Me and my overlapping cultures

The section on culture identities are overlapping was very easy for me to relate to. Since I am from Puerto Rico, I was born and raised with the Puerto Rican Culture. We are all very close to our extended families and rather than spending new years with close friends, my family and I spend the whole New Years week with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Another part of my culture and I know this is for a lot of cultures outside of the United States is we don’t wait until 21 to go out and have some drinks. When I came here, things were different. I found myself to wanting to live in my culture even though I was here in a different culture. When I came here I was 18, I was no longer able to go out and get a drink. It is such a big deal here and that was something I was completely not used to. My girlfriend is from here, where she and all of her friends spend new years’ together, rather with their families. Not only was I in a foreign place for me and speaking a second language, I was also in a new culture with different traits, beliefs, and traditions. I found both my culture and this new one to be overlapping.

 It was definitely hard at first, I found all of these boundaries I had never experienced before, traditions I had never heard of, and phrases I just did not understand. I have been here for 3 years now and I have adapted to the culture here. When I go home I am happy to be in that culture again and everything I was born and raised in, but I have found a nice balance to dealing with the two cultures I now live in.