Growing up overseas and coming to the United States later, I had to completely switch over to a different culture and assimilate into it. The shift was sudden, a genuine culture shock. It showed up in my daily interactions with classmates, in the news media, and even in the grocery store. I learned quickly that the easiest version of myself was the one that asked fewer questions and made fewer corrections. My name was simplified so my fellow Americans could pronounce it, and the food I brought to school was adjusted to match what everyone else was eating. The American identity didn’t so much replace the other one as wear it down, until balancing both felt like an exhausting negotiation.

Keeping more than one voice takes work and courage. It demands that we resist the pressure to protect ourselves from humiliation (the kind that comes from people who treat a dual identity as a problem to be resolved). There is an enormous pull to pick a side, to stop straddling, to surrender to whichever identity is deemed superior and dispose of the other like it never existed. But it also asks something quieter… a humility to know that voices are not fixed relics but tools for connection, that shifting register can mean learning and reaching rather than betrayal.

Ultimately, to speak in many voices is to accept complexity. It is to acknowledge that belonging is often layered and that fidelity to the self might mean honoring all the selves that have spoken through you.