Who am I? Honestly, that’s a question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 20 years and I have yet to find an answer. As stated in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, forming an identity is a vital part of our life experience that continues on from adolescence. As it is, finding oneself is a difficult task, however, as a member of one or more subordinate groups the process can become even more complex. While I am grateful to God for all of the interesting people I’ve met and diverse experiences I’ve had, that’s not to say I didn’t have some challenges along the way. As we discuss diversity, social justice, dominant, and subordinate groups, I’ll share a little bit about myself.
I’m the daughter of two Hindu immigrant parents from India. My dad is an electrical engineer who completed his master’s and doctorate degrees here at UT, and my mom is involved in the policy aspect of social work. I also have a fourteen-year old brother and both of my grandmothers live with us, carrying on the nuclear family tradition many Asian families have. We make frequent trips to India every couple of years and we keep the Indian culture alive in our home through food, language, and various customs.
I grew up in an upper middle class suburban, primarily Caucasian neighborhood, however, I went to a magnet middle school. When I was here, I made many friends who were African-American, Hispanic, Arab, and Asian in addition to my Caucasian friends. I also had quite a few interactions with members of the Indian community growing up. All these experiences have made me into the person I am today: An Indian-American girl who has a strong sense of Indian culture, is in touch with mainstream American culture, whose best friend African-American, boyfriend is Nigerian-American, and other friends are multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and of different socio-economic backgrounds. Not your typical cookie-cutter scenario, huh?
Nonetheless, however enriched my life is due to these interactions, there have been many times I’ve felt like no one understands where I’m coming from. For starters, I’m a woman of color with immigrant parents, I’m a different religion from most people, and I don’t have a clear cut socio-cultural identity. While I value my Indian culture highly, I find that I often times don’t fit in with other Indian-Americans. In my experience, some of them have found it strange that I also identify with people outside my ethnic and religious group. Although my attitude is American, I’m obviously not among most of the dominant groups in America. While I do have many friends of different ethnic groups, I’m not one of them either. The way I was brought up, it’s almost as if I belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Thus, quite a few concepts relating to the marginalization of minorities in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice stuck out to me. Before I start, let me say I’m definitely not one of those people who play the race card when it’s not applicable to the situation. Although I feel that there are systems in our society biased against minority groups, I don’t feel it’s my place to blame all members of a dominant group for this. There are good people who belong to dominant groups and want to improve the lives of oppressed people; I recognize this. However, in the case of race and ethnicity, my own life experiences have shown me that Caucasian people do have privileges in areas where they may not even realize it.
A few of these privileges that I’ve personally noticed are: the fact that Caucasians can assume that their ideas and contributions will be taken more seriously, they don’t have to deal with constant attention to their race, and they can reasonably expect that if they work hard and "play by the rules" they'll get what they deserve (Adams, 17). I'll elaborate on specific experiences another time. For now, let me just say that I've noticed how as a member of a few subordinate groups, I just can't expect certain things. The reality of the situation is, members of dominant groups take their identity for granted while everyone else is constantly reminded of their minority status.
I'll conclude today by saying that as a person who doesn't have a clear cut racial-cultural identity, I've become more tuned in to injustices and inequalties in the world. While I would never trade the diversity I've experienced for anything else, I will say that the question of "Who am I?" will probably always be a source of confusion for me and people that are trying to form an opinion of me. Nevertheless, I hope to use my understanding of the struggles of oppressed groups in order to raise awareness about subjugation and to educate members of dominant groups about what it means to be a minority.
When it comes to identity I agree with you: I sometimes feel that I am an ever-changing piece of wonder that I don't even know how to describe myself as. I do like to represent my race of course because I too am really close to my family and follow their values and show pride for my culture, being a Latina (Mexican-American). I did catch on that part where the readings talked about the privileges that people have and sometimes don't understand how good they have it. I was talking with my sister and to explain this concept I gave her the example about a person who has only 9 fingers instead of 10 like we generally all have. I said to her, you know that person with only 9 fingers knows everyday what they lack and that is that one finger that the person with 10 does not even care to thank to have. I just really am in awe with this class it is interesting and eye opening and just different; makes me see the world in a way that will help me without doubt in my future career and relations.
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