Spanish culture seems to me to be such a diverse and inexhaustible topic that it is difficult to find some main points of contact with my identity since, to one degree or another, all of it occurs under the influence of national culture. I am aware that I think in my native language and the structure of the language determines the way I think. Whatever I think or try to say is influenced by Hispanic linguistic structures, semantic correlations and figurative-linguistic connectives that are deeply rooted in my mind. Thus I cannot separate my identity from my nation. Although I welcome the concept of global integration and interethnic interaction, I am not sure that I can fully call myself a citizen of the world. Perhaps this is the imprint of the culture I am a bearer of.
National pride and the importance of language are the cornerstones of our culture. The dialectical diversity of the Spanish language is so great that the language itself is of great importance to the national culture. Language turns out to be a way of intranational regional identification (Jordan, 2018). The concept of home seems so important for the Spaniards that it explains why the attachment to the country is in interaction with the commitment to the home region or province. In this, I see a certain limitation of my identity, which makes me feel somewhat pre-categorized without the possibility of changing some of the main distinguishing features of my personality.
It would be hard to deny that the Cultural Interaction program did not have a dual effect on me. On the one hand, I observe the difficulty of overcoming some psychological barriers in a conversation, both on my part and with my interlocutors from other cultures. However, this is precisely what shows me how people sometimes turn out to be similar to each other, regardless of nationality or even a sense of identity (Appiah, 2018). Each of us is trying to gesture towards another person and find common ground to reach mutual understanding. Periodically, I had an exaggerated feeling that culture could transcend national or local standards and be truly global if people were more willing to understand each other.
A new impression that I began to experience in the course of training in this program is the awareness of multiculturalism and the extreme diversity of national characteristics. To make it easier and more interesting for me to interact with the interlocutors, I preferred to be more careful in talking about personal topics and decided to ask them more about their national cultures. I was struck by the diversity of the world and its value because it expresses a particular culture’s authenticity. The global culture seemed to me to be something like a kind of ecosystem in which a person or a group of people can express one’s peculiarity (Bolton, 2019). The Spanish-speaking culture and its local derivatives are embedded in my wider picture of the world where the unique and authentic are valued, which is why it needs to be preserved and protected. This transcendental multicultural feeling is perhaps my main lesson learned from communicating with foreign peers. To understand the value of one’s national culture, one has to imagine it in dynamic interaction with other world cultures.
References
Appiah, K. A. (2018). The lies that bind: Rethinking identity. Liveright.
Bolton, K. (2019). Babel Inc: Multiculturalism, globalization, and the new world order. Black House Publishing
Jordan, B. (2017). Spanish culture and society: The essential glossary. Routledge.