Life between two cultures — how not to lose either one

When you live abroad for a long time (as I do), you gradually start to notice how a person changes quietly. You take on new habits, a new rhythm of life, a new way of thinking. Some things become easier, some more certain, more organised.

But at the same time, somewhere inside you that "where you come from" remains too: the language, the mentality, the humour, the music, the smells of food. The way people sit together for hours and talk without ever looking at the clock.

I think people in the diaspora often live between two cultures, and that the biggest challenge is learning how not to lose either of them. I do not believe that integration has to mean erasing your identity. On the contrary, I think a person can love the country they live in, respect its system and way of life, and at the same time hold on to their origins.

I see it at our events too. People come because they want that feeling of the familiar — to hear their own language, to laugh at humour they understand without explanation, to spend at least one evening without having to translate themselves.

I think especially about the younger generations growing up between two worlds. It is often not easy for them. One culture at home, another outside. One language in the family, another at school. And that is exactly why I think it is important that they feel both sides of their identity as a richness, not as a conflict. From my experience, one does not have to exclude the other.

Culture plays a huge role in this. Films, plays, concerts, gatherings — they are all small bridges between the life we left behind and the life we are building today.

Maybe that is exactly why events in our language in the diaspora carry so much emotion. They remind us that we do not have to choose only one side of ourselves.

— Evica