is a bit unique.
ETHINICITY
My first memory of straddling two, and consequently belonging to neither, cultures was about being half Puerto Rican/half Irish.* My surname and my father's darker complexion/hair placed me in the "other" category but my looks, dark hair and eyes notwithstanding, essentially pegged me as white. My father's weird mix of Puerto Rican pride and the push toward white assimilation was transferred to me and my sisters. I didn't learn Spanish and I didn't speak English with a Spanish accent, I just sounded like every other white person in my neighborhood. We ate some Puerto Rican foods but didn't hang out with our father's family that much (see next section: Religion). We didn't sport a Puerto Rican flag or march in the PR parade. We were raised far from New York City's barrios out in the safe, white suburbs.
I studiously worked at studying and speaking Spanish all my life but
never came close enough to call myself fluent. I wanted to connect to my Latin roots but I
never felt like I could.
My identity was mixed. Cafe con lots of leche.
One of my best friends in high school was a light-skinned, Black-Portuguese girl. We talked a lot about being barely-visible minorities. She relayed a conversation with a friend's mom about me being Puerto Rican. The woman countered with, well, she (me) could pass for French or Italian or anything. I remember this as the first time I consciously realized that being French or Italian or anything was seen as preferable to my actual ethnicity.
RELIGION
And if being a weird mixed ethnicity kid in a predominantly Italian/Irish/Jewish public school wasn't enough, Dad became a Mormon when I was eight years old. Of course, the whole family followed him because that's the way we rolled: whatever Dad did/said was what we all did.
Now, I belonged to a religion that was born and nourished by an enclave of straight white men in the conservative state of Utah. So I didn't fit in with my Catholic/Protestant/Jewish Long Island classmates and eventually I learned that I didn't really fit in Provo's (home of Brigham Young University and reduntantly bland casseroles) homogeneous Mormon culture either.
But I was a true believer. My fervent, nun-like obedience also made me an anomaly among my less religious friends (most of them) and that my religion was Mormon widened the gap. I was the only Puerto Rican/Irish Mormon kid in my class. Each of my sisters occupied the same weird place in theirs (though neither of them was as fanatical as I was).
Our family's adherence to Mormonism also drove a wedge between us and the extended family. I think we might have had more interaction with my father's family had our decidedly un-Catholic, teetotalling beliefs made it difficult to socialize with them or my mother's family.
After many years (and adulthood), my religious zeal petered out and I found myself most comfortable with atheism. And then I moved to fanciest buckle on the Bible belt: Texas. Sigh. Southerners don't love non-believers unless they think they can convert them. Another area where I just wasn't going to fit in.
ORIENTATION PLUS
Around the same time as I lost my faith, I discovered my ambidextrous queerness. A discovery that not only separated me from my family but also, by not picking the gay or the straight team, did not endear me to gay culture either. Not to mention that I had children which was not a way to win queer friends in 1986.
AND I was a terrible faux lesbian. I don't like sports, camping, plaid or pets. I liked art history, design and literature. My Venn Diagram didn't intersect with any of the Saint's softball buddies. And they thought I was "femme" which irritated me no end. I thought I could escape gender stereotypes in the gay community and boy (pun intended), was I wrong.
To add to the challenge: I'm not a fan of monogamy. A concept, ironically, that most straight and lesbian people are in total thumbs-down agreement on. I'm not an evangelist for the cause but I'm also not averse to talking about polyamory. It not often a comfortable conversation, however.
To top all this off, I am big. I am a 3X woman in a size 6 world. I have had to learn to navigate the White, Christian, Straight, Thin world of the 21st century. The judgmental noise from advertising, talk shows and compulsive diet/workout culture is deafening.
BEST OF ALL WORLDS
If this sounds all "woe is me" than I haven't written it well. These are the ways that I have lived between cultures. Just the reality of my life. But I don't feel rejected or depressed about any of it. If anything, my life without religion or religious acceptance is much richer. The fact that I don't fit into a neat gay or straight category is just fine. And the ethnic mix continues to evolve as does our society's acceptance of all kinds of ethnic mixes. I've derived great strength from accepting my physical form. No, more than accepting, I have embraced the largess of my largeness.
I've learned to value not fitting in; it just doesn't bother me anymore. And most of my friends today don't mind all the ways I overlap categories. Besides, our culture doesn't prize purebreds the way it once did. I think embracing my a-typicalness has been a great, healthy journey. I feel more interesting. I enjoy challenging my own and other people's stereotypes. I also find I'm quicker to accept a wider range of people because...well, who the fuck am I to judge? Finally, being open to other people who defy stereotypes has given me a humbling education.
I have learned to move through the world in my oversized body, my barely visible latinx-ness, my non-theism and my queerness. And take up space in all these quadrants whether others are comfortable or not.
* I used to think I was Puerto Rican and Irish. Through the mostly reliable DNA tracing craze I've learned I'm Puerto Rican, Jewish, Northern European with some Native blood and African ancestry thrown in.
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