Cultural Diglossia?

Recently I've been thinking a lot about my studies and I've arrived at the startling conclusion that I am caught between two cultures, if not more. In the last five years, I have invested most of my energy in learning Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French. I've studied their history, analysed their most important changes, read their most famous texts, become well aware of the cultures that surround them. However, I know that I will never be able to become fully Spanish or fully French in the cultural sense. My knowledge of both systems began 10 years later than natives, and for as well as I speak both languages or for as much as I've studied both cultures, I can never relate 100% to all situations since I wasn't raised with their children's songs, I didn't start out in their educational systems, I never experienced grandpa's war stories.

Today in my History of the Spanish Language class, I found myself amazed at the number of important people and works I recognized. My professor rattled off the names of Cervantes, Garcilaso de la Vega, Quevedo and others, and I was proud that I had read them. But then I set to thinking that perhaps I've lost something along the way, particularly my own culture. I've appreciated Voltaire, Molière and, more recently, Camus in their native language. I've studied Goya, Velázquez and Gaudí ad nauseam. I can rattle off the most important phases of European integration. But when I sat down to think, I came to the sad realization that I have never read Hemingway or Kerouac, nor can I recite from memory more than one of Shakespeare's sonnets; I don't really know the compositions of Gershwin or the songs of Judy Garland or the works of Bette Davis (or even Bette Midler); I never experienced the prom or played baseball, nor have I seen Rent or Wicked, on Broadway or off. Hell, I've read more historical texts in Latin than I have anything except The Economist in English lately.

It's not that I'm not proud of the knowledge I have, but the saying, "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know," really rings true to me right now. It's hard to be proud of your accomplishments when your familiarity with various cultures seems so incomplete. New Year's Resolution nº13, subsection 5: Stop being an uncultured fuck: read, watch, experience!