Caio Davison #1: Where am I from?

Whenever somebody asks me where I am from, I have no clue how to answer them. I could tell them where I was born, where my parents are from, where I have spent my life, where I live now, where my parents live now, or even where I pay taxes. Very few of these have options have anything in common, and that makes it impossible for me to simply point to coordinates and say "There". I have never spent more than five years in one place, and moving around so much makes me feel like an outsider everywhere I go. I have no house I grew up in, no friends I grew up with, and no one culture I feel I have assimilated to. My best answer goes something like this: "I am a Brazilian-American, born in Sao Paulo, who has lived across the world, and now studies in Virginia." But even that fails, for my citizenship means little more to me than a passport and where I go to see family, my birthplace is just the background for an event I cannot remember, most the countries I have lived in I may never return to, and Virginia will soon be just another memory.

You deserve a bit of a background. My father, from New York, works in the foreign service, and met my mother one his first tour to Sao Paulo. She is from the city and worked as a lawyer there. They got married, I was born, and the shuffle started. Six months in Sao Paulo, six in Arlington, two years in Indonesia (Medan), three years in Singapore, two in Brasilia then one in Sao Paulo again, five years in Fairfax County, four years in Athens (Greece, not Georgia), and now two years in Williamsburg.

Having lived in all these places, I had two options: anchor myself to one place and be an outsider everywhere else, or try my best to fit in where I was. Many of the people I knew in similar situations chose the first option. I didn't. I knew that I would never find the one perfect culture, so I tried to pick up what I liked about my current location, and dismiss the rest. This resulted in some awkward culture clashes over my life: I was made fun of when I arrived in the US from Brazil, simply because I wore "short-shorts" (very common among both sexes in Brazil), I have frequently made Americans uncomfortable by getting in their "personal space" (a novel concept to me at the time, most other countries cherish all kinds of physical intimacy), and even the way I talk puts me at odds with the world, I have never met someone with my accent. So, by choosing shards of culture, I may understand many customs, but I am still the "other" everywhere I go. I recognize that it might make it harder to connect to other people, but I also find I am able to find common ground and understanding with nearly everybody I meet. My experience has taught me to cherish adventure, and not to fear the unknown. Cutting my anchor was not the easiest path, but it proves a great asset and my proudest accomplishment.