I have come to a new understanding of my life in recent
years. This new view has led me to a desire to look at the world in different
ways. I had an experience a few years ago where a teacher assigned a project to
adapt some type of African cultural art into one’s own culture. Culturally
speaking I have always identified myself first as Mexican, my ancestry always
felt important to me coming from an area where most were also of my ethnic heritage.
So for my class I pitched an idea to make an African mask and simply add
Mexican elements. My teacher hated the idea and looking back I did too, I was
just hoping I could keep the project simple. His rejection forced me to find
another idea and in my brainstorming I realized something; I really have very
little about myself that loudly says "Mexican", other parts of my
personality were much more dominant. Thus I showed up to class dressed in style
of an African king with my own twist and proclaimed myself king of Videogames.
I realized I was a nerd before anything else and aspects of nerd sub-culture
like videogames were much more important to me than any cultural element that I
gained simply by being born. I realized that this must be true for a lot of
people. The actions we choose put us into sub-cultures and thus sub-cultures
are much more telling of a person. However, so much focus is put on large
encompassing cultural aspects I finally decided that is was time for a better
look at the many various sub-cultures that have been multiplying over the past
few years. This is what this blog is about. So ask yourself, what are the aspects
that really define you?
