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accuhunt · 5 years ago

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How to Indulge Your Wanderlust During the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The past few days have been rather scary. Mask-covered faces. Queues to wash hands in public toilets. Sanitizers constantly out of stock. Accusatory looks towards anyone coughing or sneezing. Eerily empty hotels, flights and streets following the lockdown travel advice for Coronavirus. Places that were once plagued by overtourism are now deserted. The spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus has suddenly brought all usual life – and travel – to a halt.

Until a week or two ago, the panic felt rooted in social media, whatsapp forwards and even racial profiling. At that time, I posted on Instagram that I would continue my travels. But in light of recent developments, I’ve archived that post, cancelled some rather exciting travel plans until April and urged everyone to do the same.

I was scheduled to conduct a workshop on responsible tourism marketing in Madhya Pradesh and speak at the prestigious Economic Times Women’s Forum this month – but both events have been cancelled.

In fact, India has cancelled all visas for foreigners till mid April. Sri Lanka has suspended its e-visa facility. Italy is under lock down. Public events have been cancelled in most parts of the world. Schools and colleges have been shut in most Indian states. India’s travel advice for coronavirus is to cancel all non-essential travel abroad. Indians returning from China, Italy, Iran, Korea, France, Spain, Germany, Malaysia, Nepal and even the US can potentially be sent to 14 days of quarantine!

Chances are, you already know that. You, like me, have cancelled your immediate travel plans. And probably you, like me, are wondering what you can do now to indulge your wander-lusting soul!

Here are some creative ideas to satiate your travel cravings – safely and responsibly – during this uncertain coronavirus period:

Read non-fiction books by local authors to virtually explore a new region or country

I’ve dreamt of setting foot in Tibet for a long time, knowing fully well that the Tibet of my dreams is off limits (or no longer exists). So a while ago, I did the next best thing to travelling in Tibet – reading a book that movingly explores its lost beauty, culture and way of life. Tibet With My Eyes Closed is a collection of short stories by Madhu Gurung, based on the lives of Tibetan refugees in India. Some stories moved me to tears, while others left me with an insatiable longing. I can’t recommend it enough!

My point is, as per official travel advice for coronavirus, the entire world is off limits right now. But we can do the next best thing – travel to our dream places through the words and insights of people who know them deeply.

If you dream of Iran, for instance, read Reading Lolita In Tehran. If you dream of Myanmar, read From The Land Of Green Ghosts. If you dream of the Caucasus (Georgia / Azerbaijan), read Ali And Nino.

For more book recommendations, see my favorite (unusual) travel books by local authors around the world. If you’re keen to explore the world from my lens, you can also get a copy of my travel memoir, The Shooting Star

Also read: What No One Tells You About Writing and Publishing a Book in India

Learn a new language that will make a future trip more meaningful

Everywhere I travel, I try to pick up a few words in the local language. But in the weeks before I travelled to Japan, I tried to listen to one episode of a Japanese language podcast every day. By the time I landed in Tokyo, I was able to say many basic phrases in Japanese – which sure made it easier to make friends, find local vegan food and even get some unusual recommendations.

The process of learning a language can certainly make us feel like we’re almost on our way somewhere. The Survival Phrases podcast is good for conversational skills and the Babbel / Duolingo apps can help with basics. But if you really want to commit, consider signing up with an online teacher for one-to-one Skype lessons on a site like italki (I haven’t used it yet but heard good things).

I took Urdu writing lessons last year, but have been terrible at keeping up with what I learnt. I’ve pledged to practice a bit everyday now!

Also read: Unusual Solo Travel Destinations to Feed Your Adventurous Spirit

Document your past adventures

I still have tons of untold stories from my travels over the years. If you’re a travel writer, blogger, photographer, Instagrammer or any kind of storyteller, you’re probably full of stories too – and always wishing for more time to be able to tell them. Or perhaps you have a special interest in architecture, vegan food, wildlife, languages or something else – and you could combine that with your past travels to create unique stories.

