I Dare You: Reflections on Identity by Emily Rivera

Who am I? There is no string of words that I can use to define myself, but I think that is the best definition.  How can one define what is always growing, continuously re-shaping, changing in such a way as to defy category or logic?  Over the past three months of college I have come to define myself as an individual capable of learning, re-thinking past behaviors and changing my future. Harriet Lauler, authors Gloria Anzadua and Alan Watts and bloggers Kelsey Picciano and Morgan Parker have challenged, enlarged, and resolved my sense of personal identity.

In the movie The Last Word Harriet Lauler says, “This is saying good morning, and what does that really mean?  Please don’t have a nice day.   Have a day that matters.  Have a day that’s true.  Have a day that’s direct.  Have a day that’s honest.  A nice day, mmm-mmm.  You’ll be miserable. [...] Have a day that means something” (Pellington).  This strong, independent woman goes after what she wants while challenging others to reach their true potential.  She dares the people around her to be themselves and to take a leap toward something they have always wanted but never had the courage to grab.  She understands that “wonder is not a disease” (Watts 3) but the cure. All my life I have been afraid to go after what I truly yearned for out of fear of making a horrible mistake. Just like Kelsey Picciano in “Forging a Whitmanic, Post-Traditional, Bisexual Identity,” I felt empty due to my lack of accepting myself, which further prevented me from being who I am.  I would hesitate to speak when it truly mattered and stay in situations I knew I should get out of.  I felt like my tongue had “become dry [from] the wilderness [...] and [I had] forgotten speech” (Anzadula 3).  Paralyzed in my state of silence, I felt out of place not only due to my own hands holding me by the throat, but from my unexplored culture.  My mom, a single mother, raised me, and although I admire her courage of walking away from someone who did not and could not provide what she needed, I never learned of my Puerto Rican roots.  I am a latina who cannot speak Spanish, a latina who cannot cook arroz con frijoles, a latina who cannot cherish those sobremesas. You would never guess the amount of times someone said, “No sabes tu lengua? ¡Qué vergüenza!” I hated every second of not being able to be my entire self. I blamed myself. I did not feel good enough to make my dad stay. 

In my senior year of high school this perception that I was the problem started to change.  Out of my curiosity for psychology, I learned about cognitive behavioral theory. It explains how a thought leads to an emotion which causes a behavior. For example, let’s say the boyfriend left the toilet seat up after numerous times of my asking him to remember to put it down. It causes me to think, “He does not respect me or care about my feelings.” Upset and mad, I later lash out at him for the possibly incorrect conclusion I drew from the evidence. If I could think differently about the situation, I would act and feel differently. Instead of deciding that he does not care, I could realize that mistakes happen. Since it does matter to me, I could tell him how well loved I feel when he does put the seat down, that even little things that he does for me mean so much. By sharing a positive experience of his behavior and taking responsibility for my own, I initiate rather than react in a submissive role.  Learning this theory helped me realize we have to be honest with the people around us because most relational issues are due to misconceptions of what is expected. In order to have better relations it is necessary to have the courage to freely talk to our loved ones about our emotions and thoughts. It also helped me understand that it was not really my fault that the man who was supposed to be my father did not understand responsibility and commitment. If he does not know me, I cannot blame myself for his ignorant choice.

Even though cognitive behavioral theory helped me get over my problems with my biological father, I have not yet applied this method to my lost culture. I not only have to live with that, but I also have to live with being the only one of my kind. All of my siblings are only half of me, which has made me feel out of place. Just like Gloria Anzadua, I could not identify with the standards in my life; I was on my own in a house that did not feel like a home. Reading about Gloria's struggle taught me that I have to embrace myself as who I am, so that I can become who I want to be. I have to create my place in the world instead of waiting for it to be thrust upon me; I need to have the courage to say you are wrong and not falter under my own weight. That form of family is not necessarily blood, but the people who push you to do better in life and love you no matter what.

All these events occurring in my life can be viewed as a problem that can never be solved, but in my eyes, they are lessons faced and learned. They are moments in my life that made me who I am today. I may have a terrible biological father, but I have an amazing stepfather who loves me and cares about me, and without the hardships faced from that, I would not have been able to appreciate and return that love as much as I can and do now. I may not have grown up with my culture, but that does not mean I have to live without it. As humans, we fight for what we want, and if you do not get it, you did not want it badly enough to sacrifice and push yourself to success. There is so much to gain from everything. Let us appreciate different points of views on moments in life and let them help us grow as individual instead of tearing each other down. There is so much pain and pleasure in one moment that you just have to choose which one you will embrace. The mind is your only limit; how much are you holding yourself back?

