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Questions of Belonging: Living and Growing as a Feminist Philosopher
“The political struggle then becomes: to find a better way of answering questions, ways of questioning the questions, so that the world that makes some beings into questions becomes what we question.” — Sara Ahmed (Living a Feminist Life)
“Where are you from? And where are you from?”
As a fourth-generation, biracial Asian American whose racial identity is frequently read as ambiguous, my answer to these questions is often met with perplexity. “I’m from Idaho.” “No, I mean, where are you from?” “Idaho.” “But where are your parents from?” “They’re from Idaho, too.” And so it goes, quickly devolving into a frustrating and disappointing experience for everyone.
Typically defended as benign curiosity, the tendency to ask again, with emphasis, can be experienced as a microaggression that reveals a tacit assumption: you are not from here. Studying race as a visible identity has helped make sense of these experiences but being asked such questions over a lifetime can complicate a sense of belonging. Hence my surprise when, upon joining a newly formed equity and inclusion committee, these questions were posed as our first icebreaker.
I suppose context matters. The intent was to create space for committee members to share about their culture and background, what…
