| Essay excerpts
© by Beatriz Badikian-Gartler |
Prologue Neither here nor there I stand, one foot on this side of the border, one on the other. Were I to have three more feet, I'd easily place them on three more lands. Neither here nor there, where am I? And the people say: you are everywhere, multiple, you are fortunate. But I respond: 'many' carries the danger of becoming 'none.' Invisible I stand. ... One of the consequences of this temporal and situational condition is the experience of misrecognition. People react to multiethnic individuals with "preconceived ideas about the meanings their bodies convey. These misrecognitions can be amusing; often they are painful" (Moya 145). They also affect the kinds of jobs they will qualify for or where they can live or go to school by the categories they will be placed in, the one box they must select rather than acknowledge their multiplicity. The single classification into which any given individual is place in the U.S. today is predicated much more on how she or he looks, sounds, speaks, acts, walks, than on the individuals, self definition. ... |
... Along similar lines, the writer
and critic bell hooks declared the margins as a space of radical openness,
a location from where the marginalizes can critically evaluate the center
as well as its own place on the periphery. When this periphery becomes multiple
borderlands, that longed-for sense of belonging is complicated many-fold.
And herein lies the paradox: it is certainly difficult to identify
with some other or others, yet it is infinitely easier to find something
to connect with all those around us. Granted, deep down one can only
really connect with similar folks, yet our multiplicity makes us flexible,
accommodating, useful. I find this openness particular significant
in the classroom. When I teach composition and writing in English, my presence
and ability in a language that clearly isn't my native tongue reinforces
the principle to the students that you can do it to, no matter how foreign
and difficult this language feels right now. Non-native speakers, especially
latino/a students, identify with me, realizing a comfort and safety that
encourages learning. Native speakers also learn to abandon preconceived notions
of foreigners, immigrants, those of us who speak with an accent. When
I teach African-American literature, the black students who often make up
the majority of the class, if not the entirety, see me as an ally who can
speak about these writings with knowledge and affection, who is -- in their
own words -- one of us. ... |