How do people deal with feeling alienated from their own culture?

I’m mostly writing this because I don’t know how people can just work through feeling alienated from their other culture (I leaning when someone is mixed race) for an example I’m white mixed with Hispanic and I have hardly ever known anything about my father’s culture (he’s the Hispanic one) My dad even at one point tried to teach me Spanish as a child but my mom said it wasn’t important since I would have no real need to learn it since I would have no one to talk to (this isn’t true I grew up with a lot of Hispanic family and friends). sometimes my friends make fun of me for being “whitewashed” and that I can’t relate to most of the things they talk about, and while yes I can understand they are joking I can’t help but feel a deep hatred for myself for being mixed white, I wish I knew my own language, my own culture, I try to learn but it’s just not the same. I guess what I’m trying to ask or say, is does anyone feel the same way too? Or am I just being hateful? I really don’t know, if anyone has some tips to help it would be appreciated. (Edit i would also like to say that I do look ethnic and it’s even more embarrassing when people ask me things and I have to shamefully admit I don’t know what they are talking about)

bijouxbroussard · F

One of my friends experienced this as the Spanish-speaker in an interracial marriage—she married someone selfish. He didn’t want his wife and son speaking a language he couldn’t understand—and he couldn’t be bothered to learn Spanish himself. My friend acquiesced to keep the peace and didn’t teach her son Spanish (she still kicks herself for having given in).

Years later, she’s divorced, and her son is grown, but in the meantime he took the initiative to attend Spanish classes, and of course she helped him. So now he can communicate with his relatives on her side. Better late than never.