Who gets to have a voice?

By Elisha Wisdom

In identity research, everyone is a stakeholder. All people have identities: cultural, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, gendered, and so many others. Within the realm of racial and ethnic identity, the important question to ask is who the direct stakeholders are, and who the indirect stakeholders are. How do you determine if someone is a direct stakeholder, or an indirect one?

There are so many indirect stakeholders that it would be impossible to name them all; friends, family members and partners of those with a blended cultural identity, bosses who want to better understand their employees’ experiences, corporations who want to have their marketing accessible to the widest demographic… The list could go on and on. The issue lies in who wants to be a stakeholder and who doesn’t. There are plenty of people who have no interest in others’ experiences, or who deny that their experiences are unique at all. 

The direct stakeholders in my research on blended cultural identity are more obvious: those who have a blended cultural identity themselves. Whether their loved ones are direct stakeholders or indirect stakeholders would depend on their investment or interest in learning more about them. I myself am a direct stakeholder. I want to better understand my own blended ethnic identity, and the blended identities of other people in my life like my girlfriend, my cousins, and my close friends.

As a direct stakeholder, I hold many assumptions and personal experiences that shape my view of this subject. For example, I assume that many of my white American peers are not interested in my experiences, or think of me as no different than them. I hold assumptions about my peers who share a blended racial and ethnic identity: that their experiences must be like my own, that they must have certain opinions about my experiences, or that they value one particular aspect of their identity more than another.

My assumptions also mean that the perspectives I use within my research will have a particular skew. In my review of current research on blended identity, I have neglected to include research on childhood and adolescent development. This is an important part of the development of blended ethnic and racial identities. People’s conception of their identity is developed in their childhood and youth. This is especially true of ethnic and racial identities, because the cultures and people that children are surrounded by are what shape their own culture.

I also am missing further international perspectives, as much of my research is drawn on the experiences of different groups within America, such as Black Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans. I would like to gather research as a background for those who have cross-cultural non-American identities. This will better help me understand the experiences of my non-American interviewees.

When reviewing the Four Roles of Social Activism by Bill Moyer, the role I most see myself in this summer is as a Change Agent. I want to give voice to those with blended ethnic and racial identities in order to help people understand their experiences, humanize them, and deconstruct discrimination. Unpacking blended identities can be helpful in the process of undoing discrimination because those with these identities hold a foot in two worlds. They are able to better understand the experiences of two communities, and can help them reconcile. By amplifying their voices and sharing their experiences, I hope to provide an opportunity for people to learn about identity groups that they would have previously ignored. 

As a change agent, I hope to involve more people in our FSU community in the topic of blended ethnic and racial identity, and to help them better understand their loved ones who have these identities. By promoting compassion and curiosity, I hope to build more bridges in communities on our campus.