A thought bubble please: Can we open our minds a little?

Recently I went on a trip to Rosario. I came across a good looking lad who kindly tried to chamullar me (for those of you who don't understand this expression, it's when an Arg guy chats you up). We got to talking, and he was like,

"oh, so you're not from here, whereabouts are you from?"

Well, well. In just over a year that I have been living in Buenos Aires, you can imagine just how many times I have been asked this particular question.

"Well," I said, "I am from England, but I am half-English half-Argentine".

He looks at me puzzled, with a slight smirk on his face. He says,

"Cómo que, Cómo es eso?" saying, "Well what's that all about then?"

Ah here we go again, I must explain my life story once again... well not really, but I feel like I should try to at least make a little effort, so I keep the conversation going...

"Yeah my mum's from BA and my dad is English, from London. I was born in England, but I live here now."

(whilst I talk the intrigue turns to uber intrigue)

"Yepp, I am half and half", I say wholeheartedly.

The guy almost goes to question me in more depth about that, but turns to ask me about which country I prefer overall, and would prefer to live in.

The conversation became even more complicated because it began to pull towards him trying to make me define which nationality I preferred.

(the funniest thing was though, that he did so by trying to get me to express my opinion on who owns the Falkland islands...)

Now, this isn't the first time that this has happened to me living here. In fact it happens on a regular basis that people categorize you into one nationality, mostly by where exactly you were born. But this isn't necessarily the correct way to approach the subject of ones cultural identity, as it simply isn't that black and white.

I came across some literature which brings forth some wonderful questions for analysis, which provoke deeper thought on this matter, which I will discuss in further detail in later posts.

The next quote (rather long) is by Stuart Hall, a Professor of Sociology from the Open University, UK.

"Questions of cultural identity have become central to the agenda of contemporary social and anthropological research. As the waves of forced and unplanned migration transform the hitherto well-defined and apparently stable cultural formations of the globe, so the issues of how and with what groups, do peoples on the move identify themselves - and how this is influencing the self-identifications of people from the indigenous, native, or 'host' societies - has come to constitute a subject of enormous public interest and debate."

.....

Now, it is something to consider - giving that the Argentine society was formed by immigrants having come from Europe at the turn of the twentieth century....

Stuart Hall continues,

"Are the cultural identities of social groups constituted primarily by stable, structural features of social organization, such that the vicissitudes of movement, dispersal, and displacement cannot deeply influence or disturb them?"

"Has ethnicity acquired something of the permanence of shared genetic dispositions?"

"Do we bare our cultural identities, the signs and symbols of our 'belongingness', like indelible number-plates on our backs?"

"Is ethnicity moving from a matter of 'descent' to 'assent' - not the rediscovery of our 'roots' in the past, but a tracking of our 'routes' to the present?"

(... and most importantly...)

"Is cultural identity those imperatives we obey, or that which we perform?"

........

These are all questions I consider to be hugely valid and important to wonder and ponder on.

All opinions are welcome...

That said, I will leave you all now to ponder on what you consider to be your own cultural identity...

Is it important?