Tag / Identity

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  • Year Of Empowerment

    Every morning during my elementary school days, my dad woke up extra early to pack my lunch. He knew I loved the classic Chinese dish of tomato and egg stir-fry, so the whirr of the kitchen exhaust fans coming from downstairs was like music to my ears. He was always gone for work by the…

  • (Con)Tested Identity

    Before I even got to the main portion of the SAT, a question stressed me out. “What is your race/ethnicity?” jumped out at me, taunting me with the simplistic responses underneath. Filling out “white” would feel like denying my heritage, claiming that my dad’s side of the family was irrelevant to who I am, but…

  • Constructions of Identity

    I came into college with my hands completely empty; no baggage from who I was perceived to be in high school, no personal agenda to make the “right” friends, no urgency to establish my M.O. I was an architect with absolutely no complete blueprints to show—pieces, yes. Sketches, post-it notes, but nothing finished. And I…

  • Ask What You Can Do for Your State

    Any college freshman can tell you that America is not as homogeneous as we pretend. We come to Washington University in St. Louis knowing we will meet people of different cultural backgrounds, but heritage manifests itself in ways we do not ex­pect. No one talks about North Dakota’s culture, West Virginia’s culture, or Michigan’s culture,…

  • A Culture in and of Yourself

    You ate only a pound of meat a month?” My cousin, Yuan—looking up from his phone for the first time since we’d sat down at the table—says, interrupting Aunt Li. “That’s crazy. Is it even possible to live on that?” “We’re alive, aren’t we?” my mom says teasingly. Yuan shakes his head and grunts, and…

  • Coming to Terms with “Self-Segregation”

    Washington University has a self-segregation problem. The problem does not lie with the communities centered around certain identities, but with the criticism and labeling of such groups as “self-segregating.” This term takes the word “segregation,” which is inextricably linked to a century of legalized oppression and applies it to individuals who find value in hanging…