Discovering writing
Tags: F 1 Student Visa, Raceinamerica, Writing, Immigration, Writing Prompts

Introduction

Starting to write, the thought of writing, and the process of writing were things that I became quite familiar with being a Women and Gender Studies major. However, writing has often been an anxiety ridden process for me. Fear is often tied to that anxiety. I was filled with fear that I would not fulfill the given page numbers and word count assigned. My fear is most intense at the discovery of the weight of my own voice which in this essay I will correlate with my identity. I will be defining the term identity as the way in which I am understood academically based on my gender, race, nationality, and immigration status. I also use the terms social identity and identity interchangeably as I am still in the process of exploring the dichotomy of both in my personal life. Giving that I have been a student most of my life, academia has played a major role in the ways in which I reflect on my identity. In this essay, I will be discussing how I am building critical consciousness regarding the role of my social identities as they are represented in both my academic writing journey in the US and lack of a writing journey in Africa.

Gender and Academic Culture in Uganda: Early years

My academic journey began in Africa, where the academic culture is vastly different from the United States. Firstly, parents had to pay tuition and fees three times a year for their children to be admitted into schools. I watched my father single handedly go the extra mile to ensure my siblings and me went to the more nationally acclaimed institutions in the country. The better the institution, the more money it usually cost. Coming from a family with four girls and three boys, education was a hefty expense. I noticed that my father always put more emphasis on my sisters and me going to these national acclaimed institutions compared to my brothers.

In these nationally acclaimed schools, groups of students in the same grade were ranked according to their academic performance based on previous academic year’s scores. These rankings ranged from A to D, A being the best while D was the least performing grade. This division of students based on academic ability was the foundation of incorporating academic performance into my identity. I vividly remember being separated from my friend groups year after year because of the ranking system. Making friends felt tied to one’s academic ability. Through the end of year breaks, my friends and I held our breath in anticipation of whether we would find ourselves in the same classroom. Many of my female friends were not assigned to my grade ranking. In my grade 5 A classroom there were 15 girls out of 50 students. This stark gender disparity coupled with my father’s push for my sisters and I’s educational pursuits left me with questions concerning societal treatment of girls.

Arithmetic versus Writing: Gender

The academic tracks for students were often divided into arithmetic and writing. The decision to pursue either of the two options did not belong to the student but were often decided by the teacher and parents based on the student’s performance. Teachers and parents were often the authoritative voice in the academic culture with students not having major say. I was not that great at writing, but I could recite my way through the multiplication tables. My father thought it would be a great idea for me to break the gender barriers in our household by being the first girl to take the arithmetic track. He sided with the teachers and my classes moving forward focused primarily on math and science as opposed to writing and literature. Because of this I had little to no exposure to writing.

Coupled with my lack of writing exposure, there were only two career options in the arithmetic track: an engineer or medical doctor. The decision was made by my father and teachers nearing the beginning of my high school experience to get me focused on becoming a medical doctor. They thought the United States was the best option for me to fulfill that desire so they started putting everything in place including the teachers writing the essays I would need for my initial admission.

Immigrant identity: Colour vs Color

I was placed in an ESOL class in my first semester of my freshman year because I was a foreign national despite coming from an English-speaking background. Often students can test out of these courses, but I was not given that option. For our class assignments, Dr. L required us to turn in hard copies and called us to her office to give us feedback our papers.

One fateful Wednesday evening, it was my turn to go into her office. I was feeling so confident about my paper that right before going into her office, I, with an ice-cream cone in hand, was chatting with a friend. I run up five flights of stairs and sat confidently in the chair across from hers. She started “When you first walked into my class, hearing you speak and the discussions we have around the book, I thought you were too advanced to be in my course.” She paused, and I half-smiled because I noticed her use of past tense in the statement she made. I thought to myself, “she thought? She thought?” She continued “I am glad I didn’t write the transfer over because you are struggling with your spelling.” She handed my paper back to me with red marks all over it. A few words stood out to me “programme,” “colour,” and “neighbours.” I sank into the chair as I felt a hot tear drop onto my paper. “What was going on?” She proceeded to turn to her computer screen. “Your analysis was great. You are doing well with MLA citations; however, in American English, your spelling was amiss. I will give you full credit for the assignment if you do it over.” I did not have time to explain myself, nor did I want to because I felt a lump form up in my throat. I sniffled and said “thank you, I will have a quick turnaround” as I rushed to the restroom to get myself together before class which started at 5pm. I thought to myself “how can a college professor with the running claim of working with international students be so heartless? Surely it is a known fact that most international students that have a background in English learned British English.”

This was one of the first times I had put myself out there in my writing. As Dr. L spoke, all I could hear was that I was better off reciting multiplication tables. I felt rejected as a writer. My anxiety towards writing assignments increased, I had been misunderstood and undervalued as an immigrant in the United States. I came to learn that this was going to be a huge part of my identity living here.

