Why is the discussion of identity important in a multicultural classroom?
I think we’re getting away from a sense of identity being a monolithic thing, and being something that one develops and keeps one’s whole life. My identity is always changing everyday. The person who I was when I was a child is different from the person I was as a young adult and the person who I am now. And those shifting identities have to do with your own individual experiences and the sociopolitical context in which you live. They change all the time, and teachers need to know that because their own identities are also changing. They can’t impose their own ideas of what identity is on the kids. And identities are not only shifting but they’re very multiple right now. For example, my granddaughter is African American, Puerto Rican, Native American, French Canadian, Jamaican: she’s all those things. Culturally, she’s more Puerto Rican and Spanish since my husband is Spanish than anything else. But I want people to recognize that it’s not easy to categorize kids just by what they look
