Everyone remembers their childhood as a time of wonder and of great discovery: one day you could be learning why it rains, and the next you might be cooking your first meal. It’s the time to observe and ask questions, to be eager to learn how the world works… It’s generally considered to be some of the best years of a person’s life.

My childhood was no different; I spent my days chasing after fish in tide pools, devouring every last book I could find in my grandmother’s house, and learning how to “belong” in a culturally blended island.

Even on an island with less than 200k inhabitants, Aruba has a unique combination of cultures, customs, and traditions. My family is also quite mixed, with hints of Cuban, French Creole, Sephardic Jew, British, Irish, Singaporean, and Arawak (Aruba’s indigenous people). 

Every new culture that was introduced to me was an adventure: my Cuban great-grandmother still loves to tell stories about how she stopped going to school as a pre-teen to stay home and Iook after her siblings, as she was the eldest, and also about her Jewish relatives in Spain who converted to Catholicism in order to escape persecution in the 1940s.

Or, if I wanted to, I could ask my father about his engagement in traditional Aruban music, and how he’s been performing dande (a genre of music that’s played only during New Year’s Eve in Aruba) for over three decades.

The cultural blend isn’t just limited to my family, though; my friends are also highly mixed. My first friends, whom I’m still close to, were Chinese: they taught me bits of Mandarin Chinese, and let me try their various cultural dishes. My other friends would talk about visiting their relatives in Jamaica, the Netherlands, Lebanon or Guyana. They’d show pictures of cultural celebrations, foods, and we’d exchange cultural values, reflect on our differences, and learn values which usually takes years’ worth of anthropological studies to fully grasp. 

This then poses a few questions: how does one “fit” in such a mixed society? Is everyone and their life story just puzzle pieces in a greater picture?

I struggled with these difficult questions a little during my high school years. During those crucial years of self-discovery, I learned how unique my background truly is, which also drew me closer to my Aruban traditions. I fell in love with the rhythm of tumba, and swayed to the low, soft tunes of an Aruban waltz. However, I made sure to also incorporate my other cultures as well: I celebrate the Jewish holidays every year, indulge in Cuban cuisine whenever I can, and often indulge in studies about the Arawaks. And that’s when I realized that to “fit” into a blended society is to find what works for you, and makes you feel at home.

Self-expression was, and still is, crucial for my journey into multicultural immersion. Cultures are deep and very blended, so a person can spend an entire lifetime figuring out how cultures work, and how to tie themselves in it. To figure out and truly understand how this works, I chose to pursue anthropology as one of my many passions. 

At the end of the day, I choose to view culture like a tapestry that I can wrap myself in: every stitch and design represents another tradition and story, forming a map of human interactions that span for centuries long.

Amanda Britten