Divided by Identity

i worked at a dairy queen

on the border of rural and suburban

pennsylvania

and there most of us were high school

and college students we

you know bonded pretty well we were

mostly friends um and we bonded over our

shifts and you know making ice cream

together

through those hot summer months and one

day one of my co-workers asked me

uh if i ever had dog before and i

thought that was a weird way to phrase

the question but i responded

enthusiastically

i have my pet dogs daisy and oliver um

they’re my favorite daisy loves to play

tug of war and oliver loves to fetch

um i know there’s a weird way he phrased

it but you know when i answer this

question

you know and i’m a dog person too so i

get super excited to talk about him

um and you know when i answered this

question he seemed confused

and took a step back and rephrased his

question

and he asked no have you ever eaten dog

before

and when he asked the question again

i was taken back all these feelings of

anger and rush to me and frustration why

would you ask such a dumb question like

that

i just told you how much i love my pet

dogs you know daisy and oliver

why why would you ask me that and so

i realized in the tone that he asked me

before i started to respond and he was

serious

he was actually curious and it wasn’t to

you know make me mad or you know anger

me in any way

he was legitimately curious and so i

composed myself

and i listened and so when i started to

listen we

shared ideas and you know he shared with

me what he thought

of asian americans and different

stereotypes that he had

and one of those being about me and

i had to dispel some of his theories

that no the chinese restaurant inside of

our little strip mall

did not serve dog and so you know this

was a hard conversation for me and it

bothered me a lot

um but as i thought and reflected i

couldn’t blame him

and at the same time it really did

it really did bother me

we kept talking and talking and

when i started to reflect i realized

that

his perspective on me was as someone who

is a foreigner

someone who could not be american and it

simply i was misunderstood because of my

race

and so he was using the perpetual

foreigner stereotype and so

the perpetual foreign stereotype is this

idea that asian americans

and other immigrants from other

communities

can’t be ever considered fully american

and so

it’s best summarized in this one

question and phrase

where are you really from and so if

you’re from an immigrant community or

from the asian american pacific islander

community

you may have heard this question you may

have been asked and it’s often

in efforts to figure out why you’re not

white and so when people ask me

where are you really from i typically

answer and

try to play a little game and challenge

their expectations

and i do so by telling the truth and so

when people ask me where you really from

i’ll tell them pennsylvania born and

raised

and then you know unsatisfied they’ll

ask where my parents are from

and i’ll tell them queens new york and

so we’ll keep going down this line to my

grandparents and efforts to figure out

why i’m not white or what kind of asian

i am and then

then in there i get they get their

answer

but it reinforces this idea that

my family me none of us are considered

full americans because

we will always be considered perpetually

foreign um

and it it still stuck with me

and this is something that many other

communities face and focus on and

when i began to think

and realize why was i misunderstood and

i realized that

my co-worker misunderstood me because of

my race because i was asian and this

identity group that i belonged to

and as the 2016 election unfolded i

began to keep on reflecting

on why people misunderstand each other

and and why is it because of these you

know different

identity groups we belong to uh and i

came to this conclusion that

um that during this election

this was more than just whether or not i

was being misunderstood because i was

asian but also

it could apply to political sides too

and so i’m from chester county

pennsylvania

it’s a beautiful philadelphia suburb

it’s very politically diverse

we have acres and acres of farmland

especially for mushrooms in the

pennsylvania amish

urban areas with a big state school and

sprawling suburbs and cookie-cutter

neighborhoods and so all these

all this diversity maybe not racially

but this diversity

created a political contested political

climate and during the 2016 election

the tension you could feel it in the air

all of our conversations

were dominated by the political tension

between conservatives and liberals

it seeped through our dinner tables

everything

and it was just

astonishing to see the effect that

political polarization had had on our

town

ripping it apart and i began to think

how have we gotten here and

why if we’re all americans why are we so

divided and this political

division really continued to bother me

and so i asked myself why do we

feel so much distance and frustration

towards each other from different

parties

and what does this you know what does

race have to do with political

