Our Youth’s Perspective 2024: Cultural Upbringing

In the first of three youth-led episodes of “Our Youth’s Perspective,” Youth Scientific Council on Adolescence members Becker Chaaban, Brandon Molina, and Namrata Poola talk with UCLA CDA Co-Executive Director Andrew Fuligni about how our cultural upbringing impacts development during our adolescent years.

Ron Dahl One of the essential tasks of our adolescent years is establishing a social identity. Trying to sort out who we are, where we fit in, and where we don’t fit in. And perhaps, seeking ways to stand out.

During this process, our cultural upbringing starts to matter in a new way, sometimes providing new ways to connect…

Becker Chaaban I never really had anybody who shared my cultural background, that being Middle Eastern and, um, you know, as I got older and I moved to high school, things began to change.

Ron Dahl And perhaps, sometimes creating barriers and challenges…

Brandon Molina I was constantly bullied by faculty and students in lacking the so-called knowledge of my cultural background.

Ron Dahl Part of healthy learning and development during these years is figuring out–and trying to fit together–different aspects of our identity. We can feel pulled in different ways depending on the contexts: peer groups, families, and community.

Namrata Poola At school I was Nam-rata, but I was like the girl that knew all the cartoons and like, you know, whatever YouTube channel was popular at the time. But when I went home, I was Namrata to my grandparents and I would speak Telugu instead of English.

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Ron Dahl I’m Ron Dahl, founding director of the Center for the Developing Adolescent, and this is Adaptivity, where we explore the science of adolescence, untangling misconceptions about the years between childhood and adulthood.

We explore new insights into the rapid cognitive, emotional, and social changes that are happening during these years. And how the developing adolescent brain is primed to promote healthy and adaptive learning.

This is the first episode of a 3-part series called “Our Youth’s Perspective,” brought to you by members of the Center’s Youth Scientific Council on Adolescence.

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Ron Dahl Issues of race, ethnicity, and other aspects of our cultural upbringing often become more important as we are trying to clarify our own social identity in adolescence.

During adolescence, we are actively exploring our social worlds. Learning how to navigate new and uncertain social situations. We are in some ways discovering–through our actions and feelings–where we seem to fit in, where we experience feelings of belonging and mattering. Ways that we can stand out. We’re not only deciding who we think we want to be. We are responding to social feedback and messages while we are interacting with others. Our cultural upbringing can be a big part of these learning processes and the feelings they activate.

Now, we’ll hear members of our Youth Scientific Council on Adolescence talk about how their cultural upbringing affected their developing sense of identity.

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Brandon Molina Hello beautiful world. How are you all doing today? Brandon is my name. I am 19 years old and a current undergraduate student at LMU studying Business Administration. I am here with my podcast partners.

Namrata Poola Hi, my name is Namrata and I’m 20 years old and I’m studying psychology and sociology at UCLA.

Becker Chaaban Hey everybody. I’m a senior in high school and my name is Becker and I’m 17.

Brandon Molina Today we’re discussing how cultural upbringing can impact adolescence and identity development. Namrata, Becker, have you ever felt that you didn’t fit in or relate to the mainstream or individual culture? How has each of your cultural upbringings impacted you?

Namrata Poola Yeah, um, I feel like I can definitely relate to this. I, my cultural upbringing has been a huge part of who I am today and how I grew up. I actually am a first-gen immigrant, and I grew up in a pretty traditional South Asian household. But I did go to school in Southern California from kindergarten to 12th grade and beyond. So of course, I grew up with all these American influences in addition to my South Asian household influences at home.

Um, this came with, like, good and bad things, I think, just because it could have been a little isolating to have neither parts of my identity fully expressed, both, like, in the home and outside. Because, like, for instance, at school I was Namrata, but I was like the girl that knew all the cartoons and like, you know, whatever YouTube channel was popular at the time. But when I went home, I was Nimrata to my grandparents and I would speak Telugu instead of English. And of course, that came with certain barriers and how I could communicate with them about whatever I was going through in my life or at school.

But of course, I was just a kid at the time, so it was really important to me that I had some kind of belonging in both contexts. So I just kind of learned that I needed to kind of hide some parts of myself to fit in in each context. But as I grew older, of course, I sought out a community where I could truly be seen. And I think one of the best parts about growing up with technology and the digital age is having that sense of community available to us online. And I think definitely when I was in high school, and especially now, I made it a point to seek out that community both through, like, social media and just like, you know, discussions online and, like, different forums. And it really made me feel like I wasn’t alone. And even if they weren’t in front of me and I couldn’t see these people, I knew that they were experiencing similar things. And that gave me hope that I could someday find that community in my own daily life as well.

