Cultural/Racial/Ethnic Identity Theories

1. Cultural/Racial/Ethnic Identity Theories

2. Nigrescence Theory • Pre-Encounter • Assimilation* • Miseducation* • Racial Self-Hatred* • Immersion-Emersion • Anti-White* • Intense Black Involvement • Internationalization • Nationalist [Afrocentric*] • Biculturalist • Multiculturalist* (Cross & Vandiver, 2001)

3. Nigrescence Theory • PI & RGO • Personal Identity Component • Reference Group Component • Development • Traditional socialization experiences • Conversion Experience • Recycling • Black Identity Enactment • Buffering • Code Switching • Bridging • Bonding (Cross & Vandiver, 2001)

4. Racial/Cultural Identity Development Model • Conformity • Dissonance & Appreciating • Resistance & Immersion • Introspection • Integrative Awareness (Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1998)

5. White Racial Identity • Contact • Disintegration • Reintegration • Pseudoindependence • Immersion-Emersion • Autonomy (Helms, 1994)

6. People of Color Racial Identity • Conformity (Pre-Encounter) • Dissonance (Encounter) • Immersion/Emersion • Internalization • Integrative Awareness (Helms, 1994)

7. White Racial Consciousness • White racial consciousness is "the characteristic attitudes held by a person regarding the significance of being White and what that implies in relation to those who do not share White group membership" (p. 3; Bennett, Atkinson, and Rowe, 1993) • Unachieved • Avoidant types do not consider the issue of race for minorities or themselves. • Dependent types possess a superficial attitude about race as a result of their dependence on others to define racial beliefs. • Dissonant types possess an uncertainty about their racial attitudes and racial issues. • Achieved • The dominative types possess a strong ethnocentric perspective of their racial group, which justifies the dominance of other racial groups. • The conflictive types oppose both the overt discriminatory practices of other racial groups and any procedures or systems designed to reduce discrimination. • The reactive types acknowledge the existence of racial discrimination and the benefits it provides to White society. The integrative types possess an integrated sense of their Whiteness while valuing cultural pluralism. (Pope-Davis, Vandiver, and Stone, 1999)

8. Asian American Identity Development • Ethnic Awareness • White Identification • Awakening to Social Political Consciousness • Redirection • Incorporation (Kim, 1981)

9. Latino/Hispanic American Identity Development Models • Causal • Cognitive • Consequence • Working Through • Successful Resolution (Ruiz, 1990)

10. Case Studies for Discussion • Helms (pg. 192) ‘White Male 1’ [Marko] • “my parents are Ukrainian and they just came over. They’re first generation immigrants I’m the first one from here so consequently I got tons of Ukrainian culture, maybe more than I didn’t want…I got it shoved down my throat. But my children on the other had, you know, more than likely the person that I marry won’t be Ukrainian. How much culture that they’ll actually get is, they might get a little sprinkling her and there, but I seriously doubt that it’s going to be even a twelfth of what I got.” (Helms, 1995)

11. Case Studies for Discussion • Sue & Sue (pg. 205-206) ‘Nisei Student (2nd generation)’ [Jane] • “That is because I didn’t want to have anything to do with being Japanese American. Most of the Japanese images I saw were negative…To accept myself as a total person, I also have to accept my Asian identity as well. But what is it? I just don’t know. Are they the images given me through the filter of White America, or are they the values and desires of my parents?...For all my life I have attempted to fit into White society. I have tried to convince myself that I was different, that I was like all my other White classmates, and that prejudice and discrimination didn’t exist for me. I wonder how I could have been so oblivious to prejudice and racism. I now realize that I cannot escape from my ethnic heritage and from the way people see me. Yet I don’t know how to go about resolving many of my feelings and conflicts.” (Helms, 1995)

12. Ruth Okimoto • Anger • We were in Poston at this camp, this internment camp as they called it. And we would go to school and military guards, of course, surrounding the camp guarding us. And the classrooms were very inadequate at first. They barely had tables, no chairs. And really no educational material, no books, paper, pencils, the bare necessities of school and those, gradually they began to get them as people on the outside were donating things. But we would go to school as children, pledge allegiance to the flag while guards were watching us, right? And we would sing “God Bless America” and all these things that we were doing on the outside, but it became very absurd doing it inside the camp when you’re at the mercy of the government and basically prisoners of war and yet you’re pledging allegiance to the very government that put you there. So at the time, as children, I didn’t understand that, of course. We sang, we pledged allegiance, and did all of that. But it was later as I went to school, in high school, later on as a young adult I started to think about that. And that’s when the anger and the injustice of what happened really began to surface. • Identity • Today I think I appreciate being an American, but I also appreciate my Japanese cultural background. And for many, many years, because of the camp experience, I tried to suppress my Japanese-ness. Refused to learn the language when my mother tried to teach us shortly after the war. But I think that I’m not just an American, I’m a Japanese American, and no matter where I go, they will first see my Japanese face. So I can’t escape that. http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html

