Cultural anxieties and being Hispanic at Duke
(11/10/14 11:17am)
“So is it okay if I call you Mexican?”
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“So is it okay if I call you Mexican?”
In case you didn’t know, today marks one of the happiest times of the academic year. I was informed earlier via Yik Yak that bookbagging is upon us and, to be honest, this is probably the most excited I’ve been this entire weekend. I should probably reflect on this fact more in depth at a later time. As I’m writing this, it’s not yet midnight but the anticipation has been building for hours.
I’m terrible with birthdays.
Once I became acclimated to living on campus, accustomed to its unique characteristics and quirks, I made a solemn vow to never in the entirety of my live on Central Campus. It was nothing personal—I just felt strongly that it was a horrible, terrible, miserable place to exist. Within the first few months of freshmen year, I had collected horror stories about the pitfalls of central living—sporadic bat invasions, questionable uninvited intruders and apartments that were both not meant to be permanent fixtures and occasionally flooded.
There are few things I enjoy more about the beginning of the school year than early move-in. It is truly a beautiful time. Campus is empty, desolate and lonely—I love it. It gives me the opportunity to do things I don’t normally have the chance to during the semester—walk through the gardens, read Hemingway, exercise.
It occurred to me today that my half-a-summer abroad experience is coming to a close. Eleven days. That's all I have left here. In a mere week and a half, I''ll be heading back to California to live out a quasi-normal lifestyle until school starts back up again. And, with the onslaught of final exams amongst other activities, I am sure these next eleven days will fly by just as the past five weeks have. As with any significant long-term endeavor, it's always interesting to reflect on what the experience has meant to me. And, so, I look back fondly on the group of 23 strangers who somehow managed to tolerate, and even appreciate, each other's company, on the historical sites that moved me and educated me and on the language that has served as a constant source of frustration but also victory.
Sometimes I reminisce on days when summer was the pinnacle of relaxation and a time to embrace an unabashedly sloth-like lifestyle. That was the norm when I was a child. Then I got to high school and realized that colleges would not be impressed to know I spent my summer lounging around all day in my pajamas, eating ice cream and watching The Maury Show or whatever movie was playing on HBO. Then I got to college, and the pressure to spend my summer being a productive member of society while also developing myself professionally increased ten-fold. For many of us, summer is anything but a time to relax. Indeed, each time around, the busyness of the school year bleeds into summer and we face this intense pressure to accomplish something undeniably impressive—to volunteer (traditionally abroad with lots of small children to snap pictures with), do important research, land that coveted internship or, at the very least, take some summer classes.
Now that we’re a few weeks into summer, the typical cache of “Look, I’m abroad!” photos have begun to circulate across various forms of social media. While I may have found this annoying last year, now I can’t help but relish in it—probably because I’m now a part of it. Six days ago, I packed my bags and took off for my own adventure abroad through Duke’s Intensive Spanish in Alicante program. Since I’m not going abroad in the Fall, I felt compelled to spend my summer doing all the abroad-y things that my peers will be doing during the coming semester while I’m in Duke in Durham. Plus, I have zero foreign language credits so I figured I should probably get started on that. Located right along the Mediterranean, Alicante is a relatively small city in southeast Spain where young locals and American college students run rampant. In other words, six weeks of sun, fun and general debauchery (plus a grueling course load).
I have reached that point in the semester where I find myself consistently hating everything and everyone at all hours of the day. I returned from Spring Break mentally relaxed and physically bludgeoned (learning to snowboard took a toll on my body), only to find that during my time off I had somehow managed to fall behind on seemingly all aspects of my life. Now, in my haste to catch up, keep up and get ahead, I can’t help but feel unbearably overwhelmed and overstressed. And from the looks of it, I’m not the only one. Almost instantaneously, everyone seems so busy all of a sudden. With less than four weeks of classes left, we’re all trying to finish strong. And as the end of the semester closes in, I can’t can’t help but notice an increase in the types of conversations that have become standardized here:
I am not a social media person. I don’t understand Twitter, I refuse to get a Snapchat, and I only check Instagram because I follow a user from Japan who posts captivating and visually stunning pictures of cats. So when my friends tried to convince me to download Tinder this past weekend while we were at a conference in D.C., I immediately judged them, mostly because as far as I could tell this was an app designed for creepy old men and sexually frustrated college students. Nevertheless, whether because of peer pressure or sheer boredom, I succumbed to their demands. And almost instantly, I became obsessed.
Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that inexplicably puzzle me. I have never understood why people without current love interests are so hostile toward the day. As someone spending her 19th consecutive Valentine’s Day single, I can honestly say I have never felt self-conscious or particularly more aware of my relationship status specifically because it was Valentine’s Day. Regardless, since love is technically in the air, I thought I would take this time to talk about all the loving, healthy and mutually beneficial relationships I see here at Duke—and then I realized, this is Duke. Ain’t no one got time for that.
