On the topic of change and identity, I too feel that I will leave Málaga a different person than when I arrived 9 months ago. I don't think that I have changed drastically, although some changes may not even be apparent until I return to the U.S. - they might be "subconscious," so to speak. But whether I have changed or not, I have learned a lot about myself more than anything.
I am reminded of a question posed in one of my education classes at Dickinson, when we were discussing the theme of identity. The professor asked us if we could only keep one part of who we are, what would we retain? Our gender, ethnicity, language, or socioeconomic class? Most of our class chose gender, because apparently being male or female was the component of ourselves we just couldn't give up. Being in Spain has challenged me to discover how much of my identity is tied to language, as I struggle to express myself accurately in a tongue that is not my native one. A tiny vocabulary in comparison to my mental English dictionary does not always lend itself well to sarcasm and lighthearted jokes, which are often misunderstood. Yet the situation works both ways - I have found expressions unique to Spanish which fill in the gaps left by English occasionally.
Overall, battling the language barrier has strengthened my identity, because learning Spanish continues to improve my English as well. And as I continue to study Spanish, the fraction of my identity that I can fully express increases, until (hopefully, one day) there is virtually no distinction between "me, in English" and "me, in Spanish."
No comments:
Post a Comment