Lived Hybridity: Second-Generation Identity Construction Through College Festival

Abstract

Recent research suggests that the children of recent immigrants, the so-called second generation, no longer choose to emphasize one identity over the other but that their identities are more fluid and multifaceted. College campuses are often the arenas in which a new hybrid identity develops. This article addresses how South Asian American college students make sense of and control their various identities through the celebration of Diwali, an event sponsored each year by the Indian Students Association (ISA) on a college campus in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. South Asian students use performative space to help them make sense of their backgrounds in ways that both differentiate them from and allow for association with the majority student population. They also use this space as a safe place for "coming out," that is, for communicating their hybrid identity to their parents. This hybrid identity is expressed through a discourse of "brownness" that marks something distinctive and that reflects the process by which the children of immigrants choose among a range of identities to create integrated selves. The campus Diwali festival is the expression of those selves.

Table of Contents

“…In particular, the college years are a time when racial and ethnic identity development becomes increasingly critical to the success of a college student and the overall quality of his or her collegiate experiences. is is a time when students' sense of who they are and who they want to become is infl uenced by relationships with others in social surroundings (see Benesch, 2008;Brettell and Nibbs, 2009;Lee and Andrea, 2010;Louie, 2004). Consequently, the development of racial and ethnic identity in both students of color (Blacks, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans) and Whites has drawn increasing attention in college student developmental literature (Evans and others, 2010).…”

“We’re Sort of Imposters”: Negotiating Identity at Home and Abroad

“…Set against the politics of diversity, these experiences also speak to invisible White privilege—even within university settings where students may be more likely to organize around, hybridize, and contest a range of identities (see Brettell & Nibbs, 2009; Tanaka, 2009). For Nick, activities such as flying flags (not American), sitting together, and talking about shared heritage were not generally perceived as ethnic or racial separatism, nor viewed as threatening U.S. unity, loyalty, or patriotism.…”

Being “Nesian”: Pacific Islander Identity in Australia

“…For example, I have witnessed some Melanesians respond to Polynesian adherence to this hierarchy with assertions that Polynesians are arrogant and, significantly, that Melanesians are "cooler" because they are "Black" and Polynesians only want to be. Interestingly, despite this tension, a "Brown" identity, much like that described by Caroline Brettell and Faith Nibbs (2009), is sometimes used in invoking Islander panethnicity. But how much of the "race" of an Islander is actually determined by appearance?…”