All travel advice for Coronovirus suggests not going on a physical journey. But we can still journey into the recesses of our minds, relive some of our adventures and share them with the world. After all, we could all use a little break from the negative news out there!

Also read: How I’m Funding my Adventures Around the World Through Travel Blogging

Binge watch the wonders of our planet

Many of us travel to witness the breathtaking beauty of nature and the cultural wonders of the world. Unfortunately both are fast disappearing.

Video streaming sites online are full of films and documentaries about our incredible planet, wildlife, remote cultures and more. Now is a good time to plug into them, both to feed our wanderlust and to remind ourselves what we stand to lose. Maybe the travel advice for coronavirus and this time away from the road, work, school, college and social gatherings can be a time to reflect on how we need to make better life and travel choices to collectively help the planet.

I’ve been meaning to finish watching One Strange Rock on Netflix, which explains the wonders of earth from the fascinating perspectives of astronauts. And start Our Planet, which documents the impact of climate change on the world’s most remote and vulnerable regions.

Also read: Tajikistan: A Country That’s Not on Your Travel Radar, But Should Be.

Support small responsible travel businesses virtually

As you can probably imagine, this is one of the worst times for the travel industry. March, otherwise peak travel season for many places around the world, has been a month of cancellations. April might go the same way, though I really hope not. Small business owners, family-run homestays, social enterprises and responsible tourism businesses will be some of the worst hit this year.

All travel advice for coronavirus suggests we can’t physically travel this month to support them or the work they do for local communities and environment conservation. But small gestures can go a long way. Leave them a heartfelt review on Google Reviews / TripAdvisor. Mention them on Instagram / Twitter. Recommend them to family and friends for future trips. When the coronavirus pandemic is behind us, they’ll need our tourism money the most. Let’s make sure they’re found, remembered and supported then!

Also read: Offbeat, Incredible and Sustainable – These Travel Companies are Changing the Way You Experience India

Work on your storytelling

Perhaps experimenting with writing, blogging, photography or videos has been on your mind for a long time. Or you still need to perfect some skills. I know I need to get better at editing videos. I could use some professional photography help, but my heart is only half in it. I still have a ton of SEO work to do on this blog. And there’s no end to becoming a better writer.

Here’s a silver lining for the travel advice for coronavirus: Use the time you would’ve spent travelling or socializing, to work on something that might enable you to travel or work on the go in the future!

Also read: Advice for the Young and Penniless Who Want to Travel

International travel is out. But should you travel domestically now?

Many of you have reached out to ask for my travel advice for coronavirus with respect to domestic travel in India (and elsewhere). I think it’s a bad idea. For several reasons:

It’s just not fun. I felt an inexplicable anxiety during the last two days of my recent Chhattisgarh trip. Hearing someone cough sent a shiver down my spine. The last thing I wanted was to have to put myself in self-isolation in someone’s homestay or in a soulless hotel. Or worse, be quarantined in a government facility.

The fear of carrying the virus to a remote part of India. The idea of travelling from urban India – where the majority of coronavirus cases are (in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Kochi etc) – to rural India is a scary one. Imagine if we have the virus but the symptoms haven’t yet shown up. We could be carrying it to small villages where medical facilities are rare and self-isolation is difficult because entire families live in a single room. It’ll be mayhem.

The fear of infecting people more vulnerable to the virus. People over 60 and those with respiratory issues seem to be the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. We can’t risk being the vectors infecting them.

Flights, buses and trains can be coronavirus hotbeds. Given how infectious the coronavirus seems to be, being stuck among scores of people in a closed environment is a big no-no.

It’s best to postpone all international and domestic travel atleast until April (maybe longer, depending on how things turn out). We need to avoid busy places, public transport and any physical contact. We must constantly wash and sanitise our hands. And if we have even the mildest symptoms of fever, cough, cold or flu, we absolutely must stay at home and follow official protocols!

