Spelling Bees, Vulnerable Teens, and the Problem With “Identity”
Photo credit https://christineorgan.com/2012/10/12/belonging-but-not-fitting-in/
I want to start with Zalia Avant-garde. With the National Spelling Bee Champion. With the world record breaker. With the future NASA scientist.
With the most American person I can think of.
In this country, we cherish self-determination and individuality above all else. It’s the bedrock of our national mythology and ethos. We can choose to be anyone in this world, measured by the sweat of our brows, the strength of our backs, and the courage of our hearts. Go be whatever person you want to be, and do so proudly and without hesitation.
For non-white Americans, though, this is tricky. How can you be the master of your own destiny when your “identity” is defined by your biology, your phenotype, and your family origin?
Our race, ethnicity, gender, etc. comprise what sociologists sometimes call “social locations”. And although these demographics tell us much more about our biology than who we are in our hearts, they are both implicitly and explicitly assumed to be at the center of our individual identities.
My dad was born in Iran. That’s a massive, undeniable part of my lived experience; how could it not be? But is it at the top of the list of the things that make me, me? Is it the 20th thing? (Fifty percent of my DNA is Scots-Irish, but people seem less interested in shaping my identity around that.)
Some Iranian-Americans I know are members of Persian affinity groups, send their kids to Farsi classes, and celebrate Persian holidays. Most carry their heritage as a badge of honor. After all, your family history and heritage are both exciting and wonderful pieces to your personal puzzle.
I am proud as hell to be an Iranian-American, and part of this country’s diverse history. That said, I’m also quite proud of the Celtics podcast I host, how much I love animals, and how well I use vignette on Instagram to make my pictures look extra good.
And in those moments where my identity is reduced to “Persian guy,” especially in a predominantly WASPy setting, I sometimes fight feelings of erasure and rejection and confusion.
I don’t always know if my blood is my identity, my social location, or something in between. But I do know it stings to have that decided for me.
I can’t help but approach this issue from a different, chosen perspective. I am a high school teacher, and so every day I see first hand the tremendous pressure young people face to self-identify, to social locate on a smaller scale. What I just identified above is much, much more complicated when you’re a teenager.
Person-building, especially as a teen or young adult, is awkward and clunky. It requires introspection and vulnerability, something teens rarely have in abundance. Young people often rely on stereotypes and mimicry in the process, as fitting in or finding footing can be more important than finding truth. What makes this especially pernicious is when identity is reduced to what demographic boxes you can check, or worse, what boxes other people check for you.
Me on the right. Yes, person-building as a teen can be awkward and clunky.
A few years ago I worked at a middle school in suburban Boston. This was a predominantly white school, but with a healthy population of South Asian and East Asian students. Some classrooms were nearly 50 percent non-white, but not the kind of non-white that had parents and teachers discussing “diversity” in hushed, embarrassed whispers.
Instead, the Asian diaspora was just an unbothered contingency of first, second, or third generation immigrants who earned little support in navigating a world built for their white peers.
This school printed yearbooks, and each 8th grader was given a space for a quote, almost like a graduating senior. For most kids, these included shout outs to friends, quotes from The Office, or other silly or reasonably wholesome quips.
Among some of the non-white students, though, this became an opportunity for something more painful. With an opportunity to flash a bit of personality or pizazz, the first or perhaps only way these kids knew how to stand out was to blurt out a self-deprecating racial trope.
One South Asian boy made a remark about a convenience store. An East Asian, American-born, fluent in English kid’s quote read in broken English. In a graduating class of 180 or so students, there were half a dozen or more 8th grade quotes that were naked racial stereotypes.
Every day, consciously or not, we make choices about how to be in the world, how to relate to our peers and community, and, especially in the age of social media, how to stand out. But for young people with limited lived experience, there isn’t as much of a foundation to work with. Stereotypes are short-cuts for teens and young adults.
You want to be a jock? Act the way jocks do. You’re an emo kid? There’s any number of cookie cutter molds for young people to borrow as they claim a seat at the table.
You want to be a jock? Act the way jocks do.
These are what we call identities. And though they can be damaging in their own right, they are choices. Agency is critical here; You can always walk away from your emo phase.
When identities are built around ethnicity or skin color, everything gets much, much more harmful. The Asian eighth graders above were just as vulnerable and desperate to self-identify as any other teenagers. But for any non-white reader, the pressure to reflexively regurgitate a trope or stereotype is all too palpable.
This puts minoritized people, the so-called “others,” in a corner. No one in the South Asian kid from the yearbook’s family works at a convenience store, but 30 years of the Simpsons and 300 years of a national racial caste system made it pretty hard for this poor child to not oblige.
If you want to transition from being a jock or an emo kid, you can delete a few instagram posts and swap out your wardrobe. But if the world decides on your behalf that your identity is first and foremost a product of your skin color or ethnicity, you can’t just walk away.
If you haven’t, check out Maicen’s post “On being an only'' for more on this topic. For non-white folks, it really is a familiar feeling to be othered in an instant. When who you are as a person is boiled down to your biology, your phenotype, or your last name, you can feel dehumanized and disillusioned all at once.
It is one of the core American rights of passage to be an individual of your own choosing, to be the kind of person no one has ever been before. It’s our right to cherish our family backgrounds and heritage, and it’s important that we do so. But it’s also our right to do so on our own terms and to decide for ourselves what that looks like.
Maybe your bloodline, religion, or skin color are all deep parts of your identity. Maybe they’re simply social locations, and not much more than boxes to check when filling out paperwork. Or maybe it’s something in between. So long as you’re in the driver’s seat, there really isn’t a right answer.
