I chose to share a compilation of videos from my life to represent my culture because I don’t believe words or illustrations fully capture it. These clips offer a more honest and accurate definition of my cultural identity, as it is shaped by the people, places, and experiences that have played a huge part in it.
I come from two Western cultures whose influence on other cultures is so dominant that they are often treated as the norm, which makes them harder for me to define through specific traits. While working on this project, I realized how this connects to broader identity conversations in France and Europe. Cultural blending and migration complicate the idea of a single national identity, especially in countries with long colonial histories. Many cultural norms that come from very old traditions have become so normalized over time that they no longer feel cultural, but simply “normal.” This made it difficult for me to identify what truly belongs to my culture versus what has been shaped by centuries of exchange, power, and influence, particularly among major EU nations.
This is reinforced in France by the way national values are presented as universal. Secularism, liberty, equality, and fraternity are framed as neutral and shared by everyone rather than culturally specific. As someone who grew up within this framework, I was rarely asked to define my culture in the same way that migrants and minorities often are. While cultural stereotypes exist, everyday cultural practices are harder to pinpoint because they are embedded in institutions and social norms rather than expressed through rituals or traditions. France’s focus on national heritage (patrimoine), filled with monuments, landscapes, and art, remains largely blind to the ethnic and racial histories on which the nation is built. Colonial memory, slavery, and overseas territories are rarely treated as central to this heritage, reinforcing the idea of cultural neutrality that France claims to represent.
Ultimately, this video portrait reflects the confusion of trying to categorize culture through fixed symbols or traditions and instead captures it as fluid and constantly evolving. It also represents how my connection to both cultures is always shifting as I navigate life between two continents and languages.