Becker Chaaban Yeah. Um, I’m glad you mentioned the online community thing, because that’s something that’s also important to me. And I had when I was growing up. Uh, but mainly it’s important because when I was in elementary school and middle school, I never really had anybody who shared my cultural background, that being Middle Eastern and, um, you know, as I got older and I moved to high school, things began to change.

Brandon Molina Becker, I totally agree with you. I too can discuss not finding my band of misfits. Allow me to ask, how did you see growth and changes during your high school years?

Becker Chaaban Yeah. You know, I saw growth and change in high school through, you know, branching out to more extracurriculars and activities and doesn’t have to be outside of school. It could be inside a school or, you know, through group projects or, um, talking to people, discussions, class discussions.

Uh, so, for example, I very recently became the director of my school’s web series, and one of the people I’m working with turns out to be Lebanese, and that’s what I am. So I was very excited to hear that. And we immediately got to talking. And, you know, it’s just such a coincidence that I’m talking about that here right now. And it’s something that’s very relevant, you know, very recent and very relevant.

Uh, so, you know, stuff like that, uh, that’s an extracurricular, but also, you know, in class discussions, uh, I’ve talked to people who aren’t necessarily the exact same cultural background as me, but close enough. And you don’t even have to be close enough. You could be completely different. And I’ve learned to appreciate that.

You know, and back to the online community. Like Namrata said, it’s very important to stay connected. You get to talking and you start to learn more about people and people who may share very similar experiences to you or very different experiences to you. And, like, that I’m here with the, all these wonderful, culturally diverse people here at the YSCA, and I couldn’t feel more at home.

Brandon Molina and Namrata Poola Awww

Brandon Molina Appreciate your sentiment, man. Dude, what amazing, inspiring stories. Now talking about myself. To be openly honest, I never had a cultural community not recognizing ethnic background til later on in life. My parents never truly raised me in their own cultural background per se, but opened me up to a vast variety of cultures, cuisine, social interactions, and events. By the time I was in high school, starting in ninth grade. I was constantly bullied by faculty and students in lacking the so-called knowledge of my cultural background.

Namrata Poola Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, Brandon. I know that I kind of talked about how I really wish that I had that sense of community, but it’s a really good point that it can also be used to kind of damage our sense of identity if we don’t really belong with our own culture as well. How did you think that you found that sense of community, if not through your own cultural upbringing?

Brandon Molina I found my cultural background replaced with my interests and hobbies. Over time, I learned culture doesn’t have to be about family or traditions, but about what makes you happy. Do you enjoy this one life given? I take advantage by doing what I enjoy each and every day, mentoring my brother, riding thrill rides with my sister, watching and theorizing the future of comic book films, dancing like nobody’s watching. Listening to music every second of the day like a pastor does, reading their Bible and buying overpriced concert tickets and merch. Because that’s the true cultural upbringing right there.

Becker Chaaban Classic, Brandon.

Brandon Molina Amen.

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Namrata Poola To understand more about the formal impacts on identity development we’re here with Dr. Andrew Fuligni. He is the Co-Executive Director at our Center for the Developing Adolescent and professor at UCLA in the departments of psychiatry and psychology. Thank you so much for joining us!

Andrew Fuligni Thank you so much for having me to talk about this fundamental issue of adolescence that is identity development.

Namrata Poola Wonderful! Brandon, Becker, and I started this conversation about cultural upbringing and identity development by reflecting on a time we felt we didn’t fit in. Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in?

Andrew Fuligni Sure. Of course. I think we always feel like we don’t fit in at certain times, particularly during the teenage years, during adolescence. You know, it might be a surprise to you, but, um, my father was Italian, and so I thought that we were raised in a somewhat Italian way. We had pasta night two times a week. I knew what cannoli was very early on in my life.

Um, but when I went to high school, we joined a lot of other folks who were from the Italian side of town. And boy, did I learn that I was not really Italian according to their definition of what it meant to be Italian. The way they dressed, the way they spoke, the kind of Italian terms they would use, and so on and so on. So it was very clear to me at that point, something that I thought I was was actually quite different from what other people thought it meant to be Italian.

Brandon Molina Amazing. I really like your response to the question, Dr. Fuligni. It kind of reminds me of my own experience with not fitting in with a cultural background but trying to find my own.

Andrew Fuligni Mmm, yeah, I think it’s just part of the process of what we all go through.

Brandon Molina Definitely. How typical is it to navigate feelings of not belonging during adolescent years?

Andrew Fuligni The feeling of not belonging is very typical during the adolescent years, and we are going to go through times of feeling like we belong and then times when we don’t belong.