With my new self-confidence, I realized that “many of my views did not align with [others] ... but this does not make my views wrong” (Picciano 2). I have a very different mindset compared to some of my peers. I take every moment given to me and make it a positive. One cannot control everything. This is not a bad thing; it is what makes life interesting. There is no need to dwell on a mistake, mishap, or conflict. Learn the lesson, solve the problem, and move on. Every second you spend upset about the past is a second you cannot get back. It is understandable that we have to accept our feelings before we move past them, and maybe I am being too harsh, but one cannot live in the past forever.

Even with this hard-won resolve, I kept asking myself why I still was unable to be defined. Reading Alan Watts helped me realize that “we need a new experience, a new feeling of what it is to be I. Just as sight is more than all things seen, the foundation or ground of our existence and our awareness cannot be understood in terms of things that are known” (Watts 6-8).  I now understood that I cannot follow others onto a path and call it my own, that I cannot tell someone to point me in the direction I should be going in my life, that I have to buckle down and make a choice, and that it is okay if it is the wrong one, because the best part is we can always start anew. If we do not like where we are, we have to have the courage to make the change.  Being an undecided major in college you get either one of two things: you need to figure out what you are doing with your life as soon as possible or not stress about finding your career path because it will find you. I just need to experience as much as possible so that I can learn what my place is and what it is not. Alan Watts says, “He doesn't want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game” (Watts 9).  If I knew too soon what I wanted with my life, the game would not only get boring, but I would not have the chance to grow past the first layer of who I am if it was easily given to me. The most important lesson to take away from this is to engulf yourself in things that scare you, be afraid, but do not let it stop you from taking a chance on yourself. You do not need to find yourself, but to create yourself (Sivan).  

I may not know who I am entirely, but I do know parts of my identity.  I have “overcome the tradition of silence” (Anzadua 8); I have grown from pain and learned to embrace myself as well as every moment given to me. I have to create, not follow, and I need to take chances to reach places I have never explored. Reading Morgan Parker’s blogpost, “Invisible Girl,” made me realize even more about who I am and who I want to be. Her words touched parts of me that I did not even know existed. She says, “She speaks not for the ears of others, but for the indulgence and dignity in hearing her own voice. She speaks the statements, she speaks the movements, she speaks for all the empty throats of the woman whose voices were drowned out by the heavy lull of time’s ignorance. She is a powerful force beckoning us towards a greater purpose yet still forcing us to find it on our own” (Parker 1). The respect for herself and for others is enchanting. Although I have much self-respect, I have had my moments of weakness. I may be viewed by my peers as a “woman who is strong, independent, and selfish in the best way” (Parker 2), but I let a man take this all away from me. This semester I got involved with a player whose charming smile lured and led me on to believe we had something real only to discover he kept cheating on me with three different girls. I avoided my torturing experience of disappointment, anger, and hatred. These feelings hit me hard when they surfaced.  I felt like everything that was not being felt grabbed me by the throat and choked all the emotions out of me that I was trying to hide. Still, it was better to blame myself for his wrong doings than actually put blame where it was due. I knew that I was seeing what I wanted to see instead of who he actually was, but I did not yet “learn to listen without fear to the voice inside [me] instead of smothering it” (Freidan 11). If I wasn’t so caught up in trying to win someone not worth winning, I would have realized that I do not need to prove I matter to someone who does not even care about me. This moment gave me clarity to trust myself in the face of adversity: “This is how we keep our tongues untamed and our feet planted in the ground. We must walk [...] with eyes wide open, a heart impenetrable and arms outstretched with fingers to grasp only what [we] want and palms to cast off that which [we do] not” (Parker 2-4). We make that choice. We choose who we become. One should not falter due to fear of speaking up for oneself.

