Inability to connect with my local culture, and lacking the privilege of the Global North. What to do as an anthropologist (venting)
Long story incoming: I am Colombian, born in Italy to Colombian parents, but when I was 4 we moved back to Colombia. I do not have the Italian citizenship so mobility is rather limited (I guess it could be worse).
Even though I was raised in Colombia, I was also raised separate from most of its traditional dynamics. Extended families, dancing, tropical music - my parents came back from Italy changed (they lived there for 10 years), and I was raised in a very liberal middle class nuclear family way by two hippie parents, rather isolated from many typical local things (which, mind you, are very diverse in Colombia depending on the region).
Not completely abnormal in a big city like Bogotá but we eventually moved to another smaller city where difference was in some ways punished, and where most of the students belonged to an upper middle class, nouveau riche, white/mestizo, and like most privileged LATAM (maybe more in smaller, homogenous cities) kids openly racist if in a casual way (but racist nonetheless), colonial, illiberal. I grew up developing crippling social anxiety from this disconnection to my context and a lack of community (such as relatives) etc, though I did have a group of friends sharing my interests in high school and beyond, I used the internet as a form of escapism and derived a big part of my interests from this internet dwelling (anime, videogames, metal/hardcore music) - my first girlfriend was a Canadian girl (from Quebec) I met through the internet and I visited her at 15, and ever since then I never looked back, my goal was to move to the Global North where I could see all the bands I loved and where I naively believed I would fit better.
However, I was advised to first graduate college before moving by my dad, and so I did, and took a long time to graduate because I did not want to be here in Colombia (had an exchange semester in Italy). I was planning on starting a masters degree in Italy when the pandemic hit. I ended up studying a virtual masters degree here and working for some years as a bilingual social sciences teacher.
Now I am 32. I look back and realize that, while I did live, did crazy things, loved several people, I was never focused on my own context, it was all, in my mind, something temporal while I moved to where I truly -belonged-, so I definitely did not put enough effort on work connections. I never learned how to dance. I barely know of local musicians. I feel isolated and disconnected from my own context. My only goal was to move abroad and go to the music festivals of genres I enjoyed, but I have the wrong degree (anthropology, masters in migration studies) and no way to do so, and I am getting older. I am currently looking for a PhD but it is hard to get good funding, and it seems it keeps getting harder to migrate to places like Canada or Australia. What can I do with an anthropology degree and Colombian citizenship? I apologize for the long post. It is both a vent (and a cry for help, haha). Thanks in advance