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Building Bridges to Survival: Reflections on this Writer’s Ethnic Identity

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture, but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.
Dom Delillio

But writing allows us inside . . . others and knits us together as a human species.
Julia Alvarez


The question of how I identify myself—ethnically-speaking—is a persistent one. Readers often bring up the topic. I believe this is because every booklover understands that a writer’s ethnic and national identity helps to shape the lens through which he or she views the world. Moreover, readers are acutely aware that a writer’s self-perception plays a vital role in his or her literary obsessions.

In my case, these things are absolutely true.

When it comes to the way I’ve identified myself ethnically, I’ve swung from a pendulum. I’ve changed the cultures, and drastically, with which I identify at given moments of my life. During my first eleven years, spent in Los Angeles, I was an “American”—without question or apology. My upbringing in the United States, as well as with my being a product of the public school system, heavily filtered the way I viewed and interpreted the world. Although I was aware that my parents’ roots made me unique, Nicaragua was a part of their world, not mine. My blood—the blood of a native Californian—ran red, white, and blue. And although I was of Latino descent, I considered myself part of mainstream “America.” As a result, I saw the world the way most “Americans” did.

Then my family moved to Nicaragua.

Because my parents couldn’t afford to enroll me in that country’s only U.S.-accredited school, they placed me in an all-boys, Spanish-speaking, Catholic school. But what at first seemed a tragedy—to not to be able to continue my education in the American way—turned out to be a blessing, a stroke of great fortune. If I had attended the U.S. school, I would have remained an “American,” and I would have never become acculturated into the world of my ancestors.

In my new school I was the only English-speaking person (and this includes my English teachers.) While growing up in the States I had only spoken Spanish with relatives; because of this my skills in the language were childlike: my vocabulary was limited and my knowledge of Spanish grammar non-existent. During my first months in Nicaragua my conjugation of verbs, in tenses and forms yet to be invented, elicited howls of laughter, particularly from my new classmates. The dread of being teased forced me to adapt, otherwise I would live the life of an isolated cultural freak.

Thankfully, within six months (Oh, the prowess of childhood to adjust to new circumstances!), I had embraced the language, the culture, the history, and the people of my heritage. And after only a couple of years, I had, for the purpose of self-identification, become fully Nicaraguan.

A Nicaraguan: this was how I would identify myself for decades to come. It wasn’t until I was in my late-thirties, nearly twenty years after I had returned to the States, that I started to acknowledge that an “American” also dwelled within me. Although in retrospect it seems logical, as well as inevitable, that the hyphenated designator of Nicaraguan-American would become my identifier, the Nicaraguan within me, the Latin American who was proud of his heritage, fought against sharing this hallowed inner space. That part of me feared, I believe, that the totally acculturated “American” I had been in childhood would take over, and completely. Of course it didn’t, but the “American” side of me has certainly become increasingly assertive as the years advance. Still, the benefits of accepting my hyphenated identity have far outweighed any losses: it is as a Nicaraguan-American that I started to believe that, as a writer, I had stories to share through this new lens with which I viewed the world.

But another shift has taken place in my self-identification, a slight yet significant change. I will soon celebrate my eighth year anniversary of living in Panama. While I could never consider myself Panamanian (not because I don’t wish to, but at my age the honor eludes me), I am once again embracing another culture, another history, another people. Both my wife and I are happy to call this nation our home, and our stay here seems permanent. Perhaps I will never see as clearly through my Panamanian lens as I do through the American and Nicaraguan ones, but I now understand Panamanians. (And isn’t this what a writer of fiction does, inhabit the identities of his or her characters’ so their actions are utterly believable within a determined cultural context?)

So, where am I now regarding my ethnic identity?

I’m honest when I reply that I am not entirely sure. At this point in my life, pinpointing the manner in which I categorize myself is no longer of great importance to me, (although the question does seem to matter to some readers). What I do know is that when I visit California, I no longer feel Californian; when I visit Nicaragua, I no longer feel Nicaraguan; and when I walk the streets of Panama, I'm certain I'm not Panamanian. It seems then that, today, I’m an outsider wherever I am.

But this tribal limbo is not altogether unpleasant. In fact, I quite enjoy the distance I’ve acquired through the years regarding my need to subscribe to a particular culture. It appears that in the process of becoming a writer, I’ve freed myself of the call to blend into a mass identity. I’m now treasure being an individual,an cultural free-agent. And through my writings, my ethnic self-perception—as well as my ability to understand others—has evolved. I’ve inched closer to a sort of human nirvana—writing has become a bridge, essential to my survival, which is leading me to try to develop a genuine kinship with every human being I encounter.

