[agolutuaddiff]

As a product of more than one culture, the obvious problem is that you don't identify fully with either of them -- in my case ANY of them as more than two are involved: one parent is European, one is Latin American; I have lived in three very different countries before coming to the DR.

Another aspect is that people cannot put you into a category they feel comfortable with, and often ignore you as a result. However, it also means they don't make crude assumptions about you based on stereotypes!

On the positive side it makes you grow up realising that much of nationalist and/or religious loyalty is meaningless and stupid: there is no one identity that is superior to another, just DIFFERENT.

Many of us here are foreigners of one type or another married to Dominicans, so our children will face these issues. Also children of expats growing up in the Dominican Republic, and Dominicans raising their children in other countries. In these days when travel is so much more widespread it'll happen more and more, so being of a mixed background will cease to be unusual.

Edited to add one more thought: also that world culture is becoming more homogenous so there is more that people have in common as a result of globalisation: watching the same TV channels, visiting the same websites, eating the same food, working for the same multinationals, wearing the same labels.
These are not all good things in my opinion but it makes for more common ground between people of 'different' cultures.


Chirimoya