How has coronavirus affected your travel plans? If you run a travel business, what’s it been like for you?

Also read:

11 Tips to Ease Your Transition Into a Vegan Lifestyle

Incredible Experiences That’ll Make You Fall in Love With Uzbekistan

Should Travel Bloggers and Influencers Voice Their Political Opinions?

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randomgemsfromothers · 8 years ago

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Deconstructing Race Multicultural Education Beyond the Color-Bind Jabari Mahiri Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 Copyright © 2017 by Teachers College, Columbia University Cover designer/cover photo/photographer/stock house credit lines ?????????? All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. For reprint permission and other subsidiary rights requests, please contact Teachers College Press, Rights Dept. Ethnography offers all of us the chance to step outside our narrow cultural backgrounds, to set aside our socially inherited ethnocentrism, if only for a brief period, and to apprehend the world from the viewpoint of other human beings. —James Spradley (1979, v) Kobié Jr. is caramel colored. He was 3 years old when this chapter was written. His family soon started calling him Santi, short for his middle name, Santiago. In the United States where he was born, he is seen as a black1 boy. But his identity is more complex than that. Santi’s father was born and grew up in Chicago and identifies as African American. He majored in French and minored in math at Morehouse College. Santi’s mother identifies as Latina and completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was born in Popayá, a town in southwestern Colombia. At 5 she immigrated to the United States with her mother, who identifies as white and who was also born in Colombia. Santi’s grandfather on his mother’s side is indigenous Colombian and has lived his whole life in Colombia. Santi’s mother and grandmother are fluent in Spanish and English, and he too is bilingual in these languages. 1Lowercase letters are used for color-coded designations of racial categories throughout the book (except for the Series Foreword). CHAPTER 1 Writing Wrongs 3 Hélio was 8 when this chapter was written. Like his first cousin Santi, he was born in the United States. His dad, like his dad’s brother, grew up in Chicago; he graduated from Morehouse with a double major in physics and Spanish. Hélio’s mother is a French citizen and defined in her country as Caucasian. Her mother is Polish and Italian and her father is German. She met Hélio’s father while they were both completing doctorate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley. Hélio is fluent in English and French, so his uncle can communicate with him in French and English, while his father can communicate with his cousin Santi in Spanish and English. Hélio has a light complexion. When with his mother in the United States, he is seen as white; when with his father, he is seen as biracial. But his identity is more complex than that. Hélio and Santi are not anomalies. Like every individual in the United States (and the world), they are physically, linguistically, geographically, historically, and personal- culturally situated in families; in communities and communities of practice; in social, affinity, and religious groups; and in educational and other institutions within society. Their identities are constituted by rich arrays and confluences of forces and factors stemming from how each is distinctively and fluidly situated. A core motive and focus for this book is “writing the wrongs” of hierarchy and hypocrisy perpetuated by how these children are socially constructed in U.S. society. The research and writing of this book occurred during the 2016 presidential campaign and election. Since the November 8 results, significant increases in hate crimes and harassment against Muslims, Latinos, Jews, African Americans, LGBTQ Americans, and other minority and vulnerable groups have been continually documented and reported. Trump’s deliberate denigration of these groups leading up to and subsequent to the 4 election reinvigorated and validated white supremacists’ views that reject the value of multiculturalism and instead promote an imagined white, Christian European heritage. Clearly, his rhetoric and selection of people into leadership positions in his administration have emboldened white identity politics and increased discord and division in our society. One of the many painful examples is the incident at JFK Airport in New York shortly after his inauguration, in which Robin Rhodes, a 57-year-old man from Worchester, Massachusetts, physically and verbally assaulted a female Delta Airlines employee who was wearing a hijab. He kicked her and ranted profanities about Islam and also said, “Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you” (Bever, 2013). Significantly, Trump’s election was predicated on the fact that 58% of people identified as white voted for him. Deconstructing race is particularly imperative in the corrosive post-election climate facilitated by his election, and the