Identities in Transit
BY CARLOS JOSÉ PÉREZ SÁMANO ON JULY 22, 2021
Carlos José Pérez Sámano writing on his notebook. (Photo courtesy of Carlos José Pérez Sámano)
I write by hand because it tires me. Because it makes me think better before I get a word out of my body and onto the page. I write by hand because moving the bracelets on my wrist involves effort. Sina bif na mtu (I have no problems with anyone). My bracelets protect me. They pull me, through their sound, to freedom. I can't do anything without them ringing. Their constant musical presence makes me aware of my actions. And writing is a political action.
If today I dare to move the weight of my hands, it is to talk about identity. And if I dare to talk about identity, it is because I cannot define my own. As I sit in an airport bar, despite the noise, it is worthwhile to move my hand. I must do it, even if it catches the attention of the people sitting next to me. I will accept their glances. Because I know I am in a place of movement and transit. A place much like the state of my own identity.
I came to what you call America, a place where not having a defined identity corners you to only be able to express yourself in undefined spaces, such as poetry. A space of dislocation and transmutation. The United States does not generate identities, it destroys them. It absorbs them in generalizations, it dissolves them.
“ We the people with identities in transit, the immigrants of this country, are a pendulum trying to touch both extremes at the same time.”
Anyone who has been transplanted, whether voluntarily or forcibly, sooner or later ends up becoming a poet. And I am not only referring to moving between geographical locations. It applies to any move, to any transformation, to any crack of doubt that knocks down structures of stability. As when they call you on the phone to tell you that there has been an accident, your son died. And the time Human Resources cut the budget, and suddenly you were fired, or when your best friend fucked your boyfriend. In an instant your reality is unhinged. That's when you wonder who you are, and more often than not, you won't have the answer.
The thing is that to define our identity we need a certain level of stability. Think about quantum physics, for instance. Particles behave differently when observed them, than when we stop looking at them. This means that at the quantum level, there is no objective reality. We depend on others' observations to define us. If we cannot even define what is real, how can we define who we are?
We are what we believe others believe about ourselves. Yet, at the same time, we are what we constantly convince ourselves to be. A mirror that instead of reflecting is simply transparent.
We are the mixture of what we have been, what we will never be, and what we are going to be. With all the possibilities in between.
That is why travelers, immigrants and adventurers are the first to experience—straight from the horse's mouth, the fluidity of identity. We have the uncertainty of the moment at an arm's length, the deceptive balance, the possibility of paradox and oxymoron.
We are, and yet, at the same time, we are not.
“We are the mixture of what we have been, what we will never be, and what we are going to be. With all the possibilities in between.”
When I arrived in the United States I was surprised by the Mexican people who identify with ancestral cultures and even practice Mesoamerican dances. Now, I am one of them. But, sometimes I am not. Over time, one accepts one's demonym, especially when abroad. And one finds in pre-Hispanic cultures a way to share identity with those who come from the same place. Even when one knows that label doesn’t present the whole picture either.
I am the most Mexican of my non-Mexican friends, and the most mzungu (aimless wanderer) among my African friends. I am the fresa (bougie) among the nacos (tacky), and the naco among the fresas.
Because We the people with identities in transit, the immigrants of this country, are a pendulum trying to touch both extremes at the same time. And in the process, we are much more and much less than we think we are.
That is why today I am writing by hand, here in a bar at New York's JFK airport, while I am on my way to France to present an opera that speaks of Mexican culture. Because despite not even knowing what it is to be Mexican, or even what it is to be me, it is worthwhile to keep exploring. Because identities are built along the way. Because if I dare to talk about Mexican culture in an opera in France, it is because even if I don't know who I am, being Mexican has been part of my identity since my first breath, since I began to move my hands, as I do now, to express who I am.
