On Identity & Belonging: My Franco-Finnish Family's Story

Gilles and Annika Bourgogne: One couple, two cultures

On Identity and Belonging: My Franco-Finnish Family’s Story 

Guest post by Annika Bourgogne

This month it has been 20 years since my husband left his native France. Little did he know, at the tender age of 21, that his 12 months of studying abroad would turn into two decades and a family life there. Or that he would become very attached and integrated into his new homeland even if he naturally missed his native country and, despite the years passing, held tightly onto his cultural identity as a Frenchman.

Gilles arrived in Finland shortly before France started nuclear testing in the South Pacific in the nineties. A lot of the anger and resentment against France was directed towards the French students, and his first years abroad were not always easy. He felt that learning the local language and adjusting as much as possible to the way of life of his host country were the best ways to show people that he wasn’t just an outsider, but respected the new culture and wanted to integrate. He took language classes to perfect his Finnish skills, paid taxes, and went about his life like almost any other man his age in this country. At his bachelor party, he wore a blond wig and underwent a mock christening to become a “real Finn.” It took us until our children were born to realize that the acceptance of my husband in his new homeland did not have to happen at the expense of losing the culture he grew up with.

With the birth of our oldest daughter, we needed to rethink the cultural identity of our family. We finally accepted that we were not like most families in our neighborhood; we were a bicultural  family, and after all the years of trying to erase that difference, we were ready to embrace it and pass on to baby Emma all of her cultural heritage.

Since then, for the past 13 years, we have been performing a balancing act with our two cultures. Often this has meant reinforcing the one that is less present in the everyday life while at the same time taking special care to not undermine the culture of their birth country. To do this, we have helped our children become bilingual, celebrated the traditions of both countries, and spent summers in France to help them identify as a part of their French family, too. And the most important, if you ask their dad: we have taught them to cheer for Finland in ice hockey and for France in soccer. It could have, of course, been the other way round too, but frankly, the odds of winning would not have been as high!

The occasional struggles (and feelings of having two personalities!) come from the fact that in both cultures there are inevitably some aspects that you like and some that you don’t. The good news is that we as a family can often take the best from both worlds. As a Finn, I am very attached to many things in Finland, but there are many aspects of French culture that I couldn’t imagine life without. And no, I’m not only talking about wine. There's also cheese. And, joking aside, there’s wonderful literature, music, and lovely family dinners with great conversation that lasts for hours, to name just a few.

As a teacher, I often meet immigrant students and families who seem to believe that in order to integrate they need to leave their own cultural and linguistic heritage behind in favor of that of their host country. In the process, however, they are depriving their children of their heritage language, the culture, and perhaps even a natural relationship with a parent who may speak only rudimentary Finnish. I therefore try to encourage my immigrant students to speak and read in their first language and value their birth culture and traditions. Even if they now also belong to a new culture, it should never have to be just one or the other. Retaining one's own heritage while embracing the culture of the host country is not only for their own benefit; the whole host nation gains something from the diversity. Over the years my husband has learned to operate as a bridge between his two cultures and shown our children a great example of embracing both.

 “So, you're half Finnish and half French?” my daughter was asked at a sports event where she had painted a French flag and a Finnish flag on her face.  “No,” she shot back. “I'm Finnish AND French.” And there's nothing “half” about that.

Emma and Sara Bourgogne: One family embracing two cultures, two languages

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Annika Bourgogne is a language teacher and the author of Be Bilingual - Practical Ideas of Multilingual Families. She lives in Helsinki, Finland with her French husband and two bilingual daughters.  You can access her book here, where she blogs on topics of language, culture, and identity: http://www.be-bilingual.net.

Ethnic Identity in the U.S.: One Asian-American Girl's Story

I See Me the Way I Believe You See Me by B. Joanna Chen

We’re walking home from school together, Colin and I. We’re both skipping—that’s how excited we are about having a half-day. Suddenly Colin stops and turns to me, a quizzical expression on his face.

