I'm an American! Peace Corps Panama Challenges
This past week, while walking around in the community, I meet some people from the Embera indigenous community, which is about 2 hours hike or an hour boat ride from where I live. They too had a Peace Corps volunteer a few years ago and knew of the volunteers before me that worked in my site as well. However, I am the first biracial volunteer they have met. At first they said that I cannot be from the United States because my skin color is not like the previous volunteers and my hair is not blonde or my eyes are not blue. They were convinced that I am actually from Panama, a Colon native since many of the Panamanians near Colon are an Afro-Caribbean decent mixed with the various races here in Panama. I understood that due to their experiences with the previous volunteers, who were mainly Caucasian, I felt excited to explain to them that the USA is not a homogeneous country, but a mix of people from countries all around the world. Also, I explained that it is basically the same here in Panama. There are light skinned, dark skinned, or well many shades of Panamanians here, as well as a large Chinese population from when the canal was built. Though, they are all still Panamanian. Putting this into an analogy helped them understand better!
I wonder if people are ever offended or feel excluded from the group when someone thinks you are not from the USA? At first when these types of situations happened here in Panama, where people said I am not American because I do not look like I am an American, I felt the need to do more to prove that I am American! But I realize that this is not anything new because even in the USA people thought I was from another country like India, South America, or the Middle East (which is not even close to my background) but hey!, the United States is a melting pot of different cultures. Plus, it can be a great conversation starter and a fun opportunity to learn more about each others heritages :D
Wow this is amazing and I am so proud of you. I love to see my classmates being successful and positive. It's amazing how God works because today I was thinking, I wonder what happened to Megan because I haven't seen you post on Facebook in like forever. Well, it just so happened that today I saw a post from you that led me to your blog and now I realized why you haven't been on social media, you've been busy helping others through the peace corps. What's really a coincidence is I was telling my grandmother the other day I was thinking about mission work and doing something like peace corps. Wow. Well I know your busy but if you get time I would like to get some information and advice from you about the peace corps. I would greatly appreciate it. You can email me at daviskay04@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. No matter where you go in the world people will always question your nationality. And not just speaking of you in particular...I'm pretty sure this happens more often than we think about. If one does not fit the mold of what one is "supposed" to look like from a certain area people automatically jump to conclusions about where you are from. It is hard not to defend yourself when people try to question something about yourself you know to be true. But like you said, it is great conversation starter and another opportunity to teach someone something they did not know.
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