Building Bridges to Survival: Reflections on this Writer’s Ethnic Identity

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture, but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.
Dom Delillio

But writing allows us inside . . . others and knits us together as a human species.
Julia Alvarez


The question of how I identify myself—ethnically-speaking—is a persistent one. Readers often bring up the topic. I believe this is because every booklover understands that a writer’s ethnic and national identity helps to shape the lens through which he or she views the world. Moreover, readers are acutely aware that a writer’s self-perception plays a vital role in his or her literary obsessions.

In my case, these things are absolutely true.

When it comes to the way I’ve identified myself ethnically, I’ve swung from a pendulum. I’ve changed the cultures, and drastically, with which I identify at given moments of my life. During my first eleven years, spent in Los Angeles, I was an “American”—without question or apology. My upbringing in the United States, as well as with my being a product of the public school system, heavily filtered the way I viewed and interpreted the world. Although I was aware that my parents’ roots made me unique, Nicaragua was a part of their world, not mine. My blood—the blood of a native Californian—ran red, white, and blue. And although I was of Latino descent, I considered myself part of mainstream “America.” As a result, I saw the world the way most “Americans” did.

Then my family moved to Nicaragua.

Because my parents couldn’t afford to enroll me in that country’s only U.S.-accredited school, they placed me in an all-boys, Spanish-speaking, Catholic school. But what at first seemed a tragedy—to not to be able to continue my education in the American way—turned out to be a blessing, a stroke of great fortune. If I had attended the U.S. school, I would have remained an “American,” and I would have never become acculturated into the world of my ancestors.

In my new school I was the only English-speaking person (and this includes my English teachers.) While growing up in the States I had only spoken Spanish with relatives; because of this my skills in the language were childlike: my vocabulary was limited and my knowledge of Spanish grammar non-existent. During my first months in Nicaragua my conjugation of verbs, in tenses and forms yet to be invented, elicited howls of laughter, particularly from my new classmates. The dread of being teased forced me to adapt, otherwise I would live the life of an isolated cultural freak.

Thankfully, within six months (Oh, the prowess of childhood to adjust to new circumstances!), I had embraced the language, the culture, the history, and the people of my heritage. And after only a couple of years, I had, for the purpose of self-identification, become fully Nicaraguan.

A Nicaraguan: this was how I would identify myself for decades to come. It wasn’t until I was in my late-thirties, nearly twenty years after I had returned to the States, that I started to acknowledge that an “American” also dwelled within me. Although in retrospect it seems logical, as well as inevitable, that the hyphenated designator of Nicaraguan-American would become my identifier, the Nicaraguan within me, the Latin American who was proud of his heritage, fought against sharing this hallowed inner space. That part of me feared, I believe, that the totally acculturated “American” I had been in childhood would take over, and completely. Of course it didn’t, but the “American” side of me has certainly become increasingly assertive as the years advance. Still, the benefits of accepting my hyphenated identity have far outweighed any losses: it is as a Nicaraguan-American that I started to believe that, as a writer, I had stories to share through this new lens with which I viewed the world.

But another shift has taken place in my self-identification, a slight yet significant change. I will soon celebrate my eighth year anniversary of living in Panama. While I could never consider myself Panamanian (not because I don’t wish to, but at my age the honor eludes me), I am once again embracing another culture, another history, another people. Both my wife and I are happy to call this nation our home, and our stay here seems permanent. Perhaps I will never see as clearly through my Panamanian lens as I do through the American and Nicaraguan ones, but I now understand Panamanians. (And isn’t this what a writer of fiction does, inhabit the identities of his or her characters’ so their actions are utterly believable within a determined cultural context?)

So, where am I now regarding my ethnic identity?

I’m honest when I reply that I am not entirely sure. At this point in my life, pinpointing the manner in which I categorize myself is no longer of great importance to me, (although the question does seem to matter to some readers). What I do know is that when I visit California, I no longer feel Californian; when I visit Nicaragua, I no longer feel Nicaraguan; and when I walk the streets of Panama, I'm certain I'm not Panamanian. It seems then that, today, I’m an outsider wherever I am.

But this tribal limbo is not altogether unpleasant. In fact, I quite enjoy the distance I’ve acquired through the years regarding my need to subscribe to a particular culture. It appears that in the process of becoming a writer, I’ve freed myself of the call to blend into a mass identity. I’m now treasure being an individual,an cultural free-agent. And through my writings, my ethnic self-perception—as well as my ability to understand others—has evolved. I’ve inched closer to a sort of human nirvana—writing has become a bridge, essential to my survival, which is leading me to try to develop a genuine kinship with every human being I encounter.