Falsifiable Subjectivity

A Cultural Transition (Final)

I have always considered my upbringing to be quite disparate from the prototypical child of this country, but I’m not always certain the reasons why this is true. Perhaps it was because by the time I was around eight years old or so “I had been diagnosed with Malaria more times than I had eaten at Pizza Hut,” this was a random statistic that I would tell teachers and my third grade classmates at Frontier Elementary school, a phrase that I learned to skillfully articulate when they would ask me about my early childhood. I believed this a clever string of words, that would help them garner an understanding of just how foreign Colorado Springs was to me, and how remarkably alienated I was there. I probably formulated more phrases that were similar to this one, but the one about Pizza Hut I remember most distinctly. Unfortunately, with my limited childhood understanding, I had no idea that almost all of these attempts were completely in vain, and regardless of my struggle, no one would ever really comprehend the cultural transition that I had experienced, and even more importantly, the cultural transition that I was yet to experience.

If you are still dwelling on the fact that I had malaria, just realize that it wasn’t ever considered a life threatening illness from my families’ perspective all the years we stayed in Ghana, which is because we had access to medication and information to easily treat this disease spread by the local mosquitoes. Not that having malaria was a walk in the park, because I assure you it was hell for about two weeks, but because of our resources we had the luxury of not worrying about its menacing capabilities.

            The reason for our life in Ghana was because my parents were vocational missionaries there, probably one of the few occupations that would cause a self-sufficient American family to leave the safe haven that resides within the borders of their own country, and pioneer into the uncertainties of the realities outside of their comfort zone. They maintained an astounding amount of faith all the years we were there, and even though this is something I wouldn’t fully understand until years later when I developed a faith of my own, I realized that this faith they had was all that was enabling us to live there. They decided it was time for my family to leave because my siblings were approaching the age for secondary schooling, and to set us up for success, it was necessary to move us back in America to get us adequately educated, and perhaps the continually increasing health risks helped spark the decision.

Malaria and a lack of America’s most notarized Pizza place were probably two of the least significant culture shocks when I moved from Ghana to, a place within close proximity to the geographical heart of the United States, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Absolutely everything was different. I say this emphasizing the fact that Ghanaians and Americans themselves were probably the most notably varied, because I have discovered that a culture is facilitated through the people living in it, and is a product of their attitudes and compassions.

Looking back I truly feel blessed to have made the move, but more importantly I feel blessed to have transitioned when I did. I had just turned eight years old when my parents told me we would be moving within the year, but this truth did not become a reality until I boarded the plane. I think it was an early morning and I remember walking through the desolate airport briskly because we were running slightly behind schedule, all the while my parents were taking care of the logistics, such as tickets and luggage, and all other airport obligations that permit international boarding.

 This must not have been easy for my parents, not because of airport procedures, but because they had to do it while juggling their three children, who were also my 12 year old brother, Grady, and my 10 year old sister, Charity. My siblings seemed to be handling the move with a blissful sense of apathy, or perhaps it was excitement, either way it was dreadfully derisive, because they were totally ignorant to the heavy and inevitable ramifications of culture shock that would become palpably real in the sequential months and years to come.

This leads me to a point of clarification, yes the culture shock was difficult, but it would have been much more difficult if I had been a little bit older, like the age of my older brother. He came home at a socially challenging time to say the least, and because of the teasing nature of fellow classmates and peers, it caused some slight psychological issues down the road (I think a brief series of therapy sessions to deal with anger in his latter adolescence, but out of sensitivity for him, no one in my family ever told me this directly). I don’t remember too much about how the rest of my family handled the transition, but I think my father and mother handled it okay, mostly because they were preoccupied with work and kids respectively. However, sometimes I think that this preoccupation was not healthy, because my parents might have let obligations hide the transitional difficulties they suffered from the transition.

