About Me: The Project Dreamer
Who am I? To you? And, why am I asking you to spend time identifying identity?
A prompt inspired by Why Identify, Identity or Does Identity Exist? guest edited by Miguel Gutierrez
The school bell rang just as I was throwing the robin’s egg blue doors open near the front office. “Dang it!” I huffed to myself while I fast-walked to Mrs. Moore’s room at the farthest end of the school. I was late. AGAIN. Despite my bedside prayers and silent protests at the breakfast table, my family struggled to arrive ANYWHERE on time. In fact, the entire congregation at St. Catherine’s of Sienna knew at exactly twenty past nine, a family of five would rush in, dunking their middle fingers in the holy water asking a row of people at the back pew, “could you scootch down a bit?”
Well, this day was no exception. I moved through the familiar route, speed walking with my backpack strapped tight to my shoudlers, beads of sweat collecting above my lip. Only, this time, as I sped walked through the halls of Mills Elementary School, a familiar voice came on the P.A. system. “Congratulations, Mills Elementary! We have a ____% passing rate for the TAKS test this year!” The numbers are blurry to me now, but I am sure, judging by the middle-class predominantly white student body, the parents at Mills Elementary felt their children were well on their way to climbing the ladder of capitalistic success. This was the early 2000s after all. The age of Destiny’s Child, Blockbuster turning down Netflix, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The myth of the American Dream still drumming along in my household.
Good job, Erica. I thought to myself. You helped this school hit its marks! Only, then, the familiar voice on the PA started to break down the passing rates of the students by racial and ethnic demographics. Caucasians, __%. African-Americans, __%. Hispanics,
Ever since then, I’ve always stayed curious about how it feels to identify myself to my networks and communities.
Who am I identifying myself for and what are the sensations my body gives me during those acts trying to communicate to me?
Since then, I have been dreaming about how practices of inscribing cultural identifiers might inspire a sense of interconnectedness, systemic analysis, and care.
Questions by Dr. Brianna Figueroa from the article, Why Identify Identity?: “Who are we alone and together? What do we share among ourselves and with others? What to relearn? What to unlearn? How?”