Inseparable Identity

Lately, the word “identity” is getting beaten up in the news cycle again. And again, no two people seem to define it the same way. Sample the headlines and you’ll see people using “identity” to mean “resentment” or “political affiliation” (which can be a part of your identity but is not a synonym for it), or “ego.” 

My favorite was this little oxymoron: “Political Identity Is Destroying Poetry.” 

I find that one particularly hilarious because, how do you write a poem completely divested of identity? 

You don’t.

Identity is the way we perceive ourselves, an amalgamation of all the things that make us who we are. Or, as author Kwame Anthony Appiah put it, identity “is meant to be the truth of who you are.”

It comes in two varieties, personal and social.

Our personal identity is the way we view ourselves individually—it can be in relation to others, as in “I’m the eldest sibling” or “I’m a mother/father/spouse,” or “I’m a Pisces.” 

But it also encompasses our traits, pursuits, or values: “I’m a knitter.” “I value honesty.” “I’m tall.” “I’m a klutz.” “I love cupcakes and trashy novels.” 

Personal identity is novelist Rabih Alameddine, lamenting “Nobody ever calls me a soccer-playing writer, even though I play soccer, and it’s part of who I am.”

Social identity is our self-perception in relation to others, our inclusion or exclusion from groups, as well as our standing within groups. It can include your gender, your sexual orientation, your race, heritage or tribal status, your religion, the team(s) you root for, your socioeconomic background, your geographical background, etc… 

Social identity is Ouiser Boudreaux in Steel Magnolias, “Because I’m an old Southern woman, and we’re supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. Don’t ask me those questions. I don’t know why, I don’t make the rules.” 

Rules. 

Ouiser is onto something there. Her truth isn’t only about how she sees herself, but what others expect of her. 

Or, as Appiah puts it:

Identities…are not inert facts; they are living guides. Given that we connect these labels with our behavior, it’s natural to expect other people to do the same. And that means we’re going to have to tell other people not just which labels they can claim, but what they must do if they are to fit our labels. 

This is why you can’t write anything without considering identity. How is identity influencing the actions of your characters? How is your identity steering the way you’re telling the story? Will readers recognize the truths at the core of the action and the storytelling?

Consider one of my all-time favorite poems, “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” by Mohja Kahf. 

The poem is about exactly what the title says—Kahf’s grandmother sticks her feet in the sink, inciting a freakout by the other Midwestern women in the bathroom ladies’ room.

In the final stanzas, Kahf creates an infinity mirror effect of identities—many distinct ones held each by the grandmother, the Midwestern Matrons, the narrator, and the poet, all overlapping and bouncing off each other, and the reader. 

It pays to be aware of which parts of our identities are in the driver’s seat when we’re writing, which aspects are motivating our characters. One way to do that is to pause and ask yourself or your character to finish this sentence: “I tend to think a lot about…” And see what emerges first.

Kelly Caldwell

Dean of Faculty, Gotham Writers