April 2019: Stories: Building Identity Through History
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Stories: Building Identity through History
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How can we use literature/academia to reclaim our own history/identity?
How can we navigate academic spaces to learn about our history?
1.We can use academia to inspire us to get out of academia and integrate, build, and work with the communities that we are from, and this literature is supposed to be about.
2.We can connect our history and culture and resistance to challenge the institution to recognize us! We can break down the walls of the institution and integrate with the community to fight four our liberation!
Oftentimes, our identity is washed away because our stories aren’t being told, or purposefully not told in books. For example, I grew up hearing rhetoric in classrooms that Native Americans and settlers got along and ate dinners together and all was well. Using literature and re-constructing academia allows us to take back the truth in history as well as pushing back in attempts to wash away our identity.
The future of our people cannot be built without knowing the past, knowing where we came from and who we are, that’s why we need to take courses and workshops related to our identity. However, learning our history through the white man is not right either, we needed more professors of our own people to teach and educate us about our people.
Use what you know to write about/discuss our stories. Connect with what you can.
Start with encouraging young people of color to pursue academia in the social sciences. Let young black and brown folk and their ideas flourish. Encourage them to conduct fieldwork and investigate inter-community issues and answering phenomenons.
Hearing stories and writing stories is what life to me is about. 2 live for stories about other people because they help figure out who we can be. Identities are always changing, and I’m always changing.
I appreciate everyone here doing soul searching as well as those who found their own soul. Some need a lifetime to find what they’re looking for and others notice that is right in front of them. How can you find what already exists?