Book 1 Post 1

 

American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures

The first time I ever laid eyes on America Ferrera was through my mother’s TV screen when I was in primary school. We had a fun routine of watching tv drama series while folding laundry – her show of choice that week was Ugly Betty. Growing up as a “hybrid” of two different cultures and identities, seeing similar individuals like Ferrera succeeding in her career, even as a young girl, was such a treat to me. 

American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures is a collection of essays and stories that were both sobering and inspiring to read; they were all testaments of people like me navigating their life with split identities. As Lin-Manuel Miranda - the genius behind one of my favorite soundtracks Hamilton - states in his essay, there is both a price and reward of success that come with living in America. Much like Ferrera illustrated in her essay, it is an interesting dynamic to go to school, speak English all day and then return home to speak a different language while celebrating vastly different customs. I relate to her in the sense that I’ve always felt that there was a “hidden” part of my identity which would interchange depending on what environment I was in. 

All of these intimate and personal stories that Ferrera collected from a wide range of individuals including artists, comedians, athletes, and even politicians come to show that being “American” isn’t bound by one identity. Miranda’s rise to success came not only through his unparalleled talent and creativity but also his storytelling of the immigrant life in America as depicted in In the Heights. The term "immigrant" is often tainted with negative stereotypes and associated with a sense of "not belonging" in the United States. The collection of stories in this book come to show just how successful individuals can be- many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants - something that I was not taught very often growing up. As Ferrera discussed in her essay, while it takes a while to understand, there should never be any shame instilled in an individual who belongs to multiple cultures and those factors should never make one any less “American.”