A Run to the Wilderness:
An ongoing discussion about identity from the outside
By Willroy-Alexander Grant
LASP Fall 2005 Newsletter
Choosing to study or live abroad can be as much an inward journey as it is a step outside one’s comfort zone. In my experience as a professor/facilitator at the Latin American Studies Program-LASP, this idea often seems to be confirmed in the students with which I am privileged to interact. They all seem to represent a spectrum of experiences and cultural backgrounds in the United States and Canada, including different ways of viewing themselves and the world. However, bi-cultural students, those who come to LASP having at least one parent who does not identify him or herself as a North American Caucasian, appear to uniquely represent this phenomenon. For the few that choose to do a semester abroad, there is usually a parallel cross-cultural experience that happens within them as they travel south.
In the midst of a changing world with a growing awareness of ethnic and religious tensions, it seems appropriate to intentionally discuss the impact of the LASP experience on the identity of bi-cultural students, as a potential place for new and relevant insights. I approached a current LASP student from Biola University, Angeline Overturf, who is of African-American and Caucasian descent to explore this notion of mine. Here is an excerpt of the interview:
Alex Grant: Do you consider yourself to be a bi-cultural person?
Angeline: Yes and no. I have always considered myself to be beige more than anything else, but I’ve realized recently that beige isn’t really a culture (she chuckles). So I’m not, yet in some senses I’ve felt bi-cultural and almost more felt ‘acultural,’ as if I didn’t have one. Number one, by virtue of the way I look, I felt like I could easily kind of fit into wherever scheme of things I needed to or wanted to, which kind of helps. But now I realize that I’ve been able to do that only on a very superficial level. In fact, most people think that I am Latina and I tell them I’m not, but at the same time I’ve had a desire to identify somewhere. So in fact, I even e-mailed my boyfriend (who is first generation Mexican-American) last night and asked him how he sees me. Sometimes I feel more comfortable with his extended family than I do with my own extended family. So it’ll be interesting to see what he says.
Alex Grant: It’s interesting given your answer that it is how people place you more so than…
Angeline: than where I place myself …
Alex Grant: Why is that? Or what is going on there?
Angeline: That is very interesting. I think because in the U.S., at least especially in Southern California where I live, we’re such a microcosm of so many different cultures. In that sense I guess I grew up with a lot of other people, more or less like me that were “American”, and that kind of fit into the higher or umbrella culture rather than having a very specific culture. I don’t think I realized that there were specific cultures outside of mine until I started to make friends with people who have a distinct culture like my boyfriend. I didn’t realize that people were different until just recently. So in that sense, I never felt the need to claim one or the other and therefore I didn’t. It was like ‘this is me, isn’t everyone else just like that?’ It is a very new revelation. I think I have always thought of my ethnicity as bi-ethnic, but I never considered myself bi-cultural, which I think is different. As far as culture is concerned I am beige, if that makes any sense (she chuckles).
Alex Grant: I wonder though, could it be that you actually have that culture that you call beige?
Angeline: It is almost like a third culture. I am thinking of third culture kids and how hey will never quite be what their parents’ culture is but they will never quite be what the host culture is, so they’ve made a new one. In a sense, I kind of feel like that, like I have a new one. The only thing is that I don’t feel lost being part of it.
Alex Grant: How has it impacted, if at all, your life and interactions back in the U.S.?
Angeline: I think it’s been neat because I have had the privilege of being able to identify with both sides, if I want to. Coming in as new student, most people thought I was Latina, including most Latino students. It wasn’t until the black students realized that I was half black that they really sought me out. Before, I was just ignored by them.
Alex Grant: Has it impacted the way that you create power for yourself as a woman of color?
Angeline: Yes and no. I think that it gives me more credibility with that part of my life. In the sense that if I am ever talking to a group or need to be part of a group of African- American people, that gives me an outlet or a means of identifying that I would not have otherwise. It’s hard to say, because I feel more-so part of that third culture, more than I do either one. I don’t necessarily consider myself white, although I have to say nine times out of ten, I identify with that side. Although I don’t really consider myself black either, I am still figuring out what that is, since it is far removed. That third culture to me looks more Latina than anything else, but I am still figuring out what the inside of that looks like since I don’t have many people to bounce that off of. If anything, I feel like a chameleon, that if you want me to be Brazilian today, I can be Brazilian…if you want me to be Greek, I can be Greek. So it all depends on where I am. It is very easy to blend in.
Alex Grant: Is that part of your conscious choice?
Angeline: I suppose that as I am going along, I am consciously choosing to be a chameleon by taking the bits and parts of all the different cultures that I treasure and making it part of my new culture.
Alex Grant: Would you recommend that most people then do that too?
Angeline: I suppose so. I think that it might be somewhat more difficult because they may have a more definite basis of their “culture” or they have a more definite foundation to either fill or tear down.