In a lot of ways, this is because what we’re doing during adolescence is that we’re sort of transitioning into new social worlds and new social groups that we haven’t been a part of before. And so then we try to figure out how–what does it take to belong in those groups. And so part of the process is going to feel like you don’t belong. And it really will come and go, because the groups that you’re part of in the ninth grade may change from where you are to the 11th grade and 12th grade and then when you make the transition out of high school. So it really is a fundamental part of identity development.

And I’ll let you know that some of that just continues throughout life as you move into different settings and different social situations. It’s just that during adolescence we get a better understanding of what it means to be part of a group and not part of a group, we have a better understanding during adolescence than we did earlier on in life, and that’s why it feels like it’s something that we haven’t experienced before.

Becker Chaaban Yeah. I think that was extremely important just to put out there. But I wanted to ask specifically about ethnic racial identity. So how does that relate to belongingness and overall identity development? And how do we develop an ethnic racial identity?

Andrew Fuligni The first thing to know and to realize is that ethnicity and race is a very is what we call a social construction. So every society divides their people into different kinds of ways. Many times that we call ethnicity or that we call racially. So if it’s Black, white, Latino, Asian, Indigenous or Native American in the United States, it could be very different in another country. It could really be fundamentally what religion you are.

So for example, in some countries in northern Europe now where they’ve had a lot of immigration from the Middle East, whether you are Muslim or Christian, is a big dividing line in those countries. Same in Russia and the former Soviet Union, whether you are Orthodox or a different form of Christianity or if you were Muslim is a big factor. So that’s the first thing.

So belongingness, if you think about it that way, we divide in many ways social groups according to ethnicity and race in the United States. And the question is, as we go through adolescence is figuring out which groups do we belong to and which groups do we not belong to? And that’s actually something we learn very early on in life. So do you remember maybe early on in life when you sort of, perhaps in elementary school, at some point when you realized or learned that there might be different ethnicities here in the United States or different labels given to groups.

Namrata Poola Yeah, definitely. I feel like it wasn’t really like a formal part of our education, but, like, going to a public school, I feel like we got that exposure, which is really beneficial.

And on that note, how important is it for young people to be exposed to different cultures while also maintaining your own cultural identity? And if you could talk a little bit about like, what are healthy forms of facilitating cultural mingling?

Andrew Fuligni Well, in a lot of ways, this is an extension of the question that Becker just asked. It really has to do with what is the process of overall identity development and what role does belongingness play in that? You know, in many ways, if we think back to what is fundamental about adolescence that you folks have been talking about and we talk about at CDA, it’s really all about exploring, discovering, and connecting, exploring, discovering, and connecting. And that’s what the adolescent brain is designed to do. And so we are going to do that with ethnicity and race and culture, just like we do with other groups.

Whether or not you are an athlete or whether you are a math person or a science person, or you’re into anime or whatever, that kind of definition we have and how we sort of sort people, you’re going to explore, and you can try to figure out which ones you belong to.

The tricky thing about ethnicity and race, as I mentioned, is a social construction. And in many ways, even though we’re designed to explore, discover, and connect, society is going to place some serious limits on the extent to which we’re allowed to explore, discover, and connect, right?

So there are going to be some groups that society is telling you you just can’t be a part of ethnically or culturally, right? So in the United States, color of skin makes a big difference. Where you come from can make a big difference. But even locally, the very specific country in which you come from can make a big difference. So in some regions, and I know, you know, all of you are from Los Angeles, and your coordinator is from both Texas and Arizona. Within groups in which there’s a large population of folks whose origins are in Latin America, sometimes the division is whether you’re Mexican or Salvadoran or Guatemalan or even more specific than that.

So really, in a lot of ways, being exposed to diverse groups is really important because then you can discover and explore what it means to you. What types of groups could you belong to which you could not belong to? And what we need to be thinking about as society is, are we setting up barriers to that exploration and that discovery process because of how we, you know, the lines that we draw? Um, unfortunately, color of skin is a big deal in the United States.

So people have talked about the Black/white divide in terms of the ability to cross that boundary is very difficult to do. So, even if they’re from a multiracial background. Um, so having exposure to diverse groups and um, is important for exploration, but at the same time allowing the exploration and thinking about ways that we can bring down those barriers is very important for promoting healthy adolescent identity development.

To go even further, this is what you folks are incredibly skilled at doing. And I believe that many of you are from immigrant families. Either your parents or your grandparents are immigrants. And really, you are at the forefront of pushing the boundaries and exploring different categories and different labels that people can use. So all of, for example, the label, the, the debate about labels to use to refer to those from Latin American backgrounds. Right now, there are differences across the generations about how they view these kinds of things. But that’s part of the process. And this is the exciting energy that adolescence can bring to this, this process.

