In Between - How i have felt growing up.

I was watching the below video by the Wong Fu Productions channel on YouTube and it resonated with me. I felt this growing up being an island girl and not feeling like I fit in because I didn't have a lot of the island experiences.

Check out the video, then I will explain a bit:



Hope it made you think as much as it make me. So whether you are one of the stereotypical version of your "label" (whether it be Antiguan, Jamaican, Dominican, Black American, White American, etc) or an "In between", this should have brought some kind of thoughts in how you interact with other people.

In Secondary School I was brought up in my mother's store and was surrounded by all types of people. Learning their cultural norms and morals. Also being the youngest of 3 and having a big 7 and 12 year gap between my siblings I have been exposed to alot more things. So when interacting with people I felt that I have been quite Americanized. People would tell me I am not from Antigua because I speak properly. People would say I dress different or a certain way but that is how I felt comfortable. People would see the kind of music I listened to and be thinking "What stupidness she listening to?" Bearing in mind that Rock (which include Alternative Rock Grunge/Punk Rock, and Heavy Metal) which surprisingly was my outlet for my confused coming of age mind.

So there were many times that I just never fit in. I remember one girl mentioning that if I was in America I would be a Goth and then mentioning that I am an Oreo (black on the outside and white on the inside). 

I figured the next course of action is to attend a University where I will be around the culture I have been compared to most, The Americans. You can kinda say that it is almost as if I studied the American Culture through TV and the few times I visited New York or Miami.

Yay!! I was accepted to attend the Johnson & Wales University. North enough to get away from most Caribbean people. This way I can florish in my learned environment. But you know how the Freshman blues go and although I met a few awesome White Americans, I never did fit in. Even worst for the Black Americans. So I hung with people who I felt comfortable with or who was around me.

But the bricks fell into place when I went on my study abroad to Leeds, England. During my orientation I met a few White American girls and even though they were nice to me and invited me out with them there was that disconnect. I figured it out when we were sitting down outside eating while on one of our Trips (either Dublin, York or Wales). They were sharing all these things that they experienced growing up and I had NO connection to any of it. No matter how much I watched TV or visited a few States occasionally, I would never get those experiences.

At that moment, I accepted that I was different. An "In Betweener" (well at the time I didn't have a term for it). 

Now being in the work world and still being quite different to many of the people I am around I don't feel this need to fit in. However, when people bring up that I am being fake, or white, or even exhibting American or British culture, it kind of hurts. But I just brush it off and move on because that is the type of person I am. 

On the other hand, if you are one who falls into the stereotype of whatever label or culture you are in, please understand the world is not black and white but a vast majority of different shades of grey. Do not judge people because they different. Do not keep pointing out what you define as weird because that is making the In Betweener feel very uncomfortable and self conscious.

Thank you for taking your time to read my rambling.  

OXXO

Mayeshah!!!