Now, what exactly is 1.5? One point five, is someone who has moved at the tender, yet completely brutal age of adolescence. Most commonly the age of “middle school.” That quoting alone brings back war flashbacks. So, why do we, the 1.5 have it hard?

First off, you feel like you’re neither here nor there. You’re too American if you visit your home country, but you’re also too foreign for your American friends sometimes. Since adolescence is a very impressionable age, culturally, you want to fit in and belong with your newfound friends, but also, your parental figure(s) might be very nationalistic. So instead of the typical PB&J for lunch, you might have gotten kotleti with grechka, a Russian/Eastern European staple of meat patties and buckwheat.

Being bilingual or even, in my case trilingual, also means you’re a bridge for your family. My mom and I have been in the US a little over 10 years and sometimes I still have to translate or explain things to her. As she does to me. There are Russian jokes out there that she would read to me, and I wouldn't understand them, so she has to explain them to me. While on the other hand, I have to explain memes, or puns to her. It’s a little embarrassing for both parties, because who wants to explain a joke?

If you’re a single child, your parents are most likely young too. After you stop being the edgy rebel that you were back in the day, this makes you realize that they sacrificed their youth for you. Let me explain a little about what I mean. My mom had me at the age of 20, which, for Russian speakers in Europe and Russia is completely normal. When we moved to NYC I was 12-years-old. Now I’m 21, and with every day I realize more and more how different everything is in Latvia, where I’m from, and in America.

I feel as if though my mom gave up opportunities of her youth to raise me, and even though she constantly reassures me that’s not true, I feel guilty. Your 20s, at least in the US, are supposed to be the prime of your life, when you’re, per say, young, wild and free. The hardship of knowing expectations of both countries is something that boggles the mind as well.

I have a lot of my old Latvian classmates on Facebook and most of them are engaged and have kids. To me that’s mind-boggling because I still feel like I’m a child. I can’t imagine being married before finishing college, because you don’t see that so often in America. And even though I know it’s not the case, sometimes I wonder, should I be married with kids already? Because it was and still is a staple back home, am I disappointing my mom and grandma by not having kids?

Another thing is that, we are expected to get amazing grades, because education in Europe is tougher/better quality. My mom mentioned before that she had to memorize the table of chemicals, unlike us, where we had a cute little handy book filled with all of the equations, charts and formulas of science from high school. I still have mine to this day, to keep for easy reference. Americans, by other countries, are considered stupid and with that being the stereotype, any immigrant child is supposed to be getting 100s and As. While in middle and high school it is fairly manageable, in college it is QUITE hard.

There’s also this stigma about moving out in the US which I do not quite understand. Personally, my mom being young makes her more of a best friend to me than anything else. My step dad is the same way, we all get along most times and there’s no MAJOR conflicts within the family. But I have witnessed the youths in the US just foaming out the mouth about moving away from their parents and my initial instinct is BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DEBT AND MONEY? When you live with your parents you can save for yourself, you don’t have to pay for pretty much anything. And when you can be stable enough to be your own person, you can move out- that’s the way of my land. There’s no stigma about living with your parents, especially if you’re living in a house. Here, kids just want to move out as soon as possible, and while some realize that it’s going to be extra hard, some don’t.

The main thing about being somewhat in between cultures and ethnicities and pretty much everything, is literally the fact that you are in between. It makes you torn about who you are supposed to be, and while personally, I’ve embraced both of my foreign and American side, for others it’s hard. Especially if they struggle with things outside of the cultural spectrum, like sexuality, gender and other such things.

I do believe that I have it easier than a lot of youths my age because even with depression, and being pansexual, I am a societal norm of being a privileged white looking person. I do not know the feeling of having to struggle with race, or gender identity; there are many other factors that impact immigrants’ lives, and it’s hard. So, shout out to all the immigrant babies, no matter what generation you are, you deserve respect and acceptance.