A Decade of Self-Discovery

Abstract

For this essay the focus was to interview a person outside my cultural views, or in other words, it was to interview a person who’s designated cultural ideas differed from mine. In this essay I talked about the life of my interviewee, how her culture differed to mine, and interactions between the two as we spoke during the interview. I also explained the importance of the her culture or subculture in society.

 

It was an autumn day, not too cold and not too hot, yet breezy enough to make your skin bristle. Luckily it was the perfect day with perfect weather, to have chosen the place that we did, a stylish Café in Astoria. For this interview, it was my proposition to meet up with “Ella” at a café, for some reason before I even thought of what the exact questions would be, I already had the scene of my interview pictured, it also seemed like a good idea to her. We were supposed to meet up at 4:00pm I did my best to arrive there by that time, since Ella knows me for quite some time, and knows how tardiness can be one of my favorite sports, she decided to arrive there 15 minutes later, and so did I, or well … perhaps a bit longer.

And there we were, two non-coffee drinkers enjoying the view of the plants hanging from the ceiling and the smell of fresh served coffee. Two non-coffee drinkers but that also happened to enjoy every sip taken from those green steaming mugs just for the experience. We were sat on a two-seat table near the window apart from the rest of the people in a more discrete space, a space which she asked the waitress for. She was wearing a black long and loosed Star Wars t-shirt with joggers and a low adjusted ponytail , a very sporty look I’d say.

I chose to interview Ella because I believe her culture/ subculture is one of the least acknowledged topics out there. Ella is a 26-year-old, who has been in a heterosexual relationship for 10 years now. Ella said that although she is in a heterosexual relationship, she has found herself feeling attracted towards her same sex people. One of the questions I asked  her was “Have you always considered yourself heterosexual?” to which she answered with a confident and prompt response, I did, until now.”  My following question brought about a different reaction in her face. I asked: When did you first start feeling attraction towards your same sex? And did these feelings trouble you? It did not take long for her to answer the first part, her answer was not so confident and prompt for the second part of the question as it was for the previous one, almost as if it took more effort in her to answer this one. She recalls the first time to have felt an attraction towards her same sex, to have started in the beginning of 2020 to be exact. Just as Ella, there are many others who have refrained themselves from experiencing what they’re truly feeling in terms of sexuality, some do it based on fear of judgment, some based on avoiding family rejection and other’s simply because of conditioned biases based on society’s expectations and “roles” of what the “normal” and “right” things to do are.

“My parents have refrained me from a lot of things growing up. They were strict, my entire life I have been expected to be a role model for others such as my sisters and other family members … If I had to describe them in one word it would be “Over-protective.”” This was Ella’s response when asked about some background of her relationship with her parents. As she spoke about her parents, I also felt a strong connection towards the way she described the relationship with her parents and herself. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that both of us come from a Hispanic family, and that Hispanics tend to overprotect or as I would say over-control girls.  Although Ella and I come from similar oriented cultural background, we live under a different subculture, which is our sexual orientation, and how we show ourselves to the world.  As an open homosexual girl who has always identified as such, I was curious to know how is the life of those whom have thought of themselves as heterosexual their whole life and later on they start developing or noticing attractions towards their same sex, or start having “unnatural feelings”, as Ella says her parents would say.

In the second part of the question, I talked about above, where I asked her if it has troubled her to learn about her sexuality, her facial expression changed from steady to a blushed red face with wondering eyes and a shaky smile. With this specific question she avoided looking at me while answering as if she felt embarrassed or perhaps was simply not trying to lose her train of thoughts. She said that since she has been in a relationship with her boyfriend for a decade now and starting to feel attracted to this specific girl felt surreal. Her instant thoughts to herself were what the fuck?  what is this?  It cannot be, this must be some type of admiration I’m feeling!”  After being over the state of denial she encountered herself in, she realized that although she has been in a heterosexual relationship for a decade of her life, what she felt towards this person was indeed not a simple form of “admiration”.

