The Classic Tale of a No Sabo Kid
Being the kid of two immigrants can, at times, feel isolating. You are in a constant battle with who you are and how the pieces of a country your parents left fit with the new country that your parents don’t fully understand. Add to the mix being the youngest and only American of your half-siblings. You become an identity crisis waiting to happen.
When people talk and think about intersectionality, we focus on race, gender, and sexual orientation. But the struggle of cultural identity and nationality is one that every “no sabo” kid understands. But what is a no sabo kid, you may ask? It is a term often used by family members who immigrated to describe the children of Latin parents who are limited in their Spanish language. While I learned Spanish first and can still speak it I sometimes feel like I fall into this as when we moved I used it less and now I feel like I sound like a gringa.
As Samantha Muka talks about, there is a lot of guilt associated with our identity. When I read it, it hit me hard. I know there is a lot of privilege that I hold in my identity, and with that comes the feeling of needing to be more. We HAVE to make our parent’s sacrifice mean something. But what happens when we don’t know how to do that?
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“Faculty members were shocked I didn’t ask for resources, not realizing that first-generation students don’t know the questions to ask. We are learning the system as we go”. — ADILENE BERNAL SÁNCHEZ
Adilene Sanchez talks about this in her article on Science.org, “Sí se puede: My path to a Ph.D. as a struggling first-generation student”, where we are learning the systems from the inside. She talks about how not only do we need to meet all the recruitments for that higher education, but we must learn how to use the system in our favor while actively in pursuit.
While we are first-generation Americans, we must also be aware of what caused our parents to move. How the US has previously and systematically caused issues in our parent’s home countries, resulting in their journey to the United States. It is often the struggle of first-generation children. Coming to terms that the country we were raised in, that our parents choose is often a choice because the U.S. is the safest place away from the U.S. @TheBlackCyde on twitter really hit the nail on the head when speaking about first gen. kids trying to ignore this fact because it’s easier to live that way.
Both of my parents came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, though not together. My mother came when she was 9 while my father was in his early 30’s. It was interesting to see how that affected how I was raised. I still had a strong connection to my parent’s home country. Like many first-generation kids, I’ve had a passport longer than I can remember; my birth certificate has stamps from when I was too young to have one. Just like @turtlepigprod I can’t deny how impactful having these two cultures are to me. Even when our language is frozen in time, like Sahmthingsup on tiktok talks about it shows the impact that immigrating has on us.
While I would never change a thing about how and where I was raised, I often wonder what life would be like if one of the struggles I grew up with wasn’t the fighting of two cultures. It takes time to unpack and look at the intersectionality of these identities. We often hear jokes about the kids who exactly fit in one or the other because ní de aquí, ní de allá. Too American to relate to be our Parents culture and too Hispanic to be American. We find community and kinship in others like us first generation trying to make our parents proud and feeling like we never will.
