The Chameleon That Changed My Cultural Identity

A chameleon and I share a special talent: a talent to change ourselves in different situations. A chameleon would change its skin color based on its surroundings. Similarly, I can change my cultural identity based on my surroundings. The chameleon and I constantly are having to change ourselves to be able to adjust in an environment; the surroundings around us are so strong that we feel the necessity to change ourselves. Having to change our identity for a certain environment is stressful and I’m pretty sure the chameleon feels the same way too.

My cultural heritage is divergent. I represent my Indian, Japanese, and western identity differently depending on the environment I am surrounded with. Sometimes, I represent all of these identities

This is where I represent my western identity. I represent my western identity by speaking English. However, growing up as a kid, my mother tongue was Hindi. I then started to speak Japanese (which happens to be my second language) before I even learned how to speak English. Everything changed when I started to go to an international school. When I was young, my tongue wasn’t able to grasp to a definite language. As I grew up in an international environment, English became my first language. I definitely know that despite the changes that have been made to my tongue, English will always stay as my first language. English will always be tied around my tongue. A chameleon is quickly able elongate its tongue to catch its prey; once the prey is tied around the chameleon’s sticky tongue, the prey can never escape. However, its easy for a chameleon to grasp a prey with its tongue because they have no choice; in the chameleon’s world, they’ll do anything for survival. In the human world, I had to stick with one prey, which happens to with English. I had to be liberate with my other targets in order to be resilient enough with one