Who exactly am I? I am a girl with a big heart, a girl who is not ashamed of who she has become, a girl who puts herself out of her comfort zone at the slim chance of finding something amazing, a girl who is passionate about the expression of emotions from others, a girl who became a woman. If someone was to paint who I am, I would be the crease in a trumpet player’s forehead as they slip into a dancing melody; the wonder in a child’s eye when they see something for the first time that they love; the strokes of a brush from a painter who has no idea what tomorrow will hold but continues in the belief that something magical may happen; the hope in a mother’s eye when they see the doctor walking toward them with news on her dying son; the tipity-taps from dancers who slide to the beat of their souls instead of the music; the gust of wind rippling under a bird’s wings in flight; the pushing and pulling of the ocean under a boat heading towards its new destination; the warmth you feel in the arms of a person you love. I am a sunrise and a sunset at the same time, bleeding colors that have not been invented yet. I am a mistake, yet I am a lesson. I am everything, yet I am still nothing. I may not entirely know who I am, but I do know that when you are born into a world you don't fit in; it is because you were born to help create a new one. Dare to change, dare to create, dare to destroy, dare to be who you are. Never be ashamed of your past because it is beautiful as you are beautiful. You may not see the value in yourself, but you do have it. You have to work for it; be courageous enough to face your fears hidden in the deepest corners of your mind. Be courageous enough to find out who you are, and once you are able to do that, refuse to settle for anyone who does not see, accept, or embrace the beautiful being that you are and have become because you worked too hard to let anything else happen otherwise. Never stop working, never stop learning, never stop daring. 

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” (n.d.): n. pag. 1987. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.

Freidan, Betty. “Women Are People, Too!” Good Housekeeping. N.p., 09 Aug. 2010. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.

Parker, Morgan. "Invisible Woman", Taking Giant Steps, N.p., 9 Sept.2016. Web.

Pellington, Mark, director. The Last Word. Performances by Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried, and Philip Baker Hall, Bleecker Street and Myriad Pictures, 2017.

Picciano, Kelsey. "Forging a Whitmanic, Post-Traditional, Bisexual Identity", Taking Giant Steps, N.p., 28 Jan. 2016. Web.

Watts, Alan. "Inside Information." The Book. ABACUS ed. London: Sphere, 1973. N. pag. Print.

"Invisible Woman" by Morgan Parker

The modern day woman is active. She is a political titan, a social idol and a domestic leader. She has a voice that carries the war cries and merciless intentions of her fallen, but not in vain, predecessors. She speaks not for the ears of others, but for the indulgence and dignity in hearing her own voice. She speaks in statements, she speaks in movements, she speaks for all the empty throats of the women whose voices were drowned out by the heavy lull of time’s ignorance. She is a powerful force beckoning us towards a greater purpose yet still forcing us to find it on our own. Identifying as a modern day woman means many things but, above all else, it requires self discovery and self empowerment. First, I had to discover that I am an invisible woman!

I should say, rather, that I am one among a growing population of invisible women; a group of those unregistered on the visible spectrum of feminism's woman---a woman who is strong, independent and selfish in the best way. She redefined the role of women in the mid-20th century and continues to forge forward in the pursuit of justice. As a movement, feminism has grown and changed to fit the many decades it spans, yet it’s ideal has remained rigidly constant.  In 1963 Betty Friedan, a founder of feminism, wrote “A woman may live half her lifetime before she has the courage to listen to that voice and know that it is not enough to be a wife and mother, because she is a human being herself” (Friedan 5). For feminism’s woman, self-fulfillment is the key to true happiness. No longer should a woman aspire to home-making, but rather to education, to working and to making a life for herself. It is okay to be on a ruthless pursuit of self interest, as it is no longer selfish for a woman to want the best for herself since Friedan proclaimed, “Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves” (Friedan 10). This was an inspiring and welcomed change for the 1950’s woman because finally she could “learn to listen without fear to the voice inside her instead of smothering it” (Friedan 11). Feminism’s woman gained her trademark of independence to break ground on a new path and begin to change the course. There was now power and fashion behind this woman when the famous words of Gloria Steinem exclaimed, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” (Parker 9).  I, at one time, wanted to be feminism’s woman; one who walks the Earth with eyes wide open, a heart impenetrable and arms outstretched with fingers to grasp only what she wants and palms to cast off that which she does not.