Throughout our interview I noticed that there are many titles and “roles” she seems not to want to get rid of or is not comfortable with being removed from her if she acts in disagreement to what she has been perceived as throughout her life. For instance, the very first thing that she mentioned about the “roles” she carries as a person, is how her family perceives her as an exemplary daughter. In her family she holds the title of being the first one of attending college, finishing it, and attaining a career. She also holds the title of being a role model to all three of her siblings as she is the oldest. Since she comes from immigrant parents and is also an immigrant herself, she not only owes this to her home family, but she also has the pressure of maintaining that “good look”, for her family’s name back in her country, where it would be outrageous if she came out as bisexual, or any other identity other than heterosexual. All these titles and social pressures she deals with along with the role of “women” that she is “Supposed” to follow can just be tough to handle, I would know myself and most of the LGBTQ members I know tend to agree. Not only must Ella refrain herself from experiencing and expressing her sexual orientation freely because of her family and societal pressures, but also because it would end her relationship she says, “It would end it… he wouldn’t take it.” As I asked her what would happen if her boyfriend knew and how would it change their relationship.

At one point in our interview almost towards the end of my questions, I asked her a strong thought provocative one, which was “In what ways and to what extent have your family idealizations affected the ways you see the things in life?”, she took a small pause, and her first reaction was a frigid deep sigh, as she entangled her hands together, and answered, “a lot”. She expressed many things when I asked her this question, I can say this was the question to which she gave me more answers to, but what stuck to me the most is when she said, “ Even though I don’t care what my parents say, or at least not in front of them I will be doing shit they don’t support, like being with one partner only, or the women dealing with men’s shit, and staying at home the women’s “role” in general; cleaning cooking etc, like  I don’t know…it is there but I don’t really follow it, just in front of them I might try to follow them.” This answer caught my attention the most because of how passionate and sincere her glazing eyes, downward lips, and occasional gentle eyebrow liftings proved to be. What I assumed and understood from her response is that although she does not show her parents anything to be concerned of about her as person and will not act against their beliefs in front of them this won’t stop her from actually doing the things she wants to even if it means she has to do it behind them, in a more discrete way.

Perhaps a difference between how Ella’s culture and mine have influenced the way our sexuality or subculture is expressed, aside from the obvious similarities we carry, (both being immigrants & coming from a Hispanic household, coming from the same country etc), is that we came at different ages to this country. She came to New York when she was already a teenager, she was 16 years old to be exact.  Being already a teenager, it could have been harder for her to attain other cultural views, and mentality than what she had already learned and had been engraved in her back in her country. As opposed to me, I came here when I was 9 years old, so more of the American education and mindset stuck more to me than the strict, religious- stuck-up beliefs from my country had.  Another difference that might have influenced Ella’s and I’s perspective and reaction towards how to handle our sexuality is that, as I mentioned above, she is the first child, and in most cases first children are expected to set a good example for their younger siblings, in contrast to her, I grew up in a household of 3 being the middle child. This perhaps was an advantage for me, it allowed me to be more open about myself, since as middle child all the attention was not focused on me all the time. I was not expected to be the role model of anyone nor was I expected much to live under an “unassigned- assigned title”. Neither was all the attention and care focused on me because I wasn’t youngest, so I dare to say these differences contributed to why and how, our cultures affected our perspectives and decisions in different things in this case how we have both been handling our identity and how we both choose to share it or not. I’m a firm believer in legacies and the message people will like to get across either to inspire, or to teach others different perspectives from theirs, which is why I asked Ella as my final closing question, If she had to give an advise to those people who find themselves questioning their sexuality or that have thought to be of one sexual orientation their whole life and then find this belief to be challenged, what would  that advise be?,  to which she replied ; “ I would say that it is okay, it is normal to feel some type of way towards your same sex, we keep changing we keep evolving..”