Identity

Lot's of talk lately about identity first with Bruce Jenner now with Rachel Dolezal.

I see this every once in a while at RVCC.

First a fascinating crisis. In the last generation America has seen a lot of immigration from Africa. Now those immigrant's children are young adults and themselves face something of an identity crisis. They are black, but they are not the descendants of slaves. The latter of course is an important part of the African American identity. I have seen African students, whose voices patterns are indistinguishable from those of say, me, put on an African American accent like Deion Sanders. The accent got more pronounced when he talked to an African American student.

Interesting no?

A second case: last semester I had a student with a really Irish name. Federal law prevents me from revealing it, but lets just say she might as well have been named Maureen O'Hara. One class she walked in wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with the Polish flag. I asked what that was all about she told me that while she was Irish, it was the Polish side of the family she identified with. The T-shirt was from a recent family function.