Alice Dehghanzadeh
Executive Content Editor
“Where are you from?” The age-old question I dread answering. My mother is a Polish immigrant, my father a Persian one, while I was born and raised in England, and I now live in the United States and have resided there for the past seven years. In a world obsessed with origins, I’ve always struggled to pick one. It’s not that none of these options fit, it’s that none of them feel quite whole. I’m from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
As a child, I was envious of those with cookie cutter lives, specifically people whose parents were both British and with grandparents that were just a short drive away. Spending time together didn’t involve calculations of time differences, or translation help from Mom and Dad. Their last names were simple, like “Smith” or “Jones,” and easy to pronounce. My last name, “Dehghanzadeh,” has never been pronounced exactly like how it’s supposed to sound, even when I try to pronounce it, and only my dad’s side of the family can properly pronounce the Persian name.
While other families have the typical holidays, I celebrate Polish Christmas Eve on the 24th, with pierogi and borscht. In March, I celebrate the Persian New Year, Nowruz, by jumping over bonfires and helping my parents create the Haft-Seen table. My new American traditions come into play too, with the Fourth of July being completely foreign to my British friends. Speaking of, my British accent is still as strong as it was when I left, but those same friends assert that I have grown into using common American terminology.
I used to think something was wrong with me. I used to believe that my identity was fragmented or broken into pieces. Trying to fit into one culture meant erasing the others, and I was never quite satisfied with defining myself into one box.
It only took me 22 years to realize that my identity isn’t fragmented, it’s a beautifully-patterned mosaic of who I am. I love the fact that I hold so many different traditions, that I can switch codes depending on who I’m with (like when I accept food from my dad’s side of the family even when I’m full), and that I’ve become fluent — yet still not language-wise — in all of them. I love to live in between worlds, dancing from one to another, or even combining cultures, carrying a little piece of each of them as I go. My identity is like a patchwork quilt made up of all the traditions and people I love.
I’ll admit, I still have bouts of imposter syndrome, like when I say “trolley” instead of “cart,” or when I mess up Polish grammar in front of my relatives. It’s hard to answer that first question because identity is almost never able to fit into just one simple sentence, especially when my origins don’t fit on one single pin on the map. My identity is stitched together through people, language, food, stories, and traditions.
When someone asks me where I’m from, it might be a complicated answer, but I’m proud of where I come from, and I’m proud of the people that guided me here. I wouldn’t be who I am today without my four corners of the world, without living as a walking contradiction yet also as a voyager across cultures. I think that belonging does not suffice to being from one single place, it’s a blend of all the cultures that make you whole as you learn to claim them all as one.