roles of multicultural education are all the more pivotal. Race is a socially constructed idea that humans can be divided into distinct groups based on inborn traits that differentiate them from members of other groups. This conception is core to practices of racism. There is no scientific justification for race. All humans are mixed! And, scientists have demonstrated that there is no physical existence of races. Yet, race is a social fact with a violent history and hierarchy that has resulted in differential and disturbing experiences of racism predicated on beliefs that races do exist. My argument for deconstructing race is grounded in insights from scholars who have guided my thinking, as well as extensive ethnographic interviews of people identified within the five most generally referenced racial categories in the United States—in essence, what I’ve learned from the literature joined with what I’ve learned from lives of others. 5 LEARNING FROM THE LIVES OF OTHERS What I’ve learned from the literature and scholarship on race as well as prospects for deconstructing it are taken up in Chapters 2 and 3 and threaded through the subsequent chapters. This literature and scholarship provided compelling examples of writing the wrongs of race by explicating myriad false premises and contradictions in racial ideologies and narratives past and present. Initially, this book was conceived exclusively as a discussion of scholarship on these issues. However, after conversations with Relene,2 who became the first of 20 interviewees, I decided to bring perspectives and stories from people’s lives into dialogue with literature and scholarship. I saw the book’s focus being substantively illuminated by my conscious attempt to step outside my own cultural background and, as Spradley suggested in the quote that begins this chapter, to “apprehend the world from the viewpoint of other human beings” (1979, p. v). Consequently, in-depth descriptions and stories of people’s actual lives were joined with selected literature and scholarship as ways of writing the wrongs of race. I was reminded of the critically acclaimed movie, The Lives of Others (Wiedermann, Berg, & von Donnersmarck, 2006), which won an Oscar for best foreign film. The story was set before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, when East Germany’s population was closely monitored by the state secret police, the Stasi. Only a few citizens were permitted to lead private lives, among them a renowned pro-Socialist playwright. Eventually, he too was subject to surveillance, and a Stasi policeman was ordered to secretly monitor the conversations in his apartment to discover any incriminating activities by the group of 2Pseudonyms for all interviewees have been selected to reflect real names in terms of cultural connections like ethnic, linguistic, geographic, or religious origins. 6 artists who frequently met there. However, what the policeman learned in listening in on their lives ended up changing his life and politics. Of course, I received permission to interview the adults who volunteered for this project, but as with the “secret sharer” in The Lives of Others, my personal views and understandings were shaped and changed by what I learned. Wacquant (2008) also argued for and demonstrated the significance of extending scholarship with ethnographic investigations. Spradley (1979), who provided a comprehensive framework for ethnographic interviewing, went so far as to say, “Perhaps the most important force behind the quiet ethnographic revolution is the widespread realization that cultural diversity is one of the great gifts bestowed on the human species” (p. v). Spradley (1979), Denzin and Lincoln (2003), Frank (2009), and Saldana (2009) oriented my approach to conducting the interviews and analyzing the transcripts and field note data. Coding across data sources was converted into larger descriptive categories and later merged into the major themes discussed in Chapter 3. Because I feel that not only academics, but all readers should understand the approaches used to generate and document claims being made about people’s lives, I discuss these methods as part of the Introduction to this book. Ultimately, I would like readers to respond as Joseph Wood, one of many pre-publication “ghost” readers, did. He put himself in the shoes of the interviewees and mused over inaccuracies of his own racial identity. Indeed, how do we all construct identity in contrast to how it is socially constructed for us? The qualitative work began when I interviewed Relene at Seoul International Airport in May of 2014. I completed the remaining 19 interviews, four adults identified in each of 7 the categories of European, African, Asian, and Hispanic American and American Indian/Alaskan Native, over the next 2 years. They agreed to be audiotaped, so in addition to their voices, I captured facial expressions, gestures, and body language as they spoke, often passionately and painfully, about these issues. I met Relene at the 2014 Korean Association of Multicultural Education Conference (KAME), in which I co-presented a paper with Grace Kim where I