I’m seven, self-conscious and contentious. “What?”

Colin hesitates, then blurts out, “Where were you born?”

I roll my eyes and cross my arms. Even as a second grader, I’ve already been asked this question countless times. I have the dialogue that will ensue down to a convenient routine of monosyllables and terse replies.

Colin grows impatient for an answer. “China?” he suggests.

“Nope.”

“Japan?”

“Nope.”

“Korea?”

“Nope.”

Colin is at a loss.

I roll my eyes again. “I was born here, stupid. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Butterworth Hospital.”

“What about your parents?”

“What about them?”

“They weren’t born here.” Colin is stating the obvious. He’s met my parents, heard their accented English.

“My parents are from Taiwan. My grandparents are from China.”

“Oh.” Colin is silent for a moment. This is when our dialogue deviates from all the ones before. “Your eyes though,” he says. “They’re funny.”

Chen siblings: Chris, Francis, Joanna

I bite my lip, cross and re-cross my arms. “What do you mean?”

“They’re...they’re really little.” Colin lifts his fingers to his face and uses them to pull the corners of his blue eyes until they are slanted slits.

For some reason, I feel like crying. I feel like punching his slit-eyed face. I feel like saying something mean, something biting, something that will make the lump in my throat and the fullness in my chest and the uncomfortable squirming in my stomach go away. But instead I stick out my tongue, blow the most violent raspberry I can muster, and run the rest of the way home.

It was the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley who conceived the “looking-glass self” concept: I see me the way I believe you see me. That could have been the mantra of my middle school and early high school years. Mike would glance at my paper as the teacher handed it back to me. “You’re such an Asian,” he’d say upon seeing my score. “You mean Asian-fail,” Katherine corrected me when I expressed nervousness over a test. I began to feel awkward around the kids at school. My jacket was zipped too high, my glasses were painfully round, and the words I used were too big: “Can you repeat that in English, please?”

Because I believed that all my classmates saw when they were around me was the awkward Asian girl with the excessive vocabulary, I began to be hyper-aware of silences after I finished a rambling story. I stopped raising my hand so much in class. I became an expert at the furtive grade glance when papers were handed back.

Somewhere along the line, between elementary and middle school, I’d come to identify myself solely by race, rather than by ethnicity or by race and ethnicity. I was Chinese, sure. I spoke Mandarin Chinese—or Chinglish, as I referred to it—at home. But all the forms I filled out only had the applicable option of Asian American, and in addition to its pleasing alliteration, “Asian” sounded so much more general—noncommittal—non-confining.

My mother was puzzled at this change in self-categorization. She still referred to us as “Oriental.” One day, when she, my brother, and I were in the car together, I corrected her.

“You mean ‘Asian,’” I said.

“What’s wrong with ‘Oriental’?” she asked.

“‘Oriental’ is for rugs,” my brother said.

I eventually came to terms with the Asian stereotype, even embraced it. It was my goal, after all, to gain admittance into a prestigious school, to follow the heavy Harvard and Duke footsteps of my older brothers. I liked learning. I liked being advanced and excelled and reading “Joanna is a fine student” on my report cards. And what was wrong with fitting in with a prototype of intelligence? “I’m going to fail this test,” I’d say. Then amend, “Asian-fail, but still.”

Joanna Chen's youth soccer team, White Thunder

It wasn’t as if I was always looking around at my homogeneously Dutch-heritage peers with a soundtrack in my mind playing, “They’re white, I’m not…they’re white, I’m not…” There were—and there are now—times when I forgot that I was racially deviant from the Caucasian majority. This especially occurred in history class when we’d discuss slavery. Even though my ancestors weren’t born here, I was accustomed to using “we” when referring to actions the United States had taken in the past; it was just easier that way on essays: “We decided we didn’t want to be a part of England anymore,” “Our country has a history of political dividedness,” “We wanted to free the slaves.” In addition, I leaned toward identification with the white side of history; after all, my ancestors hadn’t been slaves, and the textbooks we read in class didn’t even mention Chinese people—if at all—until it covered the late nineteenth and early twentieth century history of America.

