Nicolle Morales Kern
is studying journalism at
Drexel University
Is the United States of America a melting pot? Or is it more like a tossed salad? With the array of people that make up this country, how do we deal with identity?
By learning the art of opening our eyes, that's how.
Easier said than done. Many battles have been waged over identity in this country, nationwide and person to person. There are so many tensions over identity that some people try to sidestep it, saying, "Why can't we just all be Americans?" Well, we already are - and our identities are too precious to pretend they don't exist.
The key to handling identity is balance. Balance, first, in the person
asserting
identity: patience and compassion for those who don't understand at first; and a sense of boundaries, how far you can go without making others uneasy. But the larger society has a balance to strike, too: between the expectation of shared roles (which we all have and need) and allowing room for difference, seeing individuals for themselves.
I have both German and Panamanian ancestors. To some,
Morales
means I should belong to a certain group because of my hair, skin color, or eyes. Others wonder what that
Kern
is doing there. I am not comfortable with being put in just one group. Why relinquish one part of my identity? Why restrict it? As a person of mixed ethnic backgrounds, I can report that the struggle among multiple identities is never-ending. If people want to know me, they're going to have to open both of their eyes and their minds.
Some people, to be sure, assert their identity too aggressively - whether they base it on race, orientation, place of origin, class, gender or profession, they foreground it constantly and without regard. Conversations seem to revolve around how they are victimized by others. No matter what anyone says, it is automatically taken out of context and said to be discriminatory on some level. You may feel that you have to proceed with caution around such people; they make it too easy to do or say something wrong.
But it works the other way, too: There is much in our society to make the person who is different uneasy and insecure. Various groups are struggling over symbolic turf. One group's assertion of identity seems "threatening" to another group. I was appalled to read recently that a fellow student thought gay people were wrong to request same-sex marriages. Why? Because, as a straight man, he considers traditional marriage (between a man and a woman) to be a part of his identity. Thus, according to him, gay people should be allowed "unions" but not marriages.
I object on several grounds, chiefly that he is asserting his own group's "right" to privileges that group has always had and doesn't want to give up. Similar control is sought over women as well. Tradition once had it that women belong in the home caring for the family. Even though we have made great strides toward equality, women largely are still paid less than men for equivalent labor and are widely underrepresented in positions of power. Men, in short, have rights and turf they don't want to give up.
Meanwhile, many women juggle career, a desire for family, and a sense of femininity. Too much emphasis on any side can lead to a woman being classified as "threatening." Again, that's a lot of men jealous of their domains.
With all of these problems, I still believe our identities are too precious to be denied or smothered. They are our rightful property. They help make us who we are. They help tell our stories, and our parents were right to teach us to be proud of them.
I said "opening our eyes" was an "art." It starts, as art does, with work: remembering the common ground we share, just by being human, by being on this planet, in this country. Then the art part: having the imagination to learn and grow from one another's differences. Each person is unrepeatable, and valuable for that reason alone. My favorite salads are those with many ingredients, in which the salad as a whole makes its own delicious sense, yet you can detect each individual taste, each singular identity that gives identity to the whole.