introduced the concept of “micro-cultures” as a way of re-thinking identity beyond what I called “the color-bind.” Kim provided illuminating examples from her research on participatory culture at a Korean website called Dramacrazy (Mahiri & Kim, 2016; Kim, 2016). As Relene and I discussed our research interests, I also learned that she had come to the United States with her family from the Caribbean Island of Dominica as an immigrant in late adolescence. This positioning had sharpened the focus of her “inner eyes”—an image from the “Prologue” of Invisible Man (Ellison, 1947) that I will discuss in Chapter 2. As we talked about the focus of this book project, I could see the significance of pre- interview conversations. I listened for information and ideas that, if she agreed to be interviewed, would inform my questions to help her deeply probe her experiences. For example, although she has dark brown skin, she talked about how her teenage experiences in Boston made her feel like she was “passing for black.” This was more than a year before Rachel Dolezal was outed by her parents on June 15, 2015 as a white woman passing for black. I will return to the controversy surrounding Ms. Dolezal in Chapter 5, but here I provide a glimpse of how Relene came to her own sense of “passing.” Of African- Caribbean heritage, she identifies as a black woman who became a naturalized U.S. 8 citizen. She noted, “U.S. society tends to identify me as an African American woman, meaning a U.S.-born black.” But her experiences in Boston not only revealed her marginalization from blacks born in the United States, they also reflected her being the victim of intense discrimination by them. Yet, she and other West Indian immigrants wanted to be accepted by the Boston black community. So she adopted cultural practices—behaviors and styles of dress, music, food, and language—that eventually allowed her to pass for black. Essentially, she performed overt cultural components of being black, in part, to avoid “blacklash.” Below the surface association with being black, however, Relene’s life is much more complex—as is everyone’s. Her truer self, her unique and dynamic positionality, practices, choices, and perspectives were not visible through the veil of race used to define her, whether by those who saw themselves as black or white. After interviewing Relene, I realized that gathering information and ideas in pre- interview conversations allowed me to initially have to ask only two questions of each interviewee: How do you feel U.S. society identifies you? And, How do you identify yourself? Because I was interested in how the interviewee’s identities and affinities were mediated by digital media and hip-hop culture, I closed each interview with two final questions: In what ways did you previously and do you currently participate in digital culture? And, In what ways, if any, did you previously and do you currently participate in hip-hop culture? Each interview involved following up on things interviewees revealed in response to these four questions in an open-ended, dialogical way. These four questions allowed me to explore if and how the interviewees’ identities and affinities that 9 were revealed through their positioning, practices, choices, and perspectives complicated or obviated assigned racial categories. Each formal interview lasted from 2 to 3 hours, and I also had follow-up conversations with all the interviewees to explore additional questions. I didn’t record or take notes during conversations prior to or subsequent to the formal interviews, but shortly afterwards, I wrote expansive descriptive and reflective fieldnotes to capture what I had learned. These notes became part of the data for analysis. Every interview was transcribed, read a number of times, and inductively coded to develop categories, as well as to identify any outlier considerations within and across racial, gender, sexual diversity, and generational designations. Like Relene, the other 19 interviewees bravely intimated how they constructed, negotiated, rejected, erased, or deliberately distinguished key aspects of their identities. They also discussed how they saw their identities being invisibilized, homogenized, or boxed in rigid categories. They used and explained terms like “pigmentocracy,” “blacxican,” “Mexica,” “racial indeterminacy,” “gender ambiguity,” “pretending to be white,” “clapback,” and “selective identities” that illuminated intricate aspects of their mercurial lives. Consequently, they revealed complexity, specificity, and fluidity of their personal-cultural identities and affinities that could not be contained within or explained by reductive conceptions of race. All 20 are U.S. citizens. One criteria was that each interviewee self-identify in one of the five ascribed racial categories. One person discussed in the Chapter 5 who has an African American and a German parent did not affirm an African American identity, but indicated that she is often seen that way. Within these categories, I selected two women 10 and two men with one of them being identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ). This held