Furthermore, I had always felt that feminism was the most attainable form of liberation a woman could find, but even that no longer seemed true. I tried walking the path of the many remarkable women before me, all the while searching for small similarities to tell me I was headed towards the same great destination. However, all I had to do was look down because my footsteps were nowhere to be found. I had become invisible simply because I could not see myself in it. Alan Watts explains, “Just as sight is something more than all things seen, the foundation or 'ground' of our existence and our awareness cannot be understood in terms of things that are known” (Watts 21). Understandably so, I was invisible because I had tried to see my identity within the already established identity of another. Feminism’s woman was a role in the making years before I tried it on my own skin, which made it feel uncomfortable and restricting. It is of no use to hold onto such identities in “a human world that is changing so rapidly that much of what one learns in school is already obsolete on graduation day” (Watts 13). Thus, as a modern day woman I am challenged to make myself visible by creating my own individual path and understanding my own individual identity. Alan Watts said, “The less I preach, the more likely I am to be heard” (Watts 28). Similarly, the less I force myself upon the world, the more likely I am to be seen.

In this same degree, Gloria Anzaldua’s writing, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” explores creating individual identity against popular opinion. Although her story is one of national identity, the same theme of self-empowerment remains. She says, “Shame. Low estimation of self. Repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self. The attacks continue throughout our life” (Anzaldua 2951). Constantly hearing the voices and opinions of others makes it nearly impossible to hear your own. These outside voices try to tell us a lot about ourselves, and believing them is the first way to let them know they are right. Trusting in your identity is just as important as discovering it because in the face of adversity, this is how we keep our tongues untamed and our feet planted in the ground.  Anzaldua writes, “Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself… I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing” (Anzaldua 2951).  

Certainly the modern day woman sees herself in many different ways, but often she neglects to understand the ways in which she is not seen. Through self discovery and self empowerment, we can truly understand individuality and identity. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man says “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison 3). I believe our invisibility occurs in three stages. The first is when our identity is ignored. Our differences go unappreciated by others, so we search to once again become visible in their eyes. We force ourselves into shapes we do not fit, try on uncomfortable skins and walk long paths with no destination in sight; and again, we find ourselves invisible. This time, however, it is because our identity is lost when our differences go unappreciated by ourselves. So again we search to become visible. We discover the reasons why these various shapes and skins and paths are uncomfortable and futile. And this time, we become invisible by choice when we discover our identity is separate from preconceived perceptions. We do not fall on the visible spectrum, because it is our individuality that becomes our identity; we discover the power in our invisibility.

I am an invisible woman; I am a blank piece of paper and an unmolded clay, I am all that has great potential and untold paths, I am all that possesses true freedom. Before I am anyone else, I am my own woman; I walk the Earth with eyes wide open as my heart and arms outstretched towards a great unknown, with fingers to grasp all that is new and palms to hold onto that which I shall keep for myself.  

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." (n.d.): n. pag. 1987. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.

Ellison, Ralph. "Prologue." Introduction. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995.

3-14. Print.

Friedan, Betty. "Women Are People, Too!" Good Housekeeping. N.p., 09 Aug. 2010. Web. 06

Dec. 2015.

Parker, Kathleen. "Clinton, Steinem and Albright Are #Outoftouch with Millennial Women."

HeraldCourier.com. N.p., 16 Feb. 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Watts, Alan. "Inside Information." The Book. ABACUS ed. London: Sphere, 1973. N. pag. Print.

Is Feminism the New F Word? From Resistant to Responsive by Lola Solis

“That’s not lady like,” my grandma scolded me as I sat without crossing my legs at seven years old.

“Do you expect boys to respect you dressed like that?” my fifth grade teacher asked regarding my outfit of skirt and knee high socks.

“You’re showing too much skin,” my dad stated when at sixteen I wore a demure blouse to a birthday dinner. 

“You’re just asking for it with that dress,” I overheard a group of men saying as I walked into the bar on my eighteenth birthday.

 

These comments repeat themselves in my head like a broken record. As a young girl, I grew up hearing these statements so often it that became imprinted into my mind. Living in Allen, Texas, was like living in an inescapable bubble where my actions hardly ever went unnoticed, especially if they strayed from typical Texas conservatism. I remember walking into my high school office during my senior year to check in and receiving looks of absolute disgust at my brand new Rosie the Riveter tattoo from the Caucasian secretaries at the front desk. They looked at me like I was some animal, and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at their dismay. Purposefully, I lifted up my dress past mid thigh so they could get a complete look at it. Horror struck their faces as I danced away. I made sure they knew I was proud to be a feminist. In spite of Rosie the Riveter being the heroic image of the 40’s that allowed women to work, the secretaries remain politicized by their own sex and unable to realize the historical importance of her being the transformational image of American iconography.

