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Acknowledgements

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Student Essays

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Dialogues@RU is published
annually by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey

Volume Two
Spring 2003

Since language is open to interpretation, our identity shaped through language is also open to interpretation. This means that not only does the individual involved have the power to give meaning to his or her identity, but others also have the power to impose an objective identity on the individual that may clash with how the individual views him or herself. Author Diane MacDonnell articulates this aspect of language when she writes, "Discourse is social . . . . This statement made, the words used and the meanings of the words used, depend on where and against what the statement is made: in the alternating lines of a dialogue, the same word may figure in two mutually clashing contexts . . . different social classes use the same words in different senses and disagree in their interpretation of events and situations" (3). Therefore, the way we are perceived is highly dependent on cultural context. We can see this aspect manifested throughout Walker's autobiography, especially in the different ways both the black and the white communities describe her. Because Walker is not purely black or purely white, there is a foreign aspect to her identity that both communities have a hard time relating to. While both communities are aware of this foreign aspect of Walker's identity, they interpret it in two very different ways based on their predisposed assumptions of what traits are considered "black-like" or "white-like." We can see this idea take place when Walker writes about how her high school friends perceive her: "When I ask Jodi or Pam why people are sometimes quiet or reserved around me, they say that I am intimidating, which doesn't really answer my question but gives me a general idea of how I am perceived. It doesn't occur to me that intimidating might be another word for black" (108). Walker then later examines the other end of the spectrum when she writes, "Instead of intimidating, the word white people have used to describe what they find unsettling about me, Michael says I am snobby, the term black people use" (271). Through these quotes, the reader can see how terms used to describe others, and furthermore, how we perceive others, are often culturally influenced and split. As a result, there will often be conflicts over how two people perceive the same thing or person. Oftentimes words have certain stigmas attached to them, as in the case of Walker, and these stigmas are given birth through language. Walker attempts to fight the stigmas, born in language, which people have processed to be part of her identity solely based on the images that the terms black, white, or Jewish generate. While these stigmas are embedded in language, Walker paradoxically also uses language, through the form of her autobiography, to contest these stigmas.

The use of racial and ethnic terms also illustrates how, over time, further meaning develops and attaches to words other than the original meaning they were given. For instance, Walker writes, "Jesse is a white boy who talks and acts black" (271). Initially, such terms as "black" and "white" were used solely to describe someone's race, an often phenotypic characteristic of a person. Walker illustrates that such terms have come to express more than just one's skin color. These terms extend to represent the behaviors considered inherent and universal to a certain race or culture. This idea further supplies us with an illusion that identities are natural and in a sense given. We grow up with the belief, for example, that because we are white we need to act "white." We act this way in the hopes of reaffirming what we hold to be our identity. Walker falls under this veil of illusion while growing up because she too was in quest of a tangible, pristine identity. However, as author Karla D. Scott asserts in "Crossing Cultural Borders: 'Girl' and 'Look' as Markers of Identity in Black Women's Language Use," "Those who inhabit multiple realities are forced to live in the spaces, places, and positions in between categories and identities resulting in the consciousness of the borderlands" (137). While this may seem like an affliction, "life in the borderlands" actually becomes a blessing in disguise. It helps Walker to banish the faulty universal notion that identities are pristine, coherent, one-dimensional entities. Likewise, the existence of multiple realities challenges the idea that we need to behave a certain way to reaffirm our seemingly natural given and uniform identity. Her autobiography reflects this gradual process of enlightenment. Walker addresses the idea of racial terms being used to describe more than just one's race: "What is whiteness? And how can one 'feel white' when race is just about the biggest cultural construct there is . . . is whiteness something I can feel on or in my body like a stomach or a burn? No" (304). By stating this, Walker counteracts people's assumptions that she needs to act or behave in a specific way solely because she falls into a certain category.

Authors Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson further elaborate the issues of culturally marked differences and how those differences influence the ways we construct our identity. In their book Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives , Smith and Watson argue that "identities or subject positionings materialize within collectivities and out of the culturally marked differences that permeate symbolic interaction within and between collectivities" (33). One can understand the term "collectivities" to mean the process of reflection that occurs in the act of producing one's autobiography. Thus, "between collectivities" can be understood as the process of reflection that occurs when one is not engaged in the act of writing but rather just in everyday acts of reflection. To explain their idea that "identities materialize out of culturally marked differences," Smith and Watson write "One is a 'woman' in relation to a 'man'. One is a 'disabled' person in relation to someone who is seen as 'abled'" (33). Smith and Watson's statement reflects the idea that these culturally marked differences are sustained through language.

Furthermore, we can interpret Smith and Watson's words to mean that our "selves" come into consciousness primarily through how we relate to, or ultimately differ from, others. Initially, this seems to be the case with Walker while growing up. The title Black, White, Jewish alone lets the reader know that these culturally marked differences that Smith and Watson describe will play an active role in her narrative. Walker's account of her childhood and adolescence primarily portrays her quest to construct an identity based solely on how she relates to others within certain cultural constructs. This quest so much influences her that she accommodates certain aspects of herself to fit within culturally produced constructs. In their article "Enacting Gender Identity in Written Discourse: Responding to Gender Role Bidding in Personal Ads," authors Laura Winn and Donald Rubin contend that, based on their "[c]ommunication adaptation theory . . . individuals vary their language choices within interactions, depending on their social goals. Thus, speakers may choose to emphasize (or de-emphasize) particular aspects of their identities as a way of aligning with . . . interaction partners" (393). Walker illustrates this point when she reflects on her experiences at Jewish summer camp: "When I get there I do what I do everywhere else, I heighten characteristics I share with the people around me and minimize [characteristics not shared] as best I can" (184). This quest to change certain aspects of ourselves is not specific to Walker alone; as Rubin and Winn reveal through their "communication adaptation theory," this quest tends to be a universal phenomenon for all individuals who try to fit into culturally produced social constructs.

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