039 reclaiming the in-between
Today I wanted to explore more about the experience of growing up in the diaspora, the cost of assimilation, and reclaiming the in-between.
When a child grows up in the diaspora, there is a lot of thinking about the cost of assimilation and how it asks us to trade parts of ourselves in exchange for belonging. Our parents’ immigration stories are often told like love letters to survival. They left everything behind that they knew, including language, familiarity, and community, all to give their children a better chance to dream bigger. But people don’t really talk about the quiet fears and trauma beneath the surface, the fear that, in building a new life, their children may one day drift too far from their roots, family, and connection.
For many of us raised in the diaspora, that is where the guilt begins. We grew up hearing about the benefits we were privileged in, advantages our parents never had: better education, more opportunities, freedom, and stability. Yet we also learned not to take too much, not to stand out, not to seem ungrateful. So we worked hard, softened our edges, and learned how to fit in. Assimilating into Western culture became an act of self-protection, but also, unknowingly, an act of loss.
I often wonder what gets lost in translation when we try too hard to belong while also feeling rooted. We polish our accents, hide the foods that seem unfamiliar to the masses, and downplay our cultural quirks. We call it blending in, but really, it is shrinking. We feel half here and half there, neither part fully whole, always missing something. Somewhere along the way, many of us start believing that being in-between means we are incomplete. But I have come to realize that we are not half of anything. We are double. We are both. The mix is not a dilution, but a multiplier.
Owning that identity takes a lot of courage because it means letting go of the idea that we have to pick a side, even if it feels easier to do so. Taking the unconventional route of blending multiple cultures rather than defaulting to one can be challenging, but it is all the more rewarding. When we accept that our voices can carry two melodies, the one of where we came from and the one of where we are now, it becomes a beautiful integration of a whole new self. Being in-between does not have to be confusing. It means expansion. It is the ability to hold two truths at once, the ache of distance and the pride of survival.
Sometimes connection to the homeland comes in small ways, like the way our parents tell stories over tea, the smell of cardamom, or the music they play on quiet mornings. Those stories are more than nostalgia for a past that no longer exists; they are a bridge to a deeper, rooted connection. They remind us that even if we never lived there, a piece of home still lives in us. This helps heal the loneliness and emptiness that can come from feeling as though we belong fully to neither culture.
Maybe assimilation didn’t take everything. Maybe it just asked us to remember differently, through recipes, rituals, and words we refuse to let go of. Maybe the real work of healing is learning to see our in-between not as a fracture but as a fusion, something layered, complex, and wholly ours.