Women and Gender Studies.

I came to the United States with the expectation that my predetermined abilities would continue to dictate my academic experience in turn my identity. After my first semester taking a couple of science classes, my First Year Experience advisor suggested that I take a Women’s Studies course as an elective to fulfill my course requirements for the semester. I was intrigued by this course because during most of my upbringing I had been in classrooms with mostly boys. My personal objective in taking this class was to be around more women in the classroom and observe interactions. The Women’s Studies course, however, challenged me in a different way. I had to expand my thinking capacity past multiplication tables and equations like I was used to. I had to start writing and reasoning beyond formulas. One plus one no longer equaled two without explanation. I had to give reason for my way of thinking. I also had to harness this into ten-page papers which was foreign to me.

The stark difference between the Chemistry lectures that were formulated and the Women’s Studies lectures that called for curiosity and finding my voice during classroom discussions completely revitalized the development of my identity. I had to start writing and thinking outside the lines which, I was not used to as a woman whose life had been planned from young age. After taking a couple of other Women’s Studies courses over the course two semesters, I found myself empowered by the opportunity to determine my own future. I then switched my major to Women and Gender Studies. I opted out of the predetermined medical school career path; officially abandoning pieces of my identity that had been shaped by my community in Uganda. It was uncomfortable. It felt like a road less walked. I felt like I had started a rebellion against my community; the people that brought me this far. I was scared. This was the first time I was deciding on my own terms.

Finding my voice through the stories of others: Race and nationality

I was in my second year as a Women and Gender Studies major. At this point in my academic writing journey, I had the opportunity to read and cite the works of Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, among others, who wrote with such courage. They took ownership of who they were and, in some cases, used their vernacular English in academically acclaimed work. However, I still did not identify with the writings of these women as an African immigrant. I took up the challenge the summer before junior year to read the works of different female African authors, and especially liked the writings of Chimamanda Adiche Ngozi. She wrote about the nuanced stories of Africans grappling with their Blackness as their salient social identity in America in her novel Americanah (Adichie, 2013). This was a part of my social identity that I had begun to explore with constant discussions around race in my course work. Reading Americanah gave me a better understanding of what it meant to be a Black immigrant in the United States. Adichie (2013) wrote about how on many occasions race-ethnicity would be more salient than gender. She emphasized that sometimes as an immigrant you would have to compromise some aspects of your native culture to embrace a new one (Adichie, 2013). Americanah not only gave words to my experiences but gave me hope for an adjusted life as well.

After the long summer of reading Adiche’s work, I had to submit a term paper in Dr. R’s Feminist economies course during the Fall semester of my junior year. Dr. R gave us the option to explore a topic whose relevancy matters to us. The only requirement of the term paper was that it had to explore the lived experience of a person in Baltimore participating in a feminist economy. Feminist economies for Dr. R’s course were defined as employment opportunities that did not generate profit for sole use within the realms of a capitalist economy. This could include stay at home mothers, social entrepreneurs, worker cooperatives, among others. I decided to tell the story of Gabi, a micro-social entrepreneur and Ghanaian immigrant in Baltimore, who started an African cuisine business. In the line with social entrepreneurship, the proceeds of Gi’s business went to teaching African college students at UMBC how to cook their traditional African meals in thirty minutes or less. Gi’s life closely mirrored the ones I had read about in Americanah (Adichie, 2013). Because of the fast-paced nature of the American society, she had adjusted and learned how to cook Ghanaian dishes in thirty minutes. In contrast with more traditional Ghanaian dishes take at least an hour for a bowl of soup. This assignment facilitated a deeper understanding of my race-ethnicity as a social identity as I chose to write about an individual whose social identities closely matched mine.

The week after submitting the paper, Dr. R called me into her office. When responding to her email, I had flashbacks of my time in freshman year in Dr. L’s office. I walked into Dr. R’s office, and she had a huge smile on her face. Dr. R never smiled; she was on the more stoic side. I sat in the chair across from hers, and she congratulated me for writing the best paper she had seen in a while. This unexpected praise academically was an affirming factor in my developing identity as a Black immigrant woman in the United States.

Conclusion

A geyser of anxiety often erupts deep inside me spurting fear whenever I think of my academic writing journey. I grew up with my dreams already dreamt for me. There was my loving father, whose hopes were that medical school would secure a better future for me and that a life in America would open doors that were never opened for him. My instructors thought I would be better off not improving my writing because I could recite a few multiplication tables. I had to divorce dreams that were not mine, and work to discover my social identities while trying to be a scholar of these very social identities. I have found that I am in a journey with my writing that is closely linked to my understanding and affirming of my identity. This journey is not a static event, but an excursion that requires continual exploration of self.