for all groups except American Indian/Alaskan Natives, in which no one identified as LGBTQ. However, interviews with two of the American Indians spoke incisively to considerations of gender and sexual orientation. Another criterion was that interviewees be between the ages of 21 and 45 years old, which was true for all except one subject who was 47 when interviewed. This age specification was to get perspectives of interviewees who were born and developed into adults since the rise of the digital age and the birth of hip-hop in the early 1970s. While honoring these selection criteria, I drew mainly on snowballing my personal, social, and professional relationships and networks to identify participants. Like the narrator in James McPherson’s short story “Elbow Room” (1986), I was hunting for good stories. This may be seen as a limitation, but I feel that the significance of the study is in what is revealed about its focus through the sustained, close exploration of the practices, choices, and perspectives of the interviewees. Though beginning in self-acknowledged racial categories, the questions and dialogues allowed the interviewees to reflect on how their identities have been shaped by personal and social experiences, histories, trajectories, choices, and views that don’t fit easily into assigned categories of race. KEY CONCEPTS We are all born into a social position and with physical features that contribute to our sense of who we are. But social positioning and physical features are not (or should not be) determinative of identity. Against the grain of social constructions, this book reveals how people’s identities are ultimately determined by a wide range of personal-cultural 11 practices, choices, and perspectives. The practices engaged in throughout our lives are tied to major and minor life choices as well as perspectives we develop about ourselves and others at the intersection of personal, social, material, and spiritual worlds. The lives of the interviewees provided evidence for how the intersections and interactions of these components reflected the actual identities of individuals, rather than the essentialized racial categories that Brodkin (1998) noted are “assigned” by white supremacy. “Micro-cultures” (with a hyphen) is a key concept that captures the numerous components of positioning, practices, choices, and perspectives that make up the unique identities of each individual. This idea builds upon, but is distinguished from, Banks’ (2013) concepts of “microcultures” (without a hyphen) and “multiple group memberships,” as discussed in Chapter 9. I describe micro-cultural identities and practices as being mediated by language, and, like language, as being both acquired and learned. But they are also constituted and mediated through digital texts and tools that dramatically increase the range of how they can be engaged or enacted. At any moment, the vertical axis of these virtually limitless combinations of components—like fingerprints—reflect and define the ultimate uniqueness of individuals. On multiple horizontal axes, alignments of components also reflect similarities of individuals to specific others in shared or connected experiences within histories and geographies— within time and space. Unlike fingerprints, the combinations of micro-cultural components are dynamic and constantly changing (Mahiri, 2015; Mahiri & Kim, 2016; Mahiri & Ilten-Gee, 2017). From this perspective each life might be seen as a river fed by many distinct tributaries flowing into the sea of humanity. 12 The core argument of this book is that the continually emerging, rapidly changing micro-cultural identities and practices of individuals cannot be contained in the static racial categories assigned by white supremacy. Although many scholars of multicultural education have complicated these categories to illustrate more nuanced understandings of individual and group differences within them, and, although individuals and groups have struggled to construct identities of themselves within these assigned categories, the lives and literature discussed in this book challenge the very use of these categories as viable ways to identify people. The scholarship reviewed and the people interviewed reveal the deceit of racial categories. As the multicultural paradigm continues to evolve, these categories themselves must be changed. A beginning step in this direction has already been taken in the 2010 census by backing away from identifying Hispanics as a race, as I discuss in Chapter 3. In Chapter 7, I build on the language used to identify Hispanics in the 2010 census to offer a more accurate and viable way of defining people without resorting to race as a classification. Teaching and learning that directly acknowledge and decisively build upon the micro-cultural identities and affinities of youth and adults will substantially contribute to deconstructing reductive, color-coded, racial categories and thus contribute to dismantling the hierarchies and binaries upon which white supremacy is based. Of course, this challenge must go beyond mere recognition of micro-cultures. Mills (1997), along with many other scholars, recognized that “racism [as manifested through white supremacy] is itself a political system, a particular power structure of formal and informal rule, socioeconomic privilege, and norms for the differential distribution of material wealth and opportunities, benefits and burdens, rights and duties” (p. 3). 