A figure stands beneath a spotlight, surrounded by masks—symbolizing the performance of identity, cultural projection, and the shadow of belonging.
Author’s Note
This essay continues the exploration begun in my earlier piece, An Archetypal Analysis of Belonging: The Fetishizer and the Victim of Fetishization. That work examined the dynamic through symbolic and psychological archetypes—the inner scripts of desire, control, and projection that shape human connection.
Here, the lens turns inward. This narrative traces how those same archetypal patterns unfnew in lived experience—how a cultural exchange, once rooted in curiosity and admiration, blurred into fetishization. It is an intimate reflection on how easily fascination can masquerade as affection, and how the wounds born from that confusion leave visceral traces—wounds felt rather than seen—on both sides.
Read together, the two essays offer complementary perspectives on the same inquiry: the universal archetype and the personal story—the myth and the mirror.
Some names and circumstances have been changed—not to erase the truth, but to honour the privacy of those whose stories once intertwined with mine.
The Shadowed Journey Between Cultures and the Self
Belonging has never been neutral. It is always shaped by performance—by how others choose to see us, and by how we learn to mnew ourselves in return. For me, that lesson arrived not in theory but in a single word: “exotic.” What seemed like a compliment was, in truth, a cage. It revealed the paradox of my existence—foreign enough to be intriguing, familiar enough to be desirable, but never allowed to simply be.
The first time someone called me “exotic,” my skin tightened. The word landed like a bruise—part compliment, part confinement. In that instant, I was no longer myself but a projection, a surface onto which someone else cast their fantasies. My body became a symbol: not fully Eastern, not fully Western—consumable, palatable, marketable. Even the cadence of my North American accent seemed to awaken something in the listener, a curiosity disguised as desire. In their gaze, I was no longer human but object—an ornament, a doll, a body to be appraised, an image to be possessed.
I no longer hear “Where are you from?” as a harmless question. It has become a quiet, probing test—an invitation to confirm whether I align with the gazer’s fantasy, their imagined geography of desire. Whether it comes cloaked in intimacy, friendship, or casual curiosity, the dynamic remains the same: I am positioned as spectacle, not self. Beneath the guise of interest lies intent—the questioner’s unconscious desire to categorize, to exoticize, to fetishize—long before the words ever leave their lips.
I learned early how to dress, speak, and move—sometimes to make myself less invisible, other times simply to blend in, to acclimate to whatever culture I found myself in. Spanish rolled off my tongue like armour; slang became a second skin; accent, a performance. A mask worn to claim belonging. In college, I threw myself into Latin culture, believing that fluency and rhythm could smooth the fractures within me. The more “Latina” I appeared, the more confident I felt—until exhaustion hollowed me out. I could mimic accents—Colombian, Argentine, Ecuadorian, Venezuelan, even Iberian—but each imitation exacted a cost. I was bending myself to fit in, faithful to no one, least of all myself. What I once called adaptability was, in truth, self-erasure. And what I mistook for belonging was often a quiet form of unconscious fetishization.
I thought I was getting the best of both worlds by immersing and assimilating—that if I became fluent enough, fluid enough, I could be an insider, as good as a local. Like the reporters, the journalists, the lawyers—I imagined myself integrated, part of the fabric of that society. But in truth, I should never have treated my Spanish—its fluency, its accent, my ability to absorb customs and adopt norms—as a syllabus or a competition to win. It was never about “overcoming” my Asian timidness; it was about learning to exist without measuring my worth through mastery.
A Shift in the Tropic Heat
Before our move to Panama, the distance between us had become palpable. My ex, restless in the absence of intimacy during our final days in Toronto, began seeking connection elsewhere. He had several brief encounters—something I only learned after we arrived. The emotional cnewness between us grew unbearable, and in that hollow space, I found myself reaching for something new.
When he discovered my own infidelity, he responded in kind—a revenge affair meant less to heal than to wound. In hindsight, I see how both of us were mirroring the same pain: two people searching for affirmation through others, unable to face the silence between us. What began as love had become a theater of projection, where desire and resentment blurred until neither could tell the difference.
One afternoon, a local bartender named Riven caught my eye. I had secretly taken up flamenco dancing, an act of rebellion and self-discovery, and I’d practice in a secluded spot after class. Riven saw me and began to flirt, complimenting my moves. That small spark was the catalyst.
He offered me a tour of his city. We sped through the streets on his motorbike, visiting Parque Omar Torrijos and riding along the coastal Cinta Costera. On the way back to his place near the Tumba Muerto neighbourhood, we stopped for Chinese food. His home offered a glimpse into authentic local life—a small space with a corrugated roof and brightly painted walls, shared with his housemate, Roberto. Though their lives seemed simple, they radiated happiness.
