What does it mean to be human?

Every year the freshman at St. Mary’s Academy have the task of answering one question: what does it mean to be human? Ever St. Mary’s alumna cringes when she hears the question. The project consists of creating a 15 minute presentation and various essays where you defend you opinion on what it means to be human based on the 10 hours of community service that you have to complete, which you must present before a panel of judges and your peers. Why we all cringe- because it is one of the hardest questions to ask. It is impossible for a 14 or 15 year old to know what it means to be human; I actually believe that even a 29 year old would have a hard time answering the question. But this entry is not about my experiences as that 15 year old girl that had no idea what it meant to be human based on finger painting and reading the Three Little Bears with a class of kindergarteners.

But I have found myself pondering this question more and more during my time here. During the past two weeks in my European Theory class we have been discussing the meaning of nationality, citizenship, regional affiliations, racism, discrimination, what it means to be citizen of the world, what makes people different and the civil liberties that everyone should have; this makes me ponder the meaning of what it means to be human even more. What does it mean to be European, Spanish, Valenciano, Castellano, from the street that you live on? How can there be European unity if there isn’t even unity in Spain. One of the questions proposed by the professor was what makes a Valenciano different from a Gallego (someone from Valencia and someone from Galicia). One of the girls in my class said that people from the two regions are completely different, to which the professor asked what makes them so different. What does make them so different? To be completely honest, I did not know until about a year and a half ago that Spaniards had so much regional pride. People here identify themselves first as the province that they are from, especially if they are from Cataluña, the Basque country or Galicia (there are even people from Cataluña that want to separate from Spain and form their own nation, I heard in a news report that 30% of the population feels strongly about the area becoming its own country). They have a stronger regional pride than national pride, whereas I think that in general there is a strong national pride in the U.S., especially following September 11th. People identify themselves as American, and then they identify themselves as the state that they are from.

What is the difference between nationality and citizenship? What is the point of having a citizenship really? What are rights that citizen can have that non-citizens cannot?

I go back to my original question. What does it mean to be human? We are all the same, we are born, we live, and we die. But what makes us different from other animals? What unique quality makes us human? Are we really different from animals or do we just think that we are? Are Americans really that different from Spaniards? I feel like it is a search to an unanswerable question because no one really will ever know what it means to be human. For me, given all of my experiences, especially experiences this year, to be human means to be given a choice, make decisions and learn from mistakes to change your future.