This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Agnes Scott chapter.
1. Every time your friends visited you had to explain to them in detail what they were eating and how to eat it.
2. Being called an American was never a good thing.
3. When it was time for guests to leave, they’d spend about an hour at the door saying goodbye.
4. When you were little, your friends’ parents made jokes about adopting you but at home your parents acted like it was the end of the world when you didn’t make your bed.
5. Dating? What is that? You’re a child. Go study.
6. You heard about when your parents were growing up every time you complained or did something wrong.
7. Family comes first.
8. You could write a history book with all the stories you know from your relatives and the hard times they’ve been through. (You have a lot of did you know’s or actually’s for your friends.)
9. Oh, your friend invited you out? Where? What time? With who? Will there be boys? Girls? Have your parents met before? How long will you be gone? Is this invitation at least a week ahead of time?
10. Talking back to your parents is a scary concept you couldn’t believe your friends ever did.
11. You constantly forget words in English so you avoid saying them or try describing a cantaloupe without saying the word and hope someone knows what you’re talking about.
12. Yet you know English better than your parents’ language(s).
13. Allowance? What is that? Free money? How does it work?
14. Your friends didn’t understand why you couldn’t “just sneak out.”
15. Remember those phone cards your parents used to call relatives? No one else does.
16. You constantly told your parents, “Yelling into the phone won’t help them hear you across the ocean.”
17. Especially when you were little, you were constantly culture shocked when visiting friends and seeing their behavior and traditions with their family.
18. It’s kind of cool having a “secret language” with your family.
19. The first time you went to Taco Bell was after high school because you rarely, if ever, ate out.
20. You hated going to restaurants with your culture’s food because it was rarely “real.”
21. It took years for you to start recognizing song names and bands because you grew up listening to music in your parents’ native language(s).
22. You say some words differently in English because you learned them from a foreign accent.
23. There were common expressions your friends used that you didn’t understand such as “riding shotgun” or “nose goes.”
24. You love your mixed culture!
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