13 Negating the effects of racism, power, and privilege wielded historically and contemporarily by groups that define themselves as white will take time and deliberate, strategic acts of deconstructing race. Some LGBTQ individuals and groups have demonstrated the viability of resisting and transforming restrictive understandings of sexual diversity, particularly over the past 50 years. It may take another 50 years of conscious work to transform understandings of human diversity before we can right the wrongs of race that white supremacy has specified and reinforced, both for its proponents and for those it oppresses and exploits. Facilitating this process in teaching and learning contexts within and beyond schools is a pivotal challenge of multicultural education. In conjunction with micro-cultures, “identity contingencies” (Steele, 2010) is another key concept used to address how social constructions of identity can be predicated on physical characteristics and used as the basis for stereotypes and resulting stereotype responses. Steele and many other researchers building on his work have indicated how identity contingencies like skin color, facial features, hair type, and body size are linked to how people are socially constructed and treated in society, as well as how they interact with the world. Stereotypes associated with identity contingencies can forcefully and problematically shape people’s identities and development. Identity contingencies and associated stereotypes underlie how individual identities are constituted and responded to in U.S. society, and they factor in as components of an individual’s micro-cultural positioning that must be understood. Digital media is also integral to micro-cultural identities. Two of Gee’s (2003) 36 Principles of learning with new media—the “Identity Principle” and “Affinity 14 Principle”—are additional concepts that clarify how individual identities move beyond racially defined categories. In defining the “Identity Principle,” Gee noted that Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a way that the learner has real choices and ample opportunity to mediate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, their virtual identities, and a projective identity. (2003, p. 208) Individual identities are also linked to affinities with other individuals and groups in both real and virtual spaces. Regarding the “Affinity Principle,” Gee (2003) noted that membership and participation in affinity groups or affinity spaces (the virtual sites of interaction) are defined primarily by shared endeavors, goals, and practices, rather than shared race, gender, nation, ethnicity, or culture (p. 212). An additional concept from Gee (2013, 2015) that is important regarding micro- cultures is his delineation of the nature of activity-based identities. This concept focuses on the freely chosen practices of an individual that contribute to grounding a sense of self. Gee contrasted activity-based identities to relational identities. Relational identities are closely related to identities that are socially constructed and also connect to Steele’s notion of identity contingencies. Gee noted that relational identities most often work to efface rather that reflect diversity, but when accepted and owned they can be like activity-based identities. Activity-based and relational identities also were 2 of the 13 categories that surfaced in the interview data. These practices can reflect resident and emerging forms of social organization or what Gee (1991) earlier referred to as discourse communities. He described how discourse communities come with “identity kits” that include how to act, 15 talk, and take on specific roles that others in the community recognize. Relene essentially was performing components of the identity kit needed to get recognized as black in Boston. Finally, Crenshaw’s (1989) concept of intersectionality (which examines how various social, cultural, and biological categories of identity intersect) was another useful concept for seeing the complexity of numerous elements of identity that are simultaneously yet differentially impacted within oppressive systems. Again, all of these intersecting and interacting components are multiplied through the use of digital texts and tools. CHAPTER OVERVIEWS Chapters 2 and 3 discuss literature and scholarship that explicate crucial prospects and imperatives of deconstructing race. Chapter 2 is not a traditional literature review. It discusses works primarily by literary writers who I feel were inherently “Deconstructing Race.” The idea was to begin discussion of the book’s focus with writers who are central to American literature and, therefore, generally familiar to readers throughout the United States and the world. Although authors in this group have written many novels, Ellison’s Invisible Man (1947) is the only novel discussed. Morrison’s Playing in the Dark (1992) is a critique of how literature by white authors works to make race and difference invisible. Baldwin’s A Rap on Race (1971, with Margaret Mead) powerfully captures racial dynamics from a half century ago and reminds us of how little things have changed. