By Elisha Wisdom
The Tallahassee component of my experience begins in two weeks, and I have begun thinking about my “bucket-list” for my summer experience. As far as things on the list that would move the project forward, I am very focused on building a contact sheet with a diverse range of experiences. Some of the ways I want to do that is by approaching coworkers at my job in Orlando with blended ethnic and racial identity and asking if they would be comfortable doing an interview. I also want to create friendships with more international students in the Globe, because I believe that they will also have many insights as non-American students. I also am hoping to gather recommendations from people on others who I could contact and interview about their experiences.
Another item on my bucket list that involves my research is my observational experiences. While the bulk of my research will be through interviews and reading literature on identity, I also want to engage in some observational studies of how people use their blended identity in the environments they are in. Some ideas I have are with the teenagers I am working with in Indonesia, at international social events with the Globe, or potentially with my Colloquium students.
The third item on my bucket list is much more personal. I will be in Indonesia for almost two weeks, and am really excited to connect with the people and cultures that I grew up with. The only problem is that it’s been almost 6 years since I have moved and I have forgotten a lot of the language. I am hoping to relearn some Bahasa Indonesia so that I can have conversations with locals or family friends. I also am planning on visiting some nostalgic places for me, like the neighborhood I grew up in and some of the restaurants we ate at a lot.
On my bucket list are also some skills that I want to develop. One of those skills is definitely critical thinking. I want to spend time actively transferring my reading into my conversations with people this summer. I specifically want to identify the themes in identity research in my interviews, and establish what patterns are common for everyone. I also want to think critically about people’s experiences and what they share with me, and how they are different from one another.
Another skill I want to strengthen is my communication skills, specifically my professional communication and my mass communication. I will be reaching out sometime this or next week to schedule interviews, and want to make sure I create efficient streams for information to flow. For example, I made an excel sheet with a list of all my contacts and what stage of the communication process we are in (not contacted, contacted, scheduled, interviewed).
As the beginning of my experience gets closer, I am realizing how much preparation I need to make and all of the work I have left to do before I collect the interviews. It makes me feel slightly overwhelmed, but I also am feeling really excited to begin the work in earnest.
The image that encapsulates how I am feeling going into my experience is a mosaic. Mosaics in Ancient Greek culture were artistic masterworks that could take years and years of planning, precision and placement to complete. They are usually beautiful and hold symbology for a community: Greek Gods, historic figures, and family histories. The reason I chose a mosaic is I feel like beginning this project is beginning a mosaic. I am lining up the pieces and envisioning the artwork I want to make. Soon I will begin placing pieces, each shard an individual’s story.
My hope is by the end of my interviews, each person’s story will form a larger picture of blended identity. I hope that individuals will feel empowered to share the story of their blended ethnic and racial identity. I hope that through collecting people’s voices, that I can craft a mosaic more complete than the ones before. I hope the mosaic gives a picture of race and ethnicity that is deeper, more nuanced, and more grounded in people’s lived experiences.
Most of all, I hope that by gathering pieces for this mosaic, I can encourage more people to do the same. I hope that my entry into this field will inspire more research, more empathy, and more investment into those with blended identities.
This is a mosaic from the House of Dionysos, sometime during the 2nd Century A.D.
Photo credit: David Haberthür
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