I felt concerned and confused when I found myself talking from a white perspective. Did this mean that I thought that I was white? I was surrounded by white kids, but I wasn’t one. I was different. Was I different?

However, reading a passage from Lawrence D. Bobo’s essay, “Laissez-Faire Racism, Racial Inequality, and the Role of the Social Sciences,” made me reconsider my self-analysis. He writes, “…we are evolving as a nation toward a new major racial dichotomy: the black versus the non-black…whites and those effectively earning the title of honorary whites, such as successful middle-class Asians.”

My gut reaction was one of resentment. Honorary white? It is obvious from reading the other parts of Bobo’s essay that he doesn’t consider white a race worthy of special treatment or a race that should be strived towards by other races, but the phrase still offended me. I can check that box on forms that says Asian, but when it comes to defining race, you have your blacks, you have your whites, and you have your honorary whites. It made me rethink all those years sitting in school feeling guilty over “forgetting” my race, my heritage. 

It made me think that perhaps I reverted to saying “we” because that’s how our discussions on race in this country are most often framed: pick a side, black or white. Other races are forced to find somewhere fitting to fit in on the race spectrum. And naturally, many racial minorities looking to achieve the American dream instinctually identify with and gravitate toward the end of the spectrum with better social and socioeconomic positioning.

Scientists have established that race is not biologically real. Genetically, humans are the most similar among all species. As the experiment the high school students performed in the documentary “Race: the Power of an Illusion” illustrated, we are just as likely to share as many genes with someone from a different race as with someone from our own race. But it’s hard to ignore that Suzanna’s dark skin is shades different from Sarah’s pale pigmentation.

As sociologists W.I. Thomas & Dorothy Thomas pointed out, “If [people] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” When people believe that something is real, they act on that belief. So while race is imaginary biologically, it is still given a lot of reality in our actions; that is the reality of race in America today.

source: iStockphoto.com

The reality is that walking home, filled with the excitement of freedom from school, a young white boy will still turn to a young Asian girl and will, in that frank young-boy way, point out their differences. The reality is that even after that young Asian girl has grown into a young Asian adult, she will remember that childhood incident and still feel a phantom lump in her throat, a phantom fullness in her chest, a phantom squirming in her stomach. And it will make her wonder, over eleven years after she stuck out her tongue and stamped away, where she fits in in the scheme of race in the country she calls her own.

B. Joanna Chen grew up in West Michigan, a historically non-diverse farming region known for heavy Dutch immigration. The last two generations have seen a decided uptick in immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, because of either refugee resettlement or migrant agricultural labor. Joanna is currently enrolled at Cornell University. She wrote this piece in the fall of 2010.

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Overcoming Expat Isolation In the U.S.: Ten Ideas For Fitting In

Source: fotolia.com

As an immigrant, expatriate, or refugee newly landed in the United States, you face a number of obstacles.  Americans may not look like you, dress like you, or talk like you.  How can you fit in when you seemingly have so many differences working against you? The simple answer is that you need to jump in!  The world around you is full of opportunities for getting involved, meeting Americans, and becoming a full member of your new community.* In a recent article for international students, Tra Ho from Vietnam talked about how new students needed to change their mindsets in order to make the transition from outsider to insider at American colleges.  Among her ideas, she talked about making new friends and pursuing activities you like.

The following list comes from years of working with and listening to immigrants and expats as they sought to make the U.S. their home.  The links below just scratch the surface of all the possibilities, but I hope they inspire you to begin connecting today.

Sometimes it’s all about you!  Here are some ways you can nurture yourself and make friends in the process.

