On the border of cultures

Many of the insights into primarily the first generation individual's cultural experience that are summarized here by author Chrysoula Econompoulos rang true for me.

Generally, 'marginality', or being both of and not of a culture, can be both a good and bad thing. An individual can be in a state of multiplicity[Bennet], a state of confusion over values, ideals, cultural frame of reference.

But an individual can also use insider/outsider status to become an able social critic. In this type of marginality, the individual can shift between values and cultural frames of reference, to make informed and independent decisions and choices. He or she feels at home with ambiguity and makes a commitment to relativism. This type of individual can become very important in this modern, interculutral, nomadic world, because they can provide a bridge between cultures, and are at home with ethnorelativism.

While I sometimes continue to struggle with a coherent sense of self, and values, I intellectually appreciate the power of ethnorelativism to avoid provincialism, provide perspective, etc. However, I don't really feel the truth of the argument. That is, I am not so much making a commitment to relativism, and ambiguity, as drowning in it. Rather, to be really honest, I am in a rejectionist position in that I much prefer, empathize with, etc., my Irish life: summers spent there, and having lived in Dublin twice as an adult. I find it hard to practice the sense of self, security, and confidence here in the US that I can there.

In other words, I want to explore more readings about those who are not stuck between two places per se, but stuck in one and longing for the other.

Tangentially, I wonder about this concept of the power of relativism. Relativism in terms of values, morals, philosophy, is usually a suspect thing. Relativism flies in the face of conviction. The marginal man or woman in this way suffers symptoms interestingly related to modernity's, loss of center, malaise [prof. John Lye, Fiction and the Immigrant Experience]:

the plight of the immigrant, and the twentieth-century sense of dislocation and loss in a world without ontological ground, are very similar.

Of course, my situation does not exactly match a discussion of first generationals, since I was born and raised in US with a US father. I would love to get stats on:

1. the children of one US parent, one foreign, living in the US
2. that have had extensive experience in travelling in/living in the 'old country'
3. what type of jobs do they take?
4. Are they suffering from multiplicity?
5. Or are they successful relativists, constructively choosing their values and identity?
6. Do they disproportionately suffer any emotional illnesses?
7. Are they liminalist in their pursuits? IE, Professions both insider/outsider, like priest, reporter, artist, writer, politician?

More on all of this and other related readings later.

Slan