polarization

you know especially the division between

our own families and

our own neighbors and surely we all just

want the what’s best for our country

and we i came to the answer

that it is our intolerance um

and our frustration with each other and

what happens is that we tend to divide

ourselves into tribes and groups and we

can separate

yourselves from other people separate us

from them

and put them into different tribes then

it’s so much easier to have hate and

antipathy for those people outside of

your own tribe

and so someone who well summarized this

political division his name is david

wasserman

a political journalist and he described

it as the battle between whole food

shoppers

and cracker barrel patrons and so what i

thought was so interesting

about his description of the 2012

election between mitt romney

and then president obama was

how accurate it was and so he collected

his data and

through the data you can see that people

who live by whole foods urban outfitters

lululemon and apple stores they tended

to elect democrats

where as people who lived by cracker

barrel tractor supply company

hobby lobby and bass pro shops they

typically elected republicans

and i kept thinking

about how powerful david washington’s

words were

and how much they resonated with me

because it shows how our non-political

identities and affiliations

are aligning with our political ones and

author ezra klein who is the co-founder

and former editor-in-chief of vox in his

book why we’re polarized

he talks about whole foods and explains

how whole foods is this place where

it’s very vegan a vegetarian friendly

there are many different options and

different ethnic cuisines and it really

pushes you out of your comfort zone to

try new things

whereas cracker barrel is this place

where it’s steeped in tradition and the

same comfort foods that are always be

there for you and it’s reliable

and so he talks about and explains how

our psychologies

influence our brand preferences so if

your psychology is more open

and fluid you may prefer whole foods

versus if your psychology is more

seeks change or seeks fear no excuse me

if fears change and seek stability then

you may prefer cracker barrel

and so as our psychologies and our

identities

and our preferences and different

lifestyles as they align

and sort themselves into different polls

this is what our new political

polarization is becoming

and these polls are our mega identities

which was crowned by

lillian mason an author and professor at

the university of maryland

and so what was so interesting about

the whole foods and cracker barrel

example is that i saw these two types of

people

now if i describe someone um who shops

at whole foods maybe drives a prius eats

avocado toast every day in the morning

and

does yoga classes and recycles you may

assume that they’re a liberal and if i

describe someone who maybe

drives a pickup truck goes to cracker

barrel and likes to hunt you might

think of them as conservative and so i

lived with both of these types of people

and to some extent it might be both and

you know they all met together in

chester county when

and they clashed when we weren’t living

our separate lives

and so you know back to chester county

you can see that cracker barrel and

whole foods

they’re just three miles apart on the

same road showing how

weird my town is and you can divide

define political polarization

as the clustering of these identities

opinions and affiliations

among two different polls and

polarization itself

isn’t necessarily bad but what is

dangerous is the type of division we

have today

it is you know driven and sorted

so clearly like never before in the

history of the american electorate

and you have these mega identities that

makes it so threatening

and so in other ways we can see this

division

is how we’ve stigmatized the other party

and so in 1994 21 of republicans

had unfavorable views of democrats and

17 of democrats

held unfavorable views of republicans

and fast forward to 2016

that’s increased to 58 percent and 55

percent respectively

and another metric we can look at is in

1960 five percent of republicans and

four percent of democrats

said they would be displeased if their

child married someone outside of their

political party

and 50 years later that has increased

to 49 of republicans and 33 percent of

democrats

you know this change is so drastic and

how

much we stigmatize we fear the other

party

and how our identities are diverging and

so if we look at our mega identities we

can see that

we have both a liberal and a

conservative a lean republican

lean democrat and all these different

demographics

and demographic groups are aligning

among them and so we can use polling

data to see

how they’ve separated and it’s important

to note that

none of these demographics are

monolithic and the story is always more

complicated and nuanced than that

but it’s important to see that you may

identify with many of these identities i

certainly do

and they may be across the line or all

on one side

and it’s so interesting how stark that

these

