Ni de aquí, ni de allá

On Identity, Language, and How We Learn to Navigate the World

For Izumi, Thiago and Gesú; whose friendships and conversations encouraged me to see identity beyond nationality and closer to language, experience, and expression.

Hey,

So, aside from being called a “traitor” or a “sell-out,” I’ve been wondering if there’s actually a name for people like us. You know, people who were born and raised in one country, but learned to navigate life in English. Not because we moved, but because we were immersed early. Like TV, pop culture, books, the internet... You name it. English wasn’t something we just studied. It was something we absorbed from a very young age and that allowed us to connect with the world from a different point of view.

Ever since I was young, my parents encouraged us to translate our homework from english enciclopedias. We could have gone to the library in my hometown. But that could put us girls in "harm's way". So we were taught to use our "Compton Interactive Enciclopedia" to do every research our very dominican and catholic school required.

Finally, Microsoft came up with Encarta but by the time we had it, these very curious teen girls had already developed a secret world in English. Hobbies, books, TV shows, music...

We were half dominicans, half cable TV.

Half Sabado de Corporán and half Disney channel.

So what about those of us who never left, but somehow crossed over anyway? The ones who connect so deeply to another language that we think in it first, then translate ourselves back into the other languages. What does that make us?

A very authentic photo of a bookshelf at Panamericana before showing it to my Chatgpt to help me choose a book according to my reading style and current mood

I was deep in my research trying for the Nth time to understand a little more about myself and found these terms:

1. Late bilingual / Sequential bilingual (with dominant immersion)

This is the technical term.You learned your first language at home, but English became dominant later through exposure, not relocation. TV, books, music, the internet, school materials. What makes you different is not when you learned English, but how deeply it embedded itself.

A lot of my friends fall on this category. 

2. Internalized second language / Cognitive bilingualism 

This isn’t a formal label you’ll see on Wikipedia, but it’s used in research to describe people who:

• think in their second language

• emotionally process in it

• narrate their inner life in itThen translate outward for others.

  
  

That “thinking in English, translating to the others” part I said? That’s key. That’s not basic bilingualism. That’s cognitive dominance. This is totally me and my sisters. At times, when we need to have a serious or emotional conversation we switch to English. (Sorry, we don't mean to piss you off with that)

3. Cultural bilingual / Pop-culture bilingual

This one is increasingly used in cultural studies.It refers to people who didn’t grow up abroad but were raised on:

• English-language media

• Anglo narratives

• Western internet cultureSo your references, humor, pacing, and emotional language come from a culture you didn’t physically live in.

  
  

You’re not third-culture. You’re cross-cultural without migration. This would totally match a lot of my friends who often consume jokes and music in english but not necessarily speak it as often.

4. Linguistic hybrid identity (this one is more poetic, but very accurate)

This describes people whose identity is shaped between languages, not across borders.You don’t fully belong to one linguistic worldview. You toggle. You code-switch internally. You sometimes feel like your thoughts are “ahead” of the language you’re speaking.

I've seen it a lot with two of my favorite people in the world (Thiago and Gesú... I loooove you guys!). As they speak more than two languages their identities move swiftly between english, spanish, portuguese and italian. It's a beautiful thing to witness when you look at the world with a little curiosity.

Most of the time, instead of judging people’s behaviors, I try my best to understand what scientific, linguistic, or sociological explanations might exist behind them. Not everything is a rejection. Not everything is arrogance. Not everything is someone trying to act “better than.” Sometimes, it’s simply the result of early exposure, culture, access, learning environments/styles, or the language in which curiosity was first allowed to grow. In my case, English opened a door of books and behaviors non-existent to me in dominican Spanish.

When we don’t have the words to describe a phenomenon, we often replace them with judgment. Tú no quieres hablar español. Tú eres un traidor de la patria. Tú no te crees latino suficiente. But many of these reactions come from not knowing how to name what we’re seeing in spanish or whatever your dominant language is. If there's something I would like for you to remember from my little research is this:

Language, identity, and cognition are shaped by systems much bigger than individual intention, and reducing them to loyalty tests erases that complexity.

Exploring these explanations is something I like to do constantly. Not to excuse behavior, and not to distance myself from my culture, but to understand the world more clearly and, in doing so, extend more empathy and love toward the people in it. 

Naming something doesn’t divide us. Sometimes, it’s exactly what allows us to stop judging and start understanding. If this essay does anything, I hope it invites a little more curiosity before judgment; toward others, and toward ourselves. And if that’s a way of looking at the world you’re interested in exploring, you’re welcome to stay and keep reading.