The Hyphenated Identity: What It Means to Belong to More Than One Culture

There is a particular experience that comes with belonging to more than one culture. You may feel deeply connected to several places, languages, histories, or communities while also feeling that none of them fully contains you. Maybe you were raised by immigrant parents, your family comes from several countries, you moved abroad, or you built a life far from where you started. Your identity becomes layered. You are not simply this or that. You are this and that.

When “Where Are You From?” Has No Simple Answer

For someone with a cross-cultural identity, simple questions can become surprisingly complicated. Where are you from? Where is home? What is your first language? The answer often depends on who is asking and where you are.

You may feel very American in one country and distinctly not American in another. You may return to a place your family considers “home” and realize that people there experience you as foreign too. This can create the strange feeling of belonging in many places while never belonging completely to just one.

Sociohistoric Context Matters

Culture is not static. The identity someone carries is shaped not only by where they are from, but by when they lived there. Political upheaval, migration, war, economic instability, religion, social movements, and changes in government can all influence the values a person carries forward. Two people from the same country may have very different cultural identities because they grew up during different historical periods.

For example, a male living in Iran before the Islamic Revolution lived through an era of broad women’s rights and had a Western education, likely resulting in a more liberal mindset. On the other hand, a man living in Iran after 1979 may have internalized religious and educational conservatism, specifically in regard to women and in romantic settings. A Persian (Muslim) acquaintance of mine told me that her parents left Iran before the revolution and settled in California. Upon returning to Iran now, her father tells the local men in Iran today that they have it all wrong and should be helping their wives at home with cooking and cleaning; these are concepts that today’s Persian men, understandably, might have difficulty grasping due to the sociopolitical climate in Iran.

Culture Becomes Part of the Self

Culture is more than food, holidays, or language. It shapes how we understand family, independence, relationships, success, emotional expression, responsibility, and what a good life is supposed to look like. When you grow up between cultures, these values may not always agree with one another. One part of you may value autonomy while another feels a strong responsibility to family. You may inherit one definition of success while developing another through the culture around you.

This is one of the themes I explored in my research on culture, identity, and globalization. The task is not always choosing one cultural world over another. Sometimes it is learning how to hold several at once.

The “And” Instead of the “Or”

In my own life, this idea is very concrete. I am Italian-American and first-generation, with family roots on my maternal side that also reach into Russia, Greece, and the Balkans. In only a few generations, my family history already spans multiple countries, migrations, and cultural worlds.

The same is true of many people around me. My social and clinical circles include people who are Lebanese-Algerian, Mexican-American, Tunisian-French, Ukrainian-Chinese, and people whose family histories stretch across Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa, and Western Europe.

These identities are not always experienced as neat halves. They overlap, conflict, merge, and change depending on context. The question is often not simply Which culture am I? but How do all of these histories live together inside me?

Looking for Support With Cross-Cultural Identity?

Living between cultures can bring richness, perspective, and flexibility, but it can also raise questions about identity, belonging, family, and where you fit. Cross-cultural identity and intercultural relationships are a particular focus of my work. I bring attention to the ways migration, family history, language, and culture shape our psychological lives.

You can explore my therapy services, learn more about my specialties, or contact me to inquire about working together.