Alex Grant: Do you have new questions that have surfaced for you?
Angeline: I have a realization right now that I have created a different culture for myself. I think I did subconsciously and now I am conscious of that. So now the implications of that are the new questions I am raising. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Are there other people who have created the same kind of culture for themselves? Is it similar to mine or not? Does anything necessitate that I do pick and choose? I have a lot of questions and I still don’t know how significant or important that is, or even how that may change things in the future.
Alex Grant: As a person of color do you process or interact with this new information in a slightly different way than the rest of the class or not?
Angeline: The fact that my ancestors were slaves, that’s not going to change, whether I want to make it superficial or not. In that sense, I have attempted to identify more with people who are poor and oppressed, so, in that sense, yes. I have been thinking a lot about Ché Guevara lately and the facts that he came from a middle class family, who was doing well and that he still identified with people who were being oppressed and he fought and gave his life to change those things. I’ve definitely admired his example. Presently I am more so where he was. How do I bridge that gap, is where I am at.
Alex Grant: Thinking about Ché, are you feeling any sense of calling to do what he did?
Angeline: Definitely thinking strongly and praying about that. In some sense I will have to say, it’s more comfortable not to, not forgetting these things ever happened, but throwing money at it or supporting other organizations that want to champion that cause. I don’t know if that is denying, at this point, what my purpose is. I don’t want to be responsible for not using the knowledge I’ve gained yet, I am not sure that I am ready to lead a martyr’s life. I was explaining in a process group that I feel like Moses in that while Moses was schooled in all of the ways of the Egyptians he wasn’t Egyptian, and so with his means of identity he could identify with Hebrews because that’s what he was, after all. And so, this program has alerted me that both ethnically and spiritually I am not an Egyptian. Nor am I of this world either. I am of Heaven. I am still at the point where, ok, well I have killed the Egyptian, I knew this is wrong, but yet I have run to the wilderness. Everything is fuzzy and I am waiting for my burning bush experience and I haven’t had that yet. Hopefully I will be in a place to lead people out of captivity, ideally both spiritually and physically. I am hanging out in the wilderness and learning more about what God truly is and even what my identity is.
At some point in life, we are all confronted with different aspects of our identity and their implications for our future and those around us. Whether it is gender, socio-economic background or our ethnicity, we soon become aware that any of these labels can take on new meanings of their own, often demanding that we make crucial decisions at every step of our journey. Perhaps one of them is running the risk to the unknown to re-discover oneself and a sense of mission, which is so essential to our survival.
(The author has contacted five former students of the LASP program with similar questions, in an effort to further explore this issue. He may share some of their insights in a future newsletter.)
Willroy-Alexander Grant is Assistant Director at LASP. He is Afro-Costa Rican and brings that experience to the table of identity discussion. Alex has worked for LASP for four years and has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of the Ozarks and a M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University.
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How Now Will We Live?
By: Mindy Cooper LASP intern 2005-2006
From one alumnus to another, Pura Vida Mae! I have been back in Costa Rica now for a little over one month and I want to reassure you that it is still everything you remember it to be. Ticos still eat, breathe, and sleep fútbol, gallo pinto, and café. Teatro Nacional and La Margarita continue to bring comfort to students not only as significant landmarks for navigating San Jose but also as memories from a time that brought about profound change.
Reflecting on my time as a student (fall of 2003), and comparing that to my short time as a member of the LASP staff, I question my motivation for returning. I have decided that although I love all the above-mentioned, that is not why I returned. I returned because I believe in the process. I believe that as I struggled through the process of LASP and reentry I discovered that the person of Jesus I had known was not truly Him but someone I had created him to be. I found out that Jesus was serious when he said “All people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another” (John 13:35). For me this requires faith like I never knew. Faith to take risks, faith that offers forgiveness when I am wrong, faith that assures me that the most important thing is the question, not the answer.
As a continuation of my own search I am now helping others to search to find the freedom that I found and that Christ promises. Freedom to mess up, fall down and fail but a reason to always get back up, being stronger for it, and continuing in humility, patience and love. So as you continue on your path, wherever that might find you or lead you, I encourage you to be bold and unafraid of making mistakes, at peace knowing that the most important thing is that you never give up and to always choose love.
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LASP Announcement
We at LASP wanted to make you aware of a future event. The CCCU (mother organization of LASP) sponsors a Forum of Christian Higher Education every 5 years (www.cccu.org/forum). The next one is from March 30-April 1, 2006 at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Dallas, TX. The CCCU will make available a room on Friday, March 31, from 4:15 - 5:15 pm for LASP alumni and others interested in LASP to meet over light refreshments and hear about LASP. Whether you attend the Forum or not, you are welcome as LASP alumni to stop by and visit. At least one person from the LASP staff will be there.
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