How close is too close? by Rebecca

Being born and raised in a high-contact culture significantly impacted my early teenage years of life. I moved from Caracas, Venezuela, to Miami, Florida, when I just turned fourteen years old. At this age, I was finally starting to make my own choices; my personality, hobbies, and interests were getting shaped. However, my values were really attached to my Hispanic heritage, from eating specific foods on particular days of the year to having religious rituals that were prevalent in my surroundings and home. While growing up, I was used to greeting people with a kiss on the cheek, even with those I have just met, showing affection in public spaces, or being "overly" friendly to strangers while walking in the street. For me, this was a totally acceptable practice, as it was so embedded into my way of living, I never thought it was wrong or that I was invading someone's personal space. However, this way of acting, and even thinking, got entirely transformed when I moved to the United States. 

Traveling to different places allows individuals to get to know a lot about a nation's culture. Still, one thing is visiting for a few days or even months, and another one is moving there permanently. Getting to know how their behavior and beliefs really are, is a completely different story.

But how exactly did my basic interactions with people change? In my first weeks of living in Miami, I experienced a situation that made me reflect on my own cultural practices. While being in the supermarket with my mom, we were both standing in line. It was a busy Saturday morning, one in which everyone from my neighborhood seemed to decide that doing groceries that day was the best idea. As I am standing in line, a woman in her late 50's screams to me and says: "You are invading my personal space! Please move apart!". I was very ashamed and even surprised, as, for me, I was only standing a couple of centimeters away from her. But, this is not the end of the story. Right after this occurs, I turned around and realized that a girl I recently met at my new school was in line with her mom as well. In my mind, going all the way there and greet her with a kiss on the cheek was going to be alright. However, it was a very awkward and unexpected situation as the girl and her mom felt that I was too affectionate. 

It did throw me off guard, but I learned that every culture has different personal space notions. It took me some time to adjust to being careful on that aspect, but I quickly absorbed the American ways of interacting after several years of living there. I did in such a way that when I moved to Spain, another "contact-culture" like Venezuela, people's physical contact and their warm-hearted treatment made me realize how much I have integrated the American culture into my own. As Williams states in his text Culture is Ordinary, "Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings." (Williams, 1958, p.93). Frankly, having lived in such different worlds has opened my eyes. It has made me respect and accept how cultures vary from one to another, but most importantly it has shaped me into who I am nowadays. I would never trade my Venezuelan heritage for anything, or some of the American social traditions and practices I have acquired, and now, new customs from Spain that I find fascinating.  

Work Cited

Highmore, B. (2008). The everyday life reader. Routledge.