A Politics of the "We"?: Autobiography, Race, and Nation

Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity. By Crispin Sartwell. University of Chicago Press, 1998

Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth Century America. By Kenneth Mostern. Cambridge University Press, 1999

Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity, and the Body. By Traise Yamamoto. University of California Press, 1999

Autobiography and National Identity in the Americas. By Steven V. Hunsaker. University Press of Virginia, 1999

Autobiographical Inscriptions: Form, Personhood, and the American Woman of Color. By Barbara Rodriguez. Oxford University Press, 1999

Creeds and schools in abeyance . . .

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

We are "written" all over, or should I say, carved and tattooed with the sharp needles of experience.

Gloria Anzaldúa, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras

A few years ago, I took my teenage American daughter to Mauritius for a year. Born and raised in the Chicago area, educated in one of the most diverse suburban public school systems in America, she was used to thinking of herself as an individual with her own cherished idiosyncrasies rather than as an "American." ¹ The year abroad brought her face to face with her national identity. Her schoolmates first saw her as representative of a whole--"Anglo"--culture and measured her against their media-generated and ideologically motivated stereotypes of America. She discovered her national identity through their eyes; they soon realized that there was a lot more to being an "American" than they had imagined. Later on, during senior year and back at her US high school, her autobiographical essays for English AP revealed the extent to which her experience of international difference had made her conscious of herself as a member of a community and a generation. But this "we" was primarily imagined as a group that values individuality above all.

Her upbringing in an affluent but multiracial township has allowed her to internalize individualistic paradigms of American identity. She is white, but has African, African-American, Asian, and Latino best friends. Hers is a generation weaned on rap, hip-hop, and comedy: Ice T, Lauryn Hill, Spike Lee, Austin Powers, The Simpsons, South Park, The Real World, Chris Rock, and Chris Tucker. Her age-group has had the luxury of deconstructing both national stereotypes and politically correct behavior, as well as conventional models of identity and practices of everyday life which have not been under serious threat during their lifetime and which their education since grade school has truly allowed them to take for granted. Their generation is suspicious of conventional attitudes, knows how to subvert them, and is hip to any hint of patronizing generalities. They want to be distinct and different. They are used to each other's class, race, religion, or sexual preferences--to the point where they can poke fun at each other and engage in "dissing" that does not seem to offend them, even if some of their elders (à la Tipper Gore) recoil at the vulgarity (/misogyny/racism . . . choose one) of this dissing and of the lyrics of some of their favorite rap songs. Being unique and "cool" counts more than being the member of a race or class or following the sexual mainstream, since most of them are used to crossing multiple ethnic and linguistic zones on a daily basis in school, at home, and in town. Jabari Asim documents these individualistic tendencies with regard to contemporary black writers: "The sociopolitical conditions of the present age, the growing black middle class, years of integrated schooling, and the sheer variety of black existence in this country all contribute to an atmosphere in which newer published writers feel comfortable to follow their own inclinations, individual instincts and idiosyncrasies instead of ideology. The independent writer, as it were, has become the norm rather than the exception" (27). This strong sense of independence and individualism leads to new ways of looking at race and the role it plays in various communities. That many would want to downplay the traditional role of race should not come as a surprise, since "Americans...