My Hybrid Identity

 

I was split between two worlds.  When my family moved to Upstate New York it was all so new and strange to me, since I had been born in Northern New Jersey.  The Upstate New Yorker’s had their own language.  They called the soft drink “pop” but back in New Jersey we called it “soda”.  Can you imagine my humiliation when I asked my friend for a sip of his “soda”?  They never let me forget that.  Even at graduation, as  a “joke” they gave me a six pack of “soda” (it was six boxes of Arm and Hammer baking soda – very funny).

But when I went back to New Jersey, I didn’t fit in there either.  When I asked my  cousins in New Jersey if they wanted to go out for a grinder they laughed and laughed because they had no idea what a grinder was.  “You mean a meat grinder or a metal grinder?” they laughed at me, because in New Jersey they are called heroes, hoagies or subs.  But not grinders.

For my graduation, my cousins gave me a safety helmet, a piece of metal and a metal grinder with a carbon bit.  “Have at it, Cuz,” they said.

They thought they were just being cute.

But it hurt me so deeply inside.  I was forever scarred by the cultural differences between where I was born and where my family moved to.  And this is what is called a hybrid identity.  It really hurts so badly.  But it’s also really, really special.     

I am special.

And that’s what you will read about in this book.  About how special and how hurt I am.  But how I’m going to be OK because now I embrace my hybrid identity.

Of course, when it came time to date, it was not so funny.  My parents, like most immigrants from New Jersey, wanted me to date a hot Jersey Girl.  They even introduced me to Snookie.

“Isn’t she hot?” they said. 

“But she’s from down the shore, not North Jersey,” I pointed out.

“Close enough, son,” my Dad said.  “Just so long as you don’t date any of these Upstate New York sluts.

Little did he know, I was already dating an Upstate New York slut.

His name was Daniel, but that’s a whole other story you will have to wait for, when I publish my

Homosexuality Memoir, next year.

My Hybrid Identity, coming autumn of 2018.