Assignment 22 - Dani Fauzi

I’ve come to realize that my family’s cultural heritage holds a greater influence on my life than I’d previously thought it had. Growing up, I had a childhood nearly identical to most native-born Americans--I was socialized by PBS television and attended public schools since the age of 3. The fact that my family is Indonesian seemed to be only incidental. That is, until I ventured into adolescence. I’ve been brushing against the abrasive conservatism of my traditional family for years now, and this experience has made me pretty good at living a kind of double life. At home I wear the hijab and dress modestly; I (give the impression that I) pray five times a day to appease my parents. But once I leave the threshold of my family’s house, I adopt the ways of a wayward American teenager. This dissonance between the two versions of myself, necessitated by my upbringing, informs a lot of my artwork and also contributes to a general feeling of unrest and anxiety I always have.

This constant feeling of never really being at peace does affect my future aspirations in terms of college and a career. What I strive for in the future is to get to a place where I can really breathe--where I don’t feel constrained by the wrathful eye of God or my parents. The disillusionment I feel about religion and family carries on into other sectors of life. I feel disillusioned by white collar work, and am considering not attending college; instead pursuing a blue collar career by attending a trade school. Whatever choice I make involving education, it will involve moving away from Lexington to break away from my family breathing down my neck.