It was there, in that small home, that our affair began with a kiss.
The next morning, Riven made a hearty, Panamanian-style breakfast: fried eggs, hojaldres with melted cheddar, and blocks of focaccia cheese. It was richer and heavier than what I was used to, and I couldn’t finish it all. The events of the past twenty-four hours had happened in a blink, and I desperately needed an escape, an outlet for the turbulence inside me.
I returned to the hotel early. My ex was already up. “So, you cheated on me,” he said flatly. What followed was a long, bitter exchange about neglect, resentment, and all the ways we had failed to see each other. Finally, he proposed a “soft break.”
I didn’t protest. Perhaps because I already knew the fracture was deeper than betrayal—it was existential.
The Mirror of Desire
I see now how my immersion was shadowed. I was chasing connection—trying to fill the void left by the conflicts with my ex and the fractures within my own psyche. Culture became an outlet I mistook for freedom, but in truth it was a cage that entrapped my being. I wasn’t discerning between infatuation and love. I made quick friends, stole the spotlight, and for a time found relief in my emptiness.
I validated my degree in Spanish, convincing myself that my dedication—the Asian woman who understood the nuances of Hispanic cultures—set me apart. But beneath that pride was pretense. Why did I need to prove my gift, my capacity for understanding, to anyone? Why couldn’t I hnew it quietly, cultivate it inwardly, and focus on self-growth instead? That was my downfall—the pride of performance, the illusion of mastery, the subtle disrespect toward my own soul.
It was fleeting. Beneath the laughter and borrowed rhythms, the friendships were shallow, and once again, I was left with myself.
Assimilation shaped not only my posture and gestures, but also my intimacy. My search for love became a negotiation of identity: am I the foreigner, the insider, the fetish, the rebel? My body was tired of translation. It longed not to be exotic or assimilated, but simply to be—unadorned, unperformed, whole.
At one point, this performance extended into fashion. I craved bright Caribbean colours, cropped lace tops, frilled blouses, heels and sandals to match. I wanted to be as glamorous, as feminine, as radiant as the Latinas I admired. I didn’t see them as competitors, but as inspirations. Food, too, became part of the immersion—arepas, corvina, patacones, fried plantains, sancocho. I delighted in the nourishment of culture, but beneath the joy lay quiet damage: I couldn’t see why I found every Latino face alluring. Attraction blurred with novelty; fascination blurred with projection.
Beneath the façade of their beauty, nothing truly shifted—neither in their lives nor in mine. What I saw was not them, but my own rebellion reflected back. I wasn’t fetishizing a people, but a feeling—freedom itself. Freedom became the fantasy I was chasing, the illusion that I could belong anywhere if I could just master the codes: social fluency, charm, dexterity, charisma. It was intoxicating. I tnew myself I was liberated, even sovereign. But in truth, it was another performance—self-conceit disguised as confidence, a hollow crown built atop the same void I refused to face.
The Return
Over time, I realized Panama was not a paradise where I could reset my soul—it was another stage, another place of performance. I appreciated the locals and their culture, but I could not mistake immersion for healing. To stay true to myself, I had to stop performing, stop borrowing, stop scattering my energy into every invitation and distraction. Belonging, I learned, does not come from feigned accents or borrowed gestures.
Belonging comes from hnewing East and West within me, without having to choose or rationalize. Integration flows only when embodied. To belong is to inhabit the soul’s body fully—not as exotic, not as assimilated, but as whole.
Yet the shadow of fetishization does not end when the relationship does. When a person cannot process the experience of being fetishized—or reconcile with the wounded inner child that sought validation through it—they remain suspended in its echo. Healing becomes impossible because the mirror of the other still hnews their reflection. Metaphorically, this was Riven’s fate.
Foreigners often arrive not to belong, but to consume—to take what is vibrant, novel, or alive, and then leave. In that taking, they become quiet colonizers of intimacy, leaving behind an invisible captivity. Locals become both spectacle and sacrifice—admired yet never truly seen; perceived, but never truly known. Their beauty becomes a territory occupied by projection, loved through the bars of desire—close enough to touch, yet never free to roam within their own wildness.
The power imbalance lingers long after intimacy fades. Those who were fetishized cannot unsee the fantasy projected onto them. Their reality becomes stained by nostalgia, their capacity for love tinted by the memory of a foreign gaze. They struggle to separate sensual memory from psychic deprivation—to desire without reenacting the script of being desired.
The journey is not about becoming more like others, nor about erasing myself to fit in. It is about the courage to stand in unity with oneself—in voice, in body, in soul.
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