I was born in the US to a family that immigrated from the Netherlands. I grew up speaking Dutch, spending my summers in the Netherlands, and practicing Dutch traditions. Most of my family is Dutch. Nobody questioned my Dutch identity, and indeed I never made a conscious decision to claim one: It was just part of who I was—and am.

Nevertheless, I identify primarily as American, especially now that I'm an adult. (It was a little different when I was a child, when I had a harder time fitting into a Southern American culture that existed immediately outside my house but not inside it.) Maybe it's in part because I've spent enough time in NL and know enough Dutch people to understand how I'm culturally different. But it's also because, for all its faults, I see a lot of richness in American culture that I'm happy to claim as my own.