identities are sorting themselves among

different political parties

um and that is quite frankly concerning

um

and if we go to the next slide we’ll see

that 77 percent of republicans and

democrats say that not only do they

disagree

over plans and policies but they also

disagree on basic facts

and if we disagree on basic facts it is

concerning because as a democratic

society we do need a mutual

understanding

of the same basic facts and reality in

order to function

and solve the issues at hand and there

are so many issues at hand

uh and i think a place we can start

to move forward and it’s not a silver

bolt by any means and

you know we will need policy and reform

to move forward um

but what we can all do as individuals is

focus on the way we perceive others

and that is really important and so what

gets in the way of the way we perceive

others

is our stereotypes and stigmas that we

hold

for other people and the contempt we

hold for groups outside of our own

now these stereotypes and stigmas they

harm us on an individual level entire

demographics

and everyone as a whole on an individual

level we can go back

to my days at dairy queen where my

co-workers stereotyped me

and when you stereotype someone or you

stigmatize them

and reduce them to that single narrative

or story you’re essentially removing

who they actually are and the reality

from your perception

and that creates this distance and with

that distance you can cast them as other

or a part of a different tribe and then

you can use you know hate and antipathy

so much eat more and entire demographics

if we look at asian americans and the

perpetual foreigner stereotype

you know in the past year and since the

beginning of the pandemic

asian americans have taken the blame of

the chronovirus pandemic

so much of our frustration from the way

the virus has disrupted

our way of life is being misdirected

towards them and stigmatizing them

as the cause and carriers of covid

and since then there have been about 3

800

anti-asian incidents recorded in just

the united states alone

and some of these instant instances

include

you know being called the chronovirus or

being attacked and harassed and you know

saying that these people

can take covet back to china being

attacked

being assaulted stabbed lit on fire

shot and killed

and this is all because of our

stigmatization of asian americans and

how we’ve casted them

as the cause of the coronavirus

through our rhetoric and through our

history and so it’s easy

to attack asian americans because

they’re already authorized

they’re already seen as perpetual

foreigners or the el peril

but not one of us and so the way

that stereotypes and stigmas

and our intolerance of other groups

affect all of us as a whole

as they complicate our ability to

connect with each other it allows

identity

to become not a strength but a barrier

between ourselves

and that is incredibly dangerous you

know life is not a zero-sum game

where you win at the detriment of your

opponents especially if

your opponents are simply your neighbors

and your fellow americans

you know in order to move forward we

really must come together and we cannot

continue

uh to let our different identity groups

divide us in such a pluralistic

and democratic society and i do have

some steps to move forward

and these are steps that every

individual can take to work on the way

we perceive each other

and the first way is to start consuming

stories

where the main characters don’t look

like you and

a great way to do this is through books

and poetry but if you’re bad at reading

sometimes like me

a great way is through streaming

services as well

and another thing we have to do is mix

up the type of media

informative media that you consume and

so this is a great opportunity to

support local journalism and publicly

funded programs

for instance you know social media is

where a lot of us get our news

and algorithms are designed to show you

what you want to see

so break free from that challenge your

perspectives

another way to do that is by when

permissible travel

with the intent to learn about the local

people and culture

and don’t forget to reflect and by doing

so consciously commit yourself to

becoming better

and not allowing these stereotypes and

stigmas to act as barriers between us

and in doing so you can establish the

growth mindset and

because it’s okay not to be perfect as

long as we’re better than yesterday

and if we seek friendships with people

from those who are from different groups

than us who hold different identities

that can be a great bridge builder

that’s incredibly powerful

and i’m not saying be friends with

people because of an identity group they

belong to

but having a diverse group of friends

and having those tough conversations

with them

and when having those conversations it’s

important to make sure to listen

not to respond but to understand

and so i hope that i can bring to your

attention how our

identities are being divided amongst us

and how

we must be able to use diversity as our

strength and moving forward

in our very polarized and divided

society

thank you