Namrata Poola Definitely. Thank you so much for sharing that insight, and I definitely want to echo the need to just intermix and to just explore diverse perspectives.

Brandon Molina I know a lot of people might develop their identity through their cultural upbringing, but I wasn’t really brought up in my parents’ cultural background and that was sometimes used against me. So, what advice, Dr. Fuligni, do you have for people who might also share this experience?

Andrew Fuligni It’s a challenging issue. A lot of youth go through that, particularly if they’re from immigrant families, that will make some decisions about how much they’re going to emphasize the background or not. You know, the anecdote about my own upbringing, I think is a good example of that as well, Brandon, where my parents brought us up a certain way that was somewhat Italian. I would call it Italian light. Um, but certainly my father’s parents and his aunts and uncles thought that we should be raised a lot more Italian than we were.

I think that in a lot of ways, one way to sort of turn it around is that you can perhaps use it as a superpower, where you actually might be able to use that to your advantage to explore different ways that you can be who you are, where you can draw some elements of your cultural tradition. You can learn about it yourself, um, explore it yourself, decide that it’s a part of you, and that perhaps bring in some other aspects of what you’re experiencing in your school life or in your community life.

And again, this is really a perfect example of your ability to explore, to figure out who you are. It doesn’t necessarily make it easy. You talked about how it was used against you. I suspect you’re talking about from other friends at school or other groups at school that you experienced?

Brandon Molina Uh, yes, I have.

Andrew Fuligni Yeah. So I think this is a, this can be a tough part of the process because just like the larger society, peer groups have certain ideas about what it means to be a member of one group or another group.

I think the one thing to keep in mind is that these things can change and evolve, and as you go through secondary school and start moving into college and experiencing other settings, you will experience other diverse ways about what it means to be a particular ethnicity or religion, or from a cultural background. Hang in there. It’s a long process. Identity process is a lifelong process. It’s very significant during adolescence, but it continues throughout our life.

Brandon Molina Thank you so much. Those are wise words. At this point in your life, Dr. Fuligni, do you still feel that you ever question your, your community here and there?

Andrew Fuligni Absolutely. So I’ll give you one example from my own life. I was raised very Catholic, so my parents were both Catholic. I went to Catholic school, um, uh, that was sort of served mostly working to lower-middle-class families. These schools, many of them don’t really exist anymore.

I grew up back east, but it was a very Catholic upbringing. I am not necessarily a practicing Catholic, but when you’re raised Catholic, you’re always a Catholic at some level. Um, it’s a very significant part of your upbringing. So what that means to me in ways that I still, this is a lifelong process that will continue probably until the day I die.

Becker Chaaban Yeah. Wow. Um, I think I speak for everybody when I say we all learned a lot, and I really hope that those listening did, too. Uh, so from everybody, uh, we thank you, Doctor Fuligni, for joining us today.

Andrew Fuligni Thank you. It was a real pleasure to talk to you today.

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Brandon Molina As we progress through our adolescent years, we will be exposed to people from all walks of life. And it is important for us to develop a sense of identity and belonging that connects us, whether that be through culture, community, or even relationships.

Becker Chaaban Speaking of relationships, check out the next episode where we’ll learn about navigating the parent and adolescent relationship.

Namrata Poola Once again, thank you all for joining us. This has been Namrata…

Brandon Molina Brandon…

Becker Chaaban …and Becker. Signing off.

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Ron Dahl Developing a healthy sense of self is a core aspect of adolescence.

As adults we can provide support and opportunities for youth–encouraging them to explore different facets of their identities and possible selves. As they sometimes lean into, or perhaps try to push away from, various aspects of their racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds. These are essential experiences as they are discovering—through their actions, experiences, and their emotions–who they are and who they want to become.

I’m Ron Dahl, and this has been a special episode of Adaptivity from the Center for the Developing Adolescent.

We’d like to thank Brandon Molina, Namrata Poola, and Becker Chaaban from the Center’s Youth Scientific Council on Adolescence for sharing their experience with us.

For more on the developmental science of adolescence and the YSCA, check out our Instagram: @develadolescent.

If you’d like to learn more about the science of adolescence, visit us at adaptivitypodcast.org or share your thoughts through the contact information at our website.

Our podcast is produced at UC Berkeley for the Center for the Developing Adolescent. Our senior producer is Polly Stryker. Our Producer is Meghan Lynch Forder. And our engineer is Rob Speight.

A special thanks to Peter Jivotovski at the UCLA Learning Center’s De Neve studio and to Xochitl Arlene Smola for her facilitation of the YSCA projects.

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