“Our trip to Chile a few years back is what really helped me identify much more as a Chilean than a Palestinian.”

If you look at Fatima Abdulla,you’d never guess where she’s
from. She was born in the United States, grew up in the United Arab Emirates, but is half Chileanand half Palestinian. Socialization is the process by which people develop a sense of self-being and learn different norms of the society they’re living in. Precisely, the process involves the individual gaining a sense of self-identity, learning about social groups, developing their human capacities and conveying the social and physical environment they have inherited. For the most part, Fatima has identified her hybrid identity with the help of her agents of socialization: her parents and family. In this case, the primary group supports her socialization, as the group is a social one in which has ‘face-to-face’ contact and a strong emotional tie. Her family plays an important role as it gave her deepest and earliest experiences to the “rules of life,” as they were first to introduce the culture and patterns of their society. Hybrid and biracial children tend to grow up in the same culture of either parent or at least their language, but Fatima Al- Zahra didn’t. Growing up in the States for the first seven years of her life, she spoke English fluently rather than Arabic or Spanish. Her parents always wanted her to have a strong grasp of the English Language in order to thrive in an English-speaking environment.

It wasn’t till she moved to Abu Dhabi that she was struck by the whole role strain and cultural identification. She was no longer an American citizen, but half Palestinian and half Chilean. As a result, Fatima’s role, as in her behavior, obligations, and right’s expected of her status in relations to others became more important and meaningful. She struggled not only with her new identity when she first moved to Adu Dhabi, and also experienced role strains. Role strain is when the individual is involved within conflicting expectations from others. She felt strained because of the expectations of the community she was living in. She gradually became more exposed to the Arabic language, however struggled to learn it correctly mainly because of the social expectations tied to that. She struggled with her impression management, as she was new to the whole location. According to Fatima, Palestinians were always quick to identify them as Palestinians and completely ignored their Chilean side. Due to the unfortunate loss of her father, she became closer to her mother and identified to her culture much easier.

“When I would go visit my Palestinian relatives, I tended to ‘control’ myself a little more. I dressed differently, and paid more attention to things such as correct forms of addressing members of the family,” Fatima said. From a sociological perspective her situation may best be described as impression management, where she manages the image she’s trying to project. This may be the way she controls herself when she’s around Palestinians and Arabs, which is different than when she is when with Chileans. She may physically be identifiable as an Arab, Russian, Persian, Turkish or even Lebanese, but she’s Chilean at heart.

Now at the age of nineteen, Fatima speaks both Arabic and Spanish, along with English, but still prefers English as her vocabulary and grammar usage is much more developed than in either of two languages languages. “I’m not as fluent in the two other languages, but it doesn’t matter because language for me isn’t my only form of identity. The things I grew up with and love doing are my identity markers,” Fatima giggled. According to her, she loves learning the languages for the sake of the language itself, and not just for cultural identity.