Abstract
In a course on identity in American Indian literature, in our discussion of Maria Campell’s Half breed, Kevin, a “white” student, insists that cultural identities are relentlessly bound by racial features, “I can’t just say I’m black and that means I’m black,” he scoffs. In the fall, I hear my name called from across the campus square; it’s Kevin visiting with several other students, all African American men. The moment stays doggedly with me as I consider the successes, mistakes—and missed opportunities—of the course. I never talk with Kevin after that, and he never discloses to me his identity as African American, but looking back on his uncharacteristically savvy comments on race, his interest in black culture, and his frustration with students’ views on cultural identity, I see that Kevin very likely is African American. Perhaps, for several reasons surrounding undisclosed identity politics in the classroom and on campus, he never gave full voice to that identity so vital to the subject of the course. Kevin’s experience with my course poses a particular challenge to professors who teach in seemingly less-diverse classrooms.1 In this chapter, I explore the hidden role of suppressed social, racial, nd sexual identities, and present the risks, benefits, and ways of enabling such identities to emerge more fully in the classroom.
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© 2009 Susan Sánchez-Casal and Amie A. Macdonald
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Teuton, S.K. (2009). Teaching Disclosure: Overcoming the Invisibility of Whiteness in the American Indian Studies Classroom. In: Sánchez-Casal, S., Macdonald, A.A. (eds) Identity in Education. The Future of Minority Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230621565_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230621565_9
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