Carla Dibello On Change, Culture And The Concept of Home
Entrepreneur and celebrity style insider Carla Dibello on living the complicated life of an expat and her expansive idea of what she considers home
As an expat, the concept of homeland is complicated. There is the place I was born and spent my childhood, and then there is the city of Los Angeles where I worked through my young adult life and started my first business. And there is Dubai, the place I am now and will most likely call home for quite some time, 7,842 miles away from where I began.
When I reflect back on old hometowns, I have so many fond memories. In many ways, they still feel like home to me in the sense that they will always remain familiar in my mind. These were the places that first connected me to others, that shaped me and built the first practices and rituals of my life – that gave me a hunger for more. But increasingly, they are familiar in my memories alone. When I return to visit, I notice how different I have become and in which ways I have grown since my last trip. Each time I learn that echoes of past places will always feel more familiar than returning to them in person.
I think anyone who has moved away from their first home has experienced this to varying degrees. For as many places as I’ve lived, there have been just as many versions of myself. Revisiting old abodes feels like I’m also revisiting aspects of my old self. It’s a dramatic comparison of who I was versus who I have become. One of the things that I love about Dubai so much is that there is such a cross section of different cultures here. It is a melting-pot, full of expats. There is a constant supply of fresh and different ideas and a polymorphic synergy that can only come from a blending of communities. My idea of home is less tangible but more expansive due to my various past lives. The exchange of ideas and diverse contributions to Dubai from its expat community is also enriched from the unique assortment of its inhabitants.
Those who leave their homelands enrich a country on every level – from personal, to business, to humanitarian and so on. More cultures in one place inherently creates a stronger global consciousness. And this is what connects us all to the concept of being a global citizen, contributing not just to our community, but to the world.
As an expat who moved of my own volition in an effort to seek out new opportunities and grow my business, I had the benefit of choice and the luxury to choose what concepts of home I wanted to carry with me into my new life. But for those of the diaspora who did not have a choice due to whatever the cause for dispersion, the concept of identity and cultural heritage is even more complicated. The circumstances surrounding the leaving of one’s homeland can have a massive impact on how one carries a culture with them – and what resources are available to make a new home.
I got to make a choice. But for many, including those from other Arab countries, moving was not a choice, but a means for survival. We often see those who have relocated by choice in a different light from those who have been forced to flee. But the truth is that whatever the reason may be to pack up, past experiences from other worlds is a gift. It offers us an opportunity for new insights that we may have never been privileged to have before. And it gives us a chance to learn to be comfortable with that which is different, encouraging us to grow, even if we have never left home ourselves. In this era of conflict and global connection, keeping an eye on the benefit that other ways of life can bring to our own might just be the key to creating a happier, more understanding world.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s June 2022 issue.