Narrative Essay

Running Head: NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Author Note

Nasiche Rose, Department of Psychology, Texas State University.

This paper was prepared in fulfillment of Psychology 3334 requirements.

Contact: [email protected]

There’s No Place Like Home

Nasiche Rose

Texas State University

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There’s No Place like Home

I grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City, the daughter of Jamaican and Puerto

Rican parents. Growing up I never felt out of place. New York is a city made of immigrants and

multicultural individuals. The de facto segregation that is found all over the city fosters an

environment that celebrates cultural uniqueness rather than sow dissension between human

beings. Moreover, the concentration of cultures highlighted each one’s uniqueness and

ultimately strengthened the melting pot ideology that this country boasts of. Families and the

community here lived and worked under the premise of collectivism. Sure the city had its

downfalls (and potholes) but it was rich in culture and one I came to love. This was my world,

one full of life, color, music, and the best food I’ve ever had.

My dad joined the military however, and from that point on we got a chance to move all

over. I lived all over the east coast, and had the fortune to live overseas in Germany and visit 10

different Western European countries. But even these cultures did not feel so different to me. In

fact, being of another culture myself, seemed to give me somewhat of an advantage. It made

their culture seem more familiar to me in many ways. We practiced many of the same social

norms in my own family probably in part due to European colonization of the Caribbean islands

early on. It wasn’t actually until I moved to Texas that I had this alien-like feeling.

Understandably so, moving to Texas was a bit of a culture shock for me. Originally I

thought, like most people that have never been to Texas, that it would fit a stereotype. There

would be vast open land, cowboys and horses. It would be a place full of Republicans that loved

their guns. People lassoed animals and cacti for fun. We would have to live on a ranch and

drive miles and miles just to get to school. But like most people who come to Texas, I quickly

learned this was not the reality. Though there were bigger plots of land than I had ever seen, our

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house was not on a ranch but in the suburbs down the street from school. The fashion didn’t

include ten-gallon hats and chaps, but hoodies and shorts (although they did wear cowboy boots).

Much to my disappointment, there were no horses either, just a lot of pickup trucks. And the

vernacular was so strange to me, I had never used “y’all”, included “finna” into my vocabulary,

or said “fer” in the place of for. But then, most of my native Texan friends could say the same

for me. In spite of being back in the states, I felt a great cultural distance, and could sense that I

was not a good fit (Heine, 2016). It did not make sense to me and to some extent still does not. I

whole-heartedly refused to give up my heritage or integrate any part of this bizarre culture into

my own. I kept to myself because I did not want to learn their customs, I wore coats when it was

cold not hoodies, I dressed differently from other students, always talked with and accent and

without as much as a thought of frame-switching. I actively maintained a great deal of

separation from the host culture (Heine, 2016).

Then I moved to Austin to go to college at the University of Texas at Austin. The great

thing about college is that it is exactly the right place to expose yourself to other ways of life. At

the same time, you find yourself unconsciously becoming part of an inclusive camaraderie

founded in school spirit, a culture in and of itself with its own customs and traditions (Heine,

2016). Also, living in Austin, the city that revels in the motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” gave me

quite a wakeup call and magnificent transformative experience. For me, both UT and Austin

itself came to represent a reminder to accept all people and embrace that which you may not

know or understand.

So often people fear and seek to rid themselves of what they do not know or understand

for fear of being uncomfortable. I was no exception. I had written Texas off as the worst place

in the world. I, who had prided myself on seeing the beauty in diverse ethnic cultures, lost sight

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of accepting all types of cultures. Since living in Austin, I have continued to maintain friends of

all different ethnicities, I’ve worked as a nanny for a lesbian couple raising a daughter, become

great friends with a drag queen, and even ate breakfast tacos and went to a rodeo.

There is a beauty that lies in the fact that acculturation does not have to mean assimilating

or completely giving up the heritage you love. Acculturation can been additive rather than

subtractive; it can mean sharing a perspective for others to learn, as you learn from them. Much

like the way it is in New York City, our differences, cultural or otherwise, provide us an

opportunity to not only celebrate, but to educate and better ourselves. The differences that make

us are not meant to be divisive; they are not good or bad, better or worse, just different. In

understanding this, we can potentially grow toward greater acceptance and tolerance of others.

Though we might not always agree with each other, we can learn to understand one another.

Truthfully, we may never achieve total world peace, but that is a good place to start.

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References

Heine, S. J. (2016), Living in Multicultural Worlds. In (3rd. Ed.). Cultural Psychology (256-

297). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.