 

Some women can escape social conformity and become conscious of the incredibly sexist, patriarchal society we live in. Others are trapped and are incapable of realizing their true identity because they are the product of someone else’s identity formation. I fortunately have been able to remove myself from the worldwide view of women that objectifies and degrades us. Through years of breaking barriers that prevented me from formulating my own thoughts, identity, and beliefs, I’m able now to shape my own experience and to empower women as they have empowered me. Why is it that some women are able to see their political potential and others only see envy?

 

Ever since Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique used the identifiers feminist, feminism and feminists, these words have gained negative connotations. When I began to voice my opinions and argue back to conservative views that inherently put down women, I and many others who wished to combat the patriarchy obtained a sort of nickname; we were called the FemiNazis. I didn’t get tough by allowing a petty nickname to stop me from fighting for women, but the fact that people are comparing us to murderers who assisted in a genocide against Jews is unfathomable. Why are people so afraid of equality? Is this because we only earn roughly 75 cents to a dollar for doing the same job that a man does? Why so mute if not to suggest that silence equals acquiescence? Are they so reluctant to not see their enlightened self interest ought to have them representing equal pay as workers? I am haunted day and night by the resistance to delivering equal status for all. While women have been objectified for centuries, and men have always been the ones to issue power, I can somewhat understand the resistance to changing what some people may call normality. Just because it is tradition doesn’t make it just. For example, slavery was an American (peculiar) institution until 1865. I do not seek to diminish the road to freedom that African Americans were on, but sometimes I wonder about the American grain. Do we want women as property or do we want women as persons? I am sick and exhausted of this war against women and I will not stop until it is over.  Breaking social and economic gender barriers is not a job that can be accomplished overnight, nor can it be done alone.

 

I never really understood the power of voicing my opinions and standing up for my beliefs until this past year when old friends from high school contacted me to let me know how much I inspired them. One student wrote: “I respect you embracing how you are different from others from how you dress to your interests…I love that you are firm on your beliefs. I love how you strive really hard for the social equality of women as well as overall feminism. I love that you are trying so hard to make social change and make you voice be heard” (Small, par. 2).

 

Although one often hears about activists like Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. and their leadership in civil rights, one never really believes that one has the power of doing the same. This is the mindset that is hindering society from moving towards gender equality. As smart and capable as I know I am to lead a movement, I need help from fellow individuals who experience the same passion and drive for justice as me. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King states, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” (Par. 11). By demanding that we break gender norms and fight back anti-feminist comments, we are following King’s nonviolent path to social change. What we need to bring to light is how absurd it is to be so terrified of our sex. Does a women scare us so much, that we feel as though we must do everything in our power to keep us from becoming equal to us? Like King asks his readers to imagine what we are supposed to tell our colored children about Jim Crow, I wonder what do American mothers tell their daughters. As Gloria Anzaldua puts it, do they tell them to tame their wild tongues? The tongue is to feminism as the non violent sit-in is to the Civil Right’s movement. 

 

Many men and women have claimed that my wild tongue is intimidating and “unattractive,” but underneath what they are saying is the acknowledgement that I can be articulate. I am strong, independent, and verbal about issues affecting women and I will never give in to intimidation by men and counterproductive strategies by women. If we want to destroy the walls that separate us, then we must stand strong and continue to bring to light the issues that have been pushed aside and ignored by politicians for decades. 

“We know how to survive. When other races have given up their tongue, we’ve kept ours. We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the dominant norteamericano culture. But more than we count the blows, we count the days the weeks the years the centuries the eons until the white laws and commerce and customs will rot in the deserts they’ve created, lie bleached…Chicanos will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business. Stubborn, preserving, impenetrable as stone, yet possessing a malleability that renders us unbreakable. We…will remain” (Anzaldua pg. 85)

 

 

Despite the various negative connotations of the word feminist, I will never stop identifying as one. Although it takes many hits, feminism is actually an indication of progress. In Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, she states, “In national surveys 75 to 95 percent of women credit the feminist campaign with improving their lives, and a similar proportion say that the women's movement should keep pushing for change” (Faludi Par. 23). If women are benefiting from the feminist movement, why stop?

 

Works Cited

 

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 

Web. 28 March 2016.

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]." Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]. Web. 28

March 2016.

Small, Jennifer. Text message to author. 8 November 2016.