Therapy for Adult Children of Immigrants

It feels like you don’t belong 100% anywhere

You grew up in a family that immigrated to the United States and by default you have been living in between two or more cultures your whole life. You have mastered how to turn on your home culture self when you are around your family and just as swiftly you can turn it off and blend into the dialect and mannerisms of the people in your surroundings. Your ability to fit in both inside and outside your home makes you feel like you don’t quite belong 100% in either place.

As easy as it is to talk about sports and celebrity news with your colleagues you also feel like you have missed out on the “typical” American life because at home you speak, eat and celebrate different traditions. Yes, technically on paper you are American, but you often wonder what that means for you and your unique bi-culural upbringing. You know that sometimes you don’t get cultural or mainstream references because it was not something you were exposed to growing up, so you hold your tongue and nod along so as not to bring attention to the felt difference between you and the others. On the other hand, you come home to your parents and want to share about something exciting that happened but you struggle to find the right words in your home language. You want to share the good news but when you translate it from English to your native language it doesn’t quite capture what you want to say, so you just don’t say anything at all to save yourself the headache.

When your parents come to you with mail to translate you do it swiftly and fluently. Somehow it is easier to translate from English to your home language then the other way around. You realize you have proficiency when it comes to translating insurance policies, bank statements, and bills. But you lack the comfortability in just speaking about everyday things with your parents. It’s like your whole childhood was primed to know how to speak really well in just one area of life and didn’t leave space to talk about other aspects of life. Your parents needed you to know English for them so that they could get their affairs in order. 

As you get older you grow more curious about what it means to hold two or more cultural identities. You want to understand yourself and how you fit in the world better. You are ready to take a deep dive into your past, honor your ancestors and tune into your inner wisdom.