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk (1903) is used to frame this dialogue on race among these four American writers. The chapter begins with ideas from Derrida (1981/1972) on deconstruction and also discusses multicultural education with respect race. It concludes 16 with a discussion of why deconstructing race is imperative, particularly in light of the contemporary re-emergence of white identity politics. Chapter 3 is a traditional review of scholarship. After discussing prospects and imperatives of “Deconstructing Race” in Chapter 2, this chapter begins with Du Bois’ (1903) characterization that the problems of the 20th century is the problem of the color line. It then discusses scholarship that addresses how the problem of the 21st century is “The Color-Bind.” Discussions of the color-bind in this chapter are not color-blind. Rather than not seeing or denying the reality of difference, the color-bind reflects on- going attempts to contain people in fabricated racial categories, shackling minds and imaginations in divisions of difference. Scholarship in this chapter illuminates how and why this has occurred historically and contemporarily in sections on “Prisons of Identity” and “Prisms of Identity.” It reveals how these constraints on human identity are sustained for each racial group through societal forces and institutions like the U.S. census. This chapter argues that breaking out of the color-bind frees us to better appreciate and embrace our differences, but also to see vital commonalities in our human experiences beyond the blinders of race. The next five chapters present stories and perspectives of the diverse group of interviewees whose lives, like all our lives in the United States, are forcibly fixed primarily within five general categories of race. As the final section of Chapter 2 connects the issues of this book to the current controversy of re-emerging white identity politics, the chapter by chapter discussions and stories of the interviewees are also connected to current controversies. All but one of the titles of these chapters came from statements made by individual interviewees. These titles signal a conceptual and 17 linguistic shift towards negating the color-codes that define racial categories: “Pretending to be White,” “Passing for Black,” “No Body’s Yellow,” “The Brown Box,” and “Red Rum.” Chapter 4, “Pretending to be White,” has a slightly different purpose and structure from the other four chapters on the interviewees. It begins by defining and discussing the 13 key categories that surfaced in the coding of data and how they connected under three major themes that variously distinguished and united the stories of all 20 interviewees. This chapter is used to demonstrate how each of the 13 categories reflected in the three major themes of “hyper-diversity,” “stereotyping,” and “identity constructions” are specifically evidenced in the lives of all four interviewees discussed. The same level of evidence supports the discussions of the other 16 interviewees, but with this group, the categories from the data are embedded in the telling of their stories. Chapter 5, which presents the stories of four African Americans, is framed with a discussion of the Rachel Dolezal controversy, while Chapter 6, which presents the stories of four Asian Americans, begins with the controversy surrounding the response to the 2017 Oscars by Korean rapper Johnathan Park, who talked about knocking down racial walls. Chapter 7, which presents the stories of four Hispanic Americans, begins with a discussion of how identity is framed for Hispanics as connected to the most recent U.S. census. I suggest that this framing offers a way forward in thinking about the issue of identity for all people in the United States. Chapter 8, on Native Americans, is framed by the crisis at Standing Rock, and the stories of those four interviewees reflect ways of thinking about our humanity that also suggests a way forward. 18 Chapter 9 brings findings from the five chapters on interviewees together within a framework of “Micro-cultures” that builds upon and is distinguished from Banks’ (2013) concept of “microcultures” without a hyphen. The concept of micro-cultures with the hyphen is fully explicated as a framework for understanding the significance of the findings from the interview data of the previous chapters. The final chapter synthesizes findings and discussions from the earlier chapters and suggests “Challenges of Multicultural Education” in moving beyond the color-bind. It portrays “Multicultural Education 2.0” through discussion and examples of teaching and learning in schools that work to more fully realize the prospects of our country’s diversity and humanity. 19

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