The Crowd at the Door: Memories of the Early Days of Television in Nicaragua

Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set.
Raymond Chandler


I’m a child of the television era. Although television was still in its infancy, the year of my birth—1954—coincides with the advent of the set into every American household. In Los Angeles, then the capital of television programming, there were seven stations: the three networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—and four local ones. Black and white images of the world now invaded our homes, for color television was barely imaginable.

Primitive by today’s standards, the moving pictures on the screen still managed to mesmerize household audiences. A leap beyond the world of radio that had held sway over the previous generation, television opened a window, and the universe entered like a bright ray of sunlight. It has become a light we now take for granted.

Programs of that era—Bonanza, Leave it to Beaver, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lone Ranger, and the list goes on—have become essential American cultural markers, often referenced, nearly fifty years after their demise, in films and television programs being produced today.

For baby-boomers, like me, television was a live display of sorrow, as evidenced by the coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; a dosage of shock so perverse we still find it difficult to believe: the live execution of Lee Harvey Oswald; and an inspiring glimpse into the creation of a myth when The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan.

Television made the world spin faster than my peers and I could keep up.

And then, my parents returned to Nicaragua, their homeland.

Time retreated, in my eyes, about a century. But the experience wasn’t completely disagreeable. Before long I was enjoying the giddy sensation that progress had come to a standstill. In Nicaragua, everything around me was steeped in history and tradition, beginning with the walls of my new home—a vast colonial dwelling that was at least 120 years old at the time, and continues to stand today.

I admit that at the beginning I missed the excitement of American television. But the tranquility of the house and the liveliness of the streets gave me two alternatives regarding how to spend my time: in familial conversations or quiet reflection, or wandering the streets as an eager observer of life in my new country.

Television hadn’t entirely disappeared from my life, however. The technology arrived about the same time my family moved there. An uncle, married to my mother’s sister and whose family also lived in the vast colonial compound, had brought back a large-screen set from the United States (back then anything larger than 19” was considered enormous) and placed it in the living-room.

Doors in colonial Granada open directly to the sidewalks, and when they’re open—to allow the air of the cooling tropical evening to flow through the house—anyone from the street could easily stroll in. But the doorframe was a respected cultural threshold, and every person in the city knew not to cross the invisible line unless invited.

In my home, as was the custom throughout Granada, the doors opened at four in the afternoon. And in those days, the nation’s sole television station, owned by the Somoza family, began transmitting cartoons at that hour as well. As soon as our doors opened, a crowd of children assembled at the entrance, ready to watch.

Before long, a working-class crowd of Granadinos of all ages had formed a human wall—sometimes three or four rows deep—across the five-foot wide entry. My family, out of politeness, left a gap in the middle so that those gathered at the entrance could also watch. For two hours my home became a theater, of sorts, where children and grown-ups laughed at the antics of Felix the Cat and other “muñequitos” (little play figures) dubbed into Spanish.

Then, promptly at six, the traditional hour for Granadinos to have dinner, my great-aunts would rise from their seats—a signal the crowd soon learned to recognize—and the gathering dispersed as the set was turned off, the doors were closed, and my family proceeded to the dining room. Afterward, the doors would be opened again and another cluster of viewers would congregate, but the numbers never matched those of the late afternoons.

I recall that I could only endure a couple of such events. I couldn’t tolerate the amateurish breakdowns in programming (the station technicians were learning on the job, I am sure), nor could I stand my once favorite shows dubbed into Spanish. But, most of all, the human barrier at the door brought out the claustrophobic in me. Instead, then, I’d usually beg the pardon of the wall, which would slowly part to let me out—not a single member missing a second of what was taking place on the screen—and I’d take to the streets to find something more interesting to observe.

As I look back upon those first days of television in Nicaragua, the experience has acquired a metaphoric quality: as the privileged sat comfortably in their homes to watch the rapidly changing world, the poor stood outside, looking in. And then, within a few years, an angry revolution replaced the gentle and centuries-long separation of the social classes. A new leadership would urge the working-class to claim—and in many cases, expropriate—what belonged to those of greater means.

These changes, I believe, where inevitable, given Nicaragua’s social conditions, but did the advent of television accelerate the process?

Over the years, this is a question I’ve often asked myself. Did programs imported from the United States, programs that portrayed characters who lived in a far more comfortable and contented world, create a groundswell of dissatisfaction among the Nicaraguan poor? Did the illusion of a world in which people’s basic needs are easily met undermine centuries-worth of tradition?

Before long the crowds at the doors disappeared. Sets became affordable and every household, even families who lived in shacks, had an antenna on the roof. And it was also around this time—when the world entered every Nicaraguan home—that the status quo started to crumble.