Photo source: Grand Rapids Running Club

1. Hobby groups: There are thousands of groups organized around interests.  When I lived in mid-Michigan, one of my clients belonged to the local orchid society.  They held meetings and put on an annual swap/sale for other enthusiasts to come buy or exchange these special flowers.  After I moved to West Michigan, I was eager to find others to run with and learn about area jogging trails and races.  The Grand Rapids Running Club is friendly and organized for people on a budget, only $17 a year for membership. What activity do you like to do?  Where is the group for that?  Maybe you could start a new group.

2. Self-improvement: If you’re a fitness nut, you may need to find a place to practice yoga or Pilates.  Most cities offer classes you can sign up for.  Maybe you need to improve your public speaking skills.  Several of my students have gained more confidence speaking English in public through membership in Toastmasters.

Bible study group (source: atlantavineyard.com)

3. Spiritual support: In the U.S., many people find membership in a church a great way to meet people and experience a personal and spiritual connection.  For newcomers who are Christian, joining a congregation is a terrific way of gaining relationships with Americans.  Of course, once you join a church, the other members will probably invite you to participate in both social and volunteer activities.

4. Get yourself adopted: For those internationals who are lucky enough to have an American host family, you know how invaluable it can be to have someone looking out for you.  Exchange students are able to develop close-knit relationships that last decades, all the while getting advice on the mundane aspects of life like taxes, driver licenses, and RSVPs.

5. Be where you live: If you are new to a neighborhood, you need to get to know your neighbors.  This will be helpful the next time you lock yourself out of your house, have a flat tire, or need someone to accept a delivery for you.  A good way to meet people is to just go up and introduce yourself when you see someone walking on the sidewalk or watering their lawn.  I know not everyone is as outgoing as I am, so you can also watch out for upcoming gatherings through a homeowners association, Neighborhood Watch, or block party.

Neighbors get together at a neighborhood block party (source: KathyButler northjersey.com)

Sometimes it’s all about the community.  Here are some ways you can share yourself through volunteerism and make friends in the process.

6. Share the skills!  Even if English is your second language, you can probably read and write better than a child.  Perhaps you have really good math skills.  Consider becoming a community tutor at your local literacy center.

7. Money mentoring: Maybe you’re a shrewd businessperson.  Junior Achievement is always looking for volunteers to teach students about money management, entrepreneurism, and personal finance.

Source: mrsmillersclass.org

8. Be a good sport! Coaching youth sports teams (whether or not you have kids) is one way to stay physically active while sharing your love for your favorite sport.

Volunteers pose in their clean-up vests at the side of the road.

9. Community activities: One of my students joined an Adopt-a-highway group to pick up litter along a local roadway.  He said every time he drives past that stretch, he feels such a sense of pride and ownership of this piece of West Michigan.  Another avenue for community volunteering is the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts, the largest all-volunteer festival in the U.S.  Activities range from setting up chairs or painting designs on children’s faces to working on the clean-up crew.

These signs in Michigan are accompanied by a second sign listing the name of the organization responsible for that stretch of road.

10. Your kids, your community!  Your children’s elementary school is always looking for volunteers (room parent, field trip chaperone, technology assistance, shelving books in the library).  Most kids love seeing their parents involved at their school.  “That’s my dad/mom!” they proudly tell their classmates.  That could be you!  This local list from Grand Rapids gives examples of the kinds of volunteer opportunities available at American public schools. For more volunteer opportunities in West Michigan, go here. Across the United States, here are volunteer opportunities listed by state.

Kids get on a school bus for a field trip. Would you enjoy being a chaperone?

I’m sure you have many more suggestions from your own experience.  I invite you to share them here.  In the mean time, I wish you good connections in your adopted communities!

* Of course, meeting Americans and fitting into the community is important.  However, I don't dismiss the need to connect to your own ethnic group to give you a touchstone.  Belonging to a mosque or temple or other affinity group from your home country can be a source of stability and calm as you navigate the new waters of the USA.  Just don't become dependent on them as you make your transition to interdependence.