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I made this thread to bring attention to the threat of over-identifying. I myself have fallen to this terrible thing at one point in time.
Let's give an example:
Let's say we have a Mexican named Alfonso. Alfonso was raised as a Mexican, nothing else. His family has been in Mexico for hundreds of years and has a long and proud history. Before Mexico, Alfonso's family hailed from Italy and Spain. When his family settled in Mexico, they mixed with Zambos. Alfonso one day starts thinking of himself as Italian and Spanish instead of Mexican. He starts wanting to move to Europe, he starts wanting to speak Italian, and he starts considering himself something other than Mexican. Even to the point to where he may not consider himself Mexican at all. He falls into the fad that I call over-identifying or hyphenation. He now considers himself a Italo-Mexican and Spanish-Mexican. He is culturally confused. He starts boasting about his roots in Europe instead of his roots in Mexico.
This is just one example, a rather extreme, but common example of over-identifying.
Here is another:
and another:
(Map of people who consider themselves German-American)
and another:
St.Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago
This is a plague. A plague that I believe rose only recently. People stopped considering themselves Southern, Yankee, Cajun, Pennsylvania German, Creole, Brazilian, Mexican, Mormon, Argentine, Canadian, etc and instead opted for French-American, Italo-Brazilian, Spanish-Mexican, German-American, etc. Instead of recognizing that their ethnic groups were formed in the Americas, they opted to believe that they are not apart of a group formed in the Americas, but a group formed in Europe, Africa, etc.
So my advice to y'all is to be who you are. That is the one of the only ways to be comfortable in life. Don't fall into the trap of being culturally confused on who you are.
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