As a human being, I function horribly in large groups. I know I can be quite the rambunctious one, but throw me into a huge group of random strangers and I’ll completely shut down. I’ll be awkward, shy and give off the impression that being alive makes me physically uncomfortable. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that this probably stems from an inherent, deeply-rooted fear that nobody likes me. And I understand that, unlike my fear of sharks, mold and being locked in a freezer, this particular fear is actually kind of ridiculous. I know I have friends and people who think I’m pretty great, but that doesn’t prevent the nagging voice in my mind from telling me that I’m a loser and destined for a life of desolate loneliness. At this stage in my life, I can usually get over it and become my normal, social self, but sometimes I still find it difficult to be thrust into a new environment where I don’t know anyone.
The start of the semester: a time when I'm supposed to be at least mildly competent because it's too early to really screw anything up yet. I had high hopes for this year, as I always do. I was going to be more attentive in class, develop my relationships, evade unnecessary drama and try to avoid having a mental breakdown. And I was confident this semester would begin smoothly.
It was nearly 3:00 p.m. and I had yet to officially get out of bed. I was awake, yes, but it would be a stretch to claim I was a fully functioning human being. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t showered. I had barely moved. My only social interaction was with my two cats that were curled up next to me on my bed. My mother tried several times to wake me up, to convince me that there was more to life than the slums of my room, but her efforts were futile. I was content, happy even, to remain snuggled under the covers in a manner that resembled that of a lethargic, overgrown slug.
I really like the sight of blood. Not other people’s blood of course (because that would be creepy), just my own. So naturally, I was super excited to find out there’s a blood drive going on at the Bryan Center this week because, quite frankly, I LOVE giving blood. The first time I donated I nearly fainted on the floor of my high school. The second time I actually did faint when I went to the gym the next morning, and my fitness instructor thought he had inadvertently murdered me. Nowadays, I have a variety of bodily reactions to blood giving, but regardless of what happens, I always come back for more. My often-vocalized affinity for donating blood results in an array of reactions. Some people think I’m weird. Others show concern for my sanity. But mostly, people are just perplexed as to how anyone could enjoy getting vital fluids sucked out of them. So behold: the top three reasons I love giving blood.
After two weeks of crystal beaches, endless calamari and awkward sunburns, I am pleased to report that I survived South Africa and have returned from my trip abroad. For those who missed my last column, I’ve been chilling in South Africa for the past two weeks as part of my Duke Immerse program, doing things like embracing the culture and learning stuff. Hooray for Duke-funded educational excursions!
I love Duke, but sometimes I just need to get the hell out. Lucky for me, I’m part of a nifty school funded program called Duke Immerse where I get to take a two-week trip abroad. So, seven days ago, I and 11 other cranky, sleep deprived and possibly hung over Duke students boarded a shuttle at 3:00 a.m. to make our flight out of Raleigh. And now, I’m writing from South Africa ya’ll! But with three separate flights, 22 hours of flying and 29 hours of total travel time, I feel like I’ve spent way too much time either flying or at an airport.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to love someone as much as I love my cats. Anyone that knows me can attest to my affinity for both talking about my two cats and shamelessly forcing people to look at pictures of them on my phone. People are okay and all, but there’s something about cats that spur my unwavering love and devotion in ways human beings just can’t. My parents got me my first kitten when I was 7 years old, and even though I discovered his rotting corpse in the bushes after he got hit by a car a few months later, my adoration for felines has persisted ever since. And while most people fear becoming a crazy cat lady when they get older, I enthusiastically plan on it.
Sometimes I feel like I can’t see what’s right in front of me. I don’t mean this metaphorically; I really can’t see what’s right in front of me. Three years ago, my optometrist told me that my vision sucked, and I would need glasses. I told him no. While plenty of people transform into sexy librarian-esque models when they put on a pair of spectacles, I am unfortunately not one of those people. I allowed my vanity get the best of me and told this to my optometrist, and while there was definitely some subtle judging going on, he ended up prescribing contacts instead.
Twelve years ago yesterday, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center after being hijacked by terrorists. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon. And a fourth into the fields of Pennsylvania. I was only seven years old but that morning has been permanently etched into my mind. I was throwing a tantrum because I couldn’t find my favorite pink tie-dye shirt. I went to my dad to complain but his eyes were so focused on the events unfolding on the television that he hardly even noticed me. I was a small child who didn’t get what she wanted, so in a rage I screamed hysterically and slammed my door. It was all so incredibly frivolous, yet amidst national terror it was all I cared about.