Transitioning at an age that was socially reasonable certainly eased the anxiety caused by the culture shift, because peers in a grade school are much more forbearing of social grievances at this age (something I find evidence for now as I work at an afterschool program for elementary aged kids). However, one difficulty I distinctly remember was my inability to really contribute to social situations. It seemed that in this academic environment of learning and concrete operational development, the ruling precedent, existing in its truest of forms, was knowledge equals power. When I went to elementary school, which was a quaint, modular constructed establishment, I knew absolutely nothing about American culture. I did not know how to throw a football, or was I familiar with any of the characters from the Nickelodeon channel’s popular comedy show “All That.” But most importantly, I did not know how children my age related with each other in the United States. These are just a few miscellaneous examples of some things I didn’t know, but there was an indefinite quantity of facts that I needed to be briefed on before I would have the adequate and ample “ammo” to be found socially acceptable (or maybe even socially identifiable), rather than socially inept.

I think that I did eventually attain some intermittent successes, for example I learned to play football at recess, which helped me fit in with the other boys. I was never able to compete with a high athletic ability, but I found pride in my achievement of mediocrity, which permitted me to act a little more comfortably with my classmates. When I discovered my football philosophy, which was a venture to obtain the “social middle class,” would become my goal in most interactive situations. Unlike the predominant amount of my classmates, who strove to achieve the distinguishable title of “the most popular,” I sought for silver rather than gold, being perfectly content with being accepted as a normal cohort. It is funny to think about how heavily influential this mindset was, for it became ingrained deeply within my social cognition, lasting until my latter teenage years. This is something I had not realized until my mother pointed it out one day when I was renting a prom tux at the Chapel Hills Mall my junior year of high school.

“Are you sure this is what you want? You can still change your mind if you don’t like it,” expressed the cashier with the essence of a professional concern in her voice. She was referring to the personalized tux I had requested during my fitting. My selection was hardly vogue and cliché at best, the conventional black slacks with the black balmoral dress shoes, completed with an ordinary white shirt with a patterned silver bowtie and vest.

“Yeah this is fine,” I replied, realizing that this combination of clothes would be quite similar to most of the other suits that would be worn to the dance.

Then, without missing a beat, my mother chimed in saying, “Yeah Jeremy makes more of an effort to blend in rather than stand out,” having previously talked about how boys with more boisterous and outgoing personalities would pick suits that were “louder.” At the time I didn’t utter a word, because I knew what my mother said was true, but I wouldn’t understand that this was an underlying truth revealed about my temperament, and its reign over my life was actually sparked during my time of adjustment in the United States.  The personality that I meticulously built over the years was my method of self defense, constructed to help make transitioning easier.

I have emphasized that understanding these things had taken an extensive amount of time, and as a twenty year old college student at the University of Northern Colorado I am still coming to clench these actualities as they float into the realm of my self-psychological awareness. One insight at a time, emerging slowly out of the dark depths in a sea of confusion, becomes boldly visible during a floundering struggle to surface, and buoyantly maintaining once my conscious has thoroughly wrapped itself around this revelation of sorts.

This conjectural analogy of the ocean harmoniously correlates with my story, because the Atlantic Ocean is quite literally, in the physical and geographical sense, what separates me from my childhood. I remember starring at it long and hard as we flew over it on our way to Douglas International Airport, in Charlotte, North Carolina. As I was already forgetting the sweet memories I had made in Ghana, still obviously ignorant to what lay ahead in the future, I was trapped in this moment that lay somewhere between, starring down at the dawdling ocean. Sometimes I still feel this way, in a perpetual state of adjustment, never fully feeling that America is my home.

Looking back I realize that I romanticize my short lived childhood memories in Ghana, probably in a similar fashion that one would remember an old friend. Despite unfavorable or mundane qualities that this person was comprised of in real life, you will remember them as the relationally impeccable individual that never let you down. This is the lens that outlooks my childhood and my transition to the United States, it is an old friend that with whom I shared an ample amount of memories, both good and bad. Though there was significant pain when I left my home, I view this relationship as more amicable than acrimonious, because collectively it composed me into the inscrutable person that I am today. Because of this I am greatly appreciative, and I firmly believe there was intent to bring me through all of this. Whatever the intent was, I will not ever completely know, but I can say that the transition served me well and it made “me” who I am today, whether or not it was what a child should go through.