13. Satsuki Ina • 12/7/41 and 9/11/01 • Shortly after September 11, one of the leaders of the Muslim community center contacted me because someone had told him about the work I had done with Children of the Camps. And he said, “In our community center we have many children who are being bullied at school and we’d like you to come and talk to the parents.” And I said, I would love to, I mean, for me it had a lot of meaning for me to be able to help children who experienced the same thing I experienced as a kid. Being harassed and bullied because of something that was completely outside of my control, but because I looked like the bad guy. So the stories that the children told us, it made me very sad. That the things that the other children were saying to them were things that clearly came from adults. That they had heard their parents say, that they hadcharacterized the enemy as dark-skinned and wearing turbans and anybody who looked like that. A little kid said, “They’re calling me Bin Laden.” You know it’s totally irrational and inappropriate and all of that, but it seemed to happen so quickly. • Identity • After we left camp we were advised not to go back to the West Coast ’cause they said there was too much hostility and no housing and my parents weren’t likely to be hired for any kind of work, so we went to Cincinnati. And it was primarily an all-white neighborhood, mostly very low income. I was starting nursery school and kindergarten. When my mother came to pick me up I remember the teacher saying that, “You know you have to change her name. Because if you want her to be a real American, she should have an American name.” So they changed my name from Satsuki to Sandy, so I was called Sandy ’til I was 35. And it hit me that I had spent most of my life using the wrong name and I wanted my name back. My mother got very fearful and she said, “Don’t do it. Bad things could happen. They wanted you to have an American name.” So she still had a lot of fear about what could happen. I felt great. It was a very important thing for me to do, because my father was a haiku, he was a poetry teacher and he gave a lot of thought to that name. And so I felt like I had to reclaim that part of myself. http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html

14. Muhammed El Nasla • Identity • Between third and eighth grade I used to go by Mike, ’cause I was so ashamed of my first name which is Muhammed. But in ninth grade I had another Mike in one of my classes and was like, you know what, I’ll just go back to Muhammed. I thought it was time. I think a part of me was waiting for me to actually finally let my true name come out. I was happy, I was more proud of myself that day. • Being American • The way I’m proving my loyalty is by joining the Army. A lot of people are proving their loyalty by giving up their civil rights. There may be people that still believe that I’m a terrorist. That I’m a camel-jockey. And I’m just here to prove them wrong. http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html

15. Khaled Abou El Fadl • Aftermath • My reaction very soon after it happened was anguished hope that Muslims were not involved in this. And actually I remember very distinctly sort of a degree of feeling ashamed about having that hope, because you would like to respond to something like this at a human and universal level. You would like to feel like, Muslim or not Muslim, this is just terrible, period. It’s really irrelevant who has done this. But because of what I knew, what it’s going to mean for Muslims, I knew that the sort of hyphenation of whether a Muslim did this or not was going to make a big difference for me, for my friends, for my family, for my son. That’s a reality. And the agony of it has not subsided because the worst fears, that this is going to open a door of much suffering for many human beings, has fully materialized. • Identity • We belong on this plane and on our seat, you don’t. You’re here because we allow you to be here. It’s as if it’s a privilege. You’re different, it’s a privilege that you are allowed on this plane. And when I started wearing suits and ties consistently, regardless of how long or short the flight is, I’ve noticed that the treatment has gotten better. But it’s always anxiety producing, not just for the normal security concerns, but because it’s an unknown sum. You just don’t know whether you’re going to run into someone who’s going to say something rude, something hurtful, whether you’re going to sit next to someone who asks to change seats, which has happened to me, because they don’t feel comfortable sitting next to you. Every time you pick up something from your travel bag, or you take out a magazine, or take out a book, they look like they’re going to have a heart attack. Or constantly staring at you. It’s just, it’s an extremely anxiety producing experience and the irony of it is that if, God forbid, there is a terrorist attack, and I am on a plane, I’m just like everyone else, I die just like everyone else. http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/flash.html

16. Video Link • http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/a_girl_like_me/

17. Video Link • http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/3/holla_back_dubai/