Celebrated novelist Amy Tan, once wrote in her novel The Joy Luck Club, “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” As comforting as this quote may be to those immigrants who fear that the American culture shall envelop all foreign traditions or cultures, eradicating and abolishing any trace of the mother country from the immigrants, I refute Tan’s claim for the simple reason that one’s culture is not an adornment to be removed or applied at one’s pleasure; it is also not a strand etched in our DNA, never to be altered or removed but simply a present, stationary article of being. One’s culture is a living entity, it breathes with us, moves with us. It does not do for us to take it for granted that our cultures will always cling to our souls like a shadow. A culture is like a plant that must be pruned and trimmed, like a plant it must be loved, and like a plant it must see the light.

  As an Arab-American, I have always had no choice but to maintain two different identities, uphold two different cultures, and sustain two different languages. Given the drastic differences between the American personality and Middle Eastern personality, the previous tasks have proven to be quite arduous. I hold nothing but the deepest gratitude for my parents who have always sought to maintain the Arabic language and Arab traditions in our family. However, I once again return to my claim that culture is not an object. Surely having the ability to speak, write, and read in two languages is quite necessary to maintaining the ethnicity of the mother country. Nevertheless, it is equally necessary to learn how to apply this culture, this ethnicity, in every-day life. If kept hidden, stashed away like a broken toy or a malfunctioning computer, an object to be ashamed of, to be shown only when one returns to his or her mother country, then this culture will fade away until it becomes nothing. As an immigrant, I learned over time that trying to race between my two identities, exchanging one for the other, will do more harm than good. I learned that I cannot choose which culture to use or when to use it, just like one cannot change physical appearance at will. Instead, I discovered that I must have one identity, one unique character that is neither Egyptian nor American. I tried to choose the best qualities from each identity. I tried to choose the best values and the most important strengths, in my opinion. To say that I have succeeded would be far from the truth. However, I must say that I found the sensation of establishing a set personality where I do not feel remorseful or fearful of insulting either country or identity, to be quite pleasurable. I finally started to feel that an immigrant could develop a character of his or her own; a character that is more distinguishable and unique than those of American citizens or foreign citizens. This belief is further asserted by Morrie Shcwartz in Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom where Shcwartz states about culture, “Every society has its own problems. The way to do it, I think, isn’t to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.”

Thus, I strengthen my argument that, for an immigrant, although one’s family does play a role that is by no means diminutive, his or her culture is not the family. One’s culture is one’s character, one’s personality. It does not do to be ashamed of one’s culture. Countless immigrants live in the United States, all the while pretending to be Americans. I beseech these immigrants to understand that there is no such person as an “American,” to say otherwise would be pure folly. What differentiates an American from a Briton is his or her values, traditions, and culture. If a Polish woman immigrates to the United States and pretends to be American-born, then she neither belongs to Poland nor to the United States. If a  young Spanish boy immigrates to the United States and pretends to be American, then he loses his Spanish identity as well as any hope of an American identity, he becomes less than a ghost, a person with no identity, no character; not unlike a soup with no flavor or a painting with no color. If this Spanish boy takes it for granted that his Spanish culture will remain engrained in his bones, will cling to his mind, then he is quite mistaken.

In conclusion, I bear no grudge against the values on which Americans are raised, nor have I ever considered my culture or background to be superior to that of American citizens. I merely seek to instill in every immigrant a feeling of pride in his or her background, for it is no less than that of any other country in the world. It may be altered and it may be pruned, but it may not remain in the darkness, at the back of our minds, like a memory long forgotten, because there it will not survive. An immigrant belongs to both America and the native country. We must take the values from each country and mix them to create something new, quite like how mixing two colors creates a new color that is unique in its own qualities. We must not rely on our culture being in our “blood,” for there it will suffer until it fades into oblivion. We also must not believe our families represent our cultures. We must, to use the common phrase, “own” our cultures. Using a culture as a façade to be used and then thrown away, is an insult to one’s country and background. It must instead remain as a unique mindset, a unique collection of beliefs and values. Finally, I return to my original claim that a culture cannot be hoarded or otherwise presumed that it will always remain there, a stationary, inanimate object for it can quite easily be changed or lost, and once it is lost, it can never again be found.

– Ayah Gouda