So last week I really got off on a tangent and didn't get to a lot of the other points that I wanted to mull over…
Is the goal in encouraging diversity to better identify people as, for example, Chicano/Latino/Cuban/Mexican/Spanish or to melt into a "world culture" where it's irrelevant? Is that an ideal that can ever be realized? And at what level do you stop identifying people? What is the purpose of both approaches, of specifying everyone's ancestry in detail versus "you're beige with black hair and blue eyes" or even just "you're from California"?
Do other countries have this issue, or is it an American problem, since we're always trying to validate ourselves and our "right" to be here? For example, if someone's parents were both born in France, and they were born in France, but all four of their grandparents are from Germany, are they German or French? I would say French, but if you change France to "America" in the example, probably that person thinks of himself as German. Or at least would say so when you ask them about his background.
What is the purpose of having an ethnic/cultural identity? Does it serve to separate us or bring us together? People seem to have the need to both be part of a small group of like-people, but also want to not be excluded or isolated from other groups. How can we find a balance between these two needs, the need to belong, and the need to be with similar people? Aren't we all more than just the sum of our parts?
And speaking of parts, what about our ancestors? In psychology people talk about our parents' and grandparents' unresolved issues trickling down to us, about family secrets and problems that never got resolved. Often people talk about who their ancestors are as if they have some kind of claim to their successes (and failures) - why? Are we ourselves or an amalgam of the people we come from? What if we don't even know them? Should we claim to be "from them"? Seems a bit presumptuous to me.
How far back do you go? If my eight great-grandparents are from Portugal (2), Germany (1), Arizona (1), and Kentucky/Ohio (4) what does that make me? Midwestern? I was born in California and I'm white - I tend to think that makes me Californian. Is it all a search for our origins? But what about where we are going with this search? Back to my great grandparents, people I never knew? Or to my grandparents, the children of immigrants (2) and long-time Mid-Western poor white folks? Or to my parents, middle-class Americans? No one eats Portuguese food or German food, or speaks those languages, or celebrates those cultures. Do I have a cultural identity? How far back do I have to go to get one? Do I want one at all? If I claim that, does that mean I give up responsibility for how I am and the praise/blame goes back to my ancestors? "Of course you're good at XYZ; your grandmother was great at that," or "You come from white trash; how could you ever expect to be any better?"
Identity and isolation - to belong or to separate? Who are the outcasts? What are the results of being without an identity? Will your voice be heard? If it's not, do you call that censorship? Is the result a culture of people where you don't even know the names of your second cousins? Where your neighbors are strangers for ten years? Sound familiar? No wonder we form groups based on our interests, social class, work environments, ethnic background, no mater how far removed.
Where does all this isolation lead? It doesn't seem like a bad thing to me that I don't associate with my family, but have a close and large circle of friends, not unlike an immediate and extended family. But what about people who don't build communities like that? Does we start to see others as Others, Not Us, one-dimensional stereotypes? Not real people? Isn't that where a society of outcasts leads, to an isolationist culture, to psycho-pathology and sadists, mass murderers, and cannibals?
Wow, off onto an ugly possibility there.
Every question spawns ten million others. I have no answers. I doubt anyone does. Maybe it's the questions that are important anyway.
An afterthought - all of the lectures in this series focused on ethnic diversity. Not one talked about diversity of religion or sexuality as a main focus. The invisible areas of diversity, I suppose, are harder to statistically track and show change. And women, of course, remain the "minority" that isn't a numerical minority, and even the Women's Studies faculty were more interested in ethnically-diverse women than women as a whole. As a queer feminist witch, I feel excluded. Or I could, but why bother? My diversity is invisible. That doesn't make me invisible; it makes me insidious.