My Very Own Individual-Cultural Dilemma

I grew up in a small town. I mean, a really small town. I graduated with a class of about 60 students I had known since I was first thrust into Mrs. Matthews' kindergarten class. I can still, to this day, tell you every single person's life story. As you would expect from a small mid western town, it was fairly rural. There was a field across from my house, even though I lived "in town", a majority of the vehicles in the high school parking lot were clunky pick-up trucks, and, in all seriousness, many of the students were related in some way, shape or form. This is where I called "home" for eighteen years of my life.

So, I know at this point you're thinking, "Okay, Jessica, you grew up in Hickville, USA. What does this have to do with anything?" Let me stress once before going on, this was the only place I lived from my conception until the fall of my freshman year at UIC. This small town is the community that shaped me and made me who I am today. Contrary to what many would assume, though, I do not drive a truck, nor have I ever driven one; I do not have a southern accent; and I wouldn't DARE get mud on my cowboy boots.

During school, my high school years especially, my individual behaviors and my expected cultural behaviors were constantly conflicting. A lot of the time I didn't feel like sitting in someones pasture, drinking and listening to country on a Saturday night. Future Farmers of America had no appeal to me, either and I never did learn how to drive a stick-shift. I don't want to make it sound like I was "the weird kid" in school, I wasn't, but I certainly wasn't the majority. I was listening to music that I felt, at the time, was totally revolutionary. My hair was a different color every month. I had big city dreams while others dreamt of building homes on their parents' land. It was so hard for people to understand why I would want to leave the only home I'd ever known. It was frustrating to not have my peers accept my goals as practical.

Since then, I've learned to find middle ground. Being in the big bad city, I've realized that I acquired more rural culture than I had originally thought. I love going home on occasion and having a friend take me mudding, sitting in an open pasture with a group of friends under the stars is a refreshing change sometimes, and sometimes it's kind of fun to bust out the southern twang that never stuck. Part of the cultural identity I thought I had no part in, was actually instilled in my personal identity all along. In order to manage the tension, all I had to do was find a way to effectively combine the two in a way that felt natural to me.