I struggled to determine whether the behaviors in Papa that I found distasteful stemmed from differences rooted in culture. While cultural norms certainly played a role in what Nancy and Marin found different about our family’s dynamics, I think that what they pointed out to me as concerning was not simply code-switching or differences of collectivist cultural norms. At college I existed to others not as a daughter or as a sister but as an individual, and they had each been alarmed by the degree to which the woman they knew was diminished around Papa.
