Dear Ask a Latina,
How do I successfully date outside my culture without losing myself and my identity? My boyfriend and I had never dated outside our cultures, and he is not Latino.
He always had access to different cultures, but I did not, based on where I used to live. We’ve been together over five years, and I feel like I have lost important parts of me, and made myself feel “smaller”.
He has not even bothered to learn much Spanish or about my country’s history, unless it’s something I have specifically shared, like Three Kings Day traditions.
He loves some of my food, so that helps. But I still feel like some sazón is missing, and I don’t know how to bring that into our relationship. Gracias!
– Culturally Whiplashed
Dear Culturally Whiplashed,
I have both lived and professional experience with culture and the role it plays in people’s lives. And still, some aspects of culture remain puzzling.
The reason culture can be puzzling is because it’s so core to how we operate our lives, and yet our cultural preferences can (and probably should) change with our experiences and growth. As I wrote in my Smart Talk book, “culture is the adopted set of behaviors we take on as part of a group.”
Our most dominant cultural practices often come from our families of origin. For example, my understanding of what it meant to be Hispanic was first formed by how my most influential family members demonstrated our heritage.
As people grow and evolve over time, as you and your boyfriend have done, they can adopt other cultural practices that expand their preferred types of food, music, social interactions, rituals, and more. As individuals, our cultural practices help us find common ground with others. But if we only socialize with those most like us, our view of the world is limited.
We can expand our ideas of who we are, what we like, and ways we can live by learning more about others. That expansion comes with travel, befriending (or dating) others who are different from us, and making an effort to learn new ways of living.
It is common for people to adopt the traits or cultural practices of another, especially if one person has a more dominant personality or more clearly defined cultural practices. That’s how we learn culture in the first place. But when it comes to dating, that acculturation can feel different.
Navigating Different Cultures
I married a white man over 20 years ago, and we’ve had many conversations about our backgrounds and culture. What I noticed was that I had strong preferences in some aspects of life, or followed some traditions that he didn’t grow up with. In some ways, he adopted my preferences because I valued something that he didn’t mind trying or supporting me with.
In other ways, I supported his preferences because I didn’t have a strong preference either way. Or I realized that a cultural practice (like type of food, holiday tradition, food, language usage) mattered to him, and wasn’t negative towards my way of life.
Keep What Matters and Create As a Couple
You can bring the sazón into your relationship by educating your boyfriend on what you care about from your culture. Continue to invite him to experience your traditions, try different foods, teach him Spanish terms he should know, and more.
You don’t have to be the same culture, so try not to expect him to become Latino (or assimilate to the culture). And don’t lose who you are either. I’ve learned that couples should acculturate instead by adopting new cultural traits they like, keeping the traits they value, and leaving behind what no longer suits them.
This way, we never lose our identities. We just expand our identities over time to include what matters to us. And as a couple, you have the opportunity to create new cultural practices together.
