Tongues that are Untamable

"Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the self inside."

This is a quote by Kaufman, an American psychologist who, I admit, I know next to nothing about. But I found this saying while reading Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue."



"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is a chapter from Anzaldua's book Borderland/La Frontera, the New Mestiza. While I don't agree with all of Anzaldua's sentiments, I do think that this is a very valid piece of literature to discuss some of my themes and ideas about multiple identities reconciling into one online. For Anzaldua, identity is very closely tied with language. I love some of the passion in her writing... "How do you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle it? How do you make it lie down?" Anzaldua grew up in the Tex-Mex culture of the borderlands, a place where identity is defined as being blurred between spaces. As a Chicana, Anzaldua grew up with a multiplicity of languages, a multiplicity of identities. She learned standard English, slang English, standard Spanish, Mexican Spanish, North Mexican Spanish dialect, many regional versions of Chicano Spanish, Tex-Mex, and Pachuco (which is sort of a rebellious spanish-like language that came about in the 1930s and 40s).

That's a lot of languages. A lot of identities. But Anzaldua does argue that this multiplicity of languages can be used to find a singular identity. She says that

for a people who cannot entirely identify with either standard (formal, Castilian) Spanish nor standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language? A language which they can connect their identity to, one capable of communicating the realities and values true to themselves--a language with terms that are neither espanol ni ingles, but both.

I like that word "create"... I think it works in really well with what I am thinking about identity online. We create our own identities. We see the multiplicity, and, just as a Chicano language was "created," we create a singular identity that contains multiplicity.

Like I said, I don't agree with everything Anzaldua claims. But I really like parts of this text. I guess I'm interested because my mom is an elementary school teacher in Arizona, my beautiful home state, for kids who do not test proficient in English. She has about twenty of the most adorable Hispanic kiddos you've ever seen. I also love this text simply because I love language. Many times, Anzaldua uses Spanish in her text. The first time I read it, I was able to use my high school AP skills to understand most of it. The rest was translated for me by Greg, the very cute boy I am dating who returned in December from an LDS mission to Madrid. Sometimes he would pause and crinkle his eyebrows, and then shrug. "I don't know that word," he'd whisper at the library table in Periodicals. "Must be a Mexican word. They've come up with their own little things to say."

We all come up with our own little things to say, our own little things to do. We make our identity out of all these little things together. Wonderful, isn't it?

Interaction

A few days ago, I was talking to my professor Gideon Burton about my project and ideas regarding how the multiplicity of identity online lends itself to the creation of a more unified sense of self in the offline world. Dr. Burton referred me to a series of three blogs by James Goldberg, a graduate student at BYU: Caucajewmexdian, Mormon Midrashim, and My Life and Hard Times. I took a look, and there was some interesting stuff and wonderful writing. So, I asked James a few questions. He not only commented on my blog, he wrote a whole post detailing a few of the limitations of my metaphor comparing ethnic minority identity and online identity. Check it out!

The more I blog, the more I am just very pleased with the capabilities of this wonderful digital world we live in. How amazing that two people, who never would have met in "real life," are now able to collaborate and discuss these ideas with each other.

Amazon, How I Love Thee

Ok, so this is not the Amazon I was referring to. But you've gotta admit... pretty spectacular, isn't it?

Anyway, the Amazon that I was referring to is the handy-dandy Amazon.com, where I hunt around every Christmas for good books to buy as presents. A few days ago, one of my professors, Gideon Burton, suggest that I look at the book Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds by Celia Pearce, a game designer. This book has a chapter on identity, which relates nicely to my studies on how multiple online identities can be unified in a way to form a more whole, singular sense of self. Virtually flipping through this book on Amazon, I did learn some things about identity. Probably one of the most important things I learned is that games, throughout history, have been multiplayer, and therefore tied to group identity. Think about it. Mahjong, mancala, senet.... these games involve more than one person. So do new online games today. So the issue of group identities and the formation of alternate identities is really not a new issue. Interesting!

I looked at some of the books that people usually buy along with Communities of Play. By looking at the tags and using Amazon's rather convenient search feature, I could tell that most of these books, while discussing the interesting cultures of online games, which I really don't know very much about, didn't deal so much with identity.

But then I found Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture by T. L. Taylor. The beginning of this book describes the author's attendance of an EverQuest convention held in Boston. Taylor states that

"This event, a "Fan Faire," presents some unique experiences in blurring the boundaries between game and nongame space, off- and online lives, avatars and "real" identities and bodies. The longer I have spent with EQ the more I have come to believe that this boundary work is at the heart of massively multiplayer games, and indeed internet life in general."

Taylor watches a man who usually hands out virtual flowers on the game give out roses in real life. She notes that people usually only go by their online names: even couples refer to each other by their game names. But, people do talk about their offline jobs and lives.

I do think that these observances are very pertinent for what I'm studying. Is a muliplicity of identity demonstrated here? Yup. Most definitely. But, although people utilize their alternate game identities to their advantage, they do mesh their offline selves with what they create. Does this give them a more sure sense of self? I think so. These people show a desire to bring together their different identities by attending a conference of this nature. The act of going to the conference demonstrates, in my view, a confidence in an aggregate offline and online identity, an identity that is formed by both worlds.

Events

So, I've been looking a little bit lately about the current online discourse on my subject regarding online identity. Here is an event that is coming up that I think relates nicely to my thesis:

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: Internet Games, Social Inequality, and Racist Talk as Griefing

This lecture on Tuesday, June 15, is a part of the Berkman Center Luncheon Series. There will be a webcast that you can see through the Berkman Center site at 12:30 pm ET. The lecture will be given by Lisa Nakamura, who is the Director of Asian American studies at the University of Illinois. Professor Nakamura has done some writing focused on how the digital age affects racism, and vice versa. Tuesday's lecture will center around how social networking games, like Second Life, include "griefing" or pranking that has become increasingly racial. I'm really interested in a Second Life group that Professor Nakamura will speak about that is called the Patriotic Niggas, (I apologize for the slur...that's the name of the group and I want to be as specific as possible). The group, which is NOT comprised of African Americans, basically works to shut down Second Life by filling public space with garbage.

So what does this mean? A group of people are changing their identity drastically online in order to be destructive. This, definitely, does not add up with my thesis. How are these people different than mainstream bloggers and others connected to social networking sites? How are they (gulp) the same? How common are groups of this nature? What makes groups of this nature act this way? Are there people who engage in similar stupid activities who utilize identities more closely tied to their offline identity?

Something else I thought was interesting was that the information about this event on the Berkman site stated that "internet gameplay is becoming more socially and culturally diverse." Well, that's cool. This is possible because people are briging their online cultures with them to their internet games. There probably is cultural experimentation and reinvention taking place, as is sadly demonstrated by the example above. But, nevertheless, the online world is culturally diverse because people like to bring their culture with them into the online space. Then, they can emphasize and experiment with elements of that culture online, with leads to a multiplicity of identity, which then leads to a more whole overall identity.

I'm still hunting around for other events, but I really wanted to discuss the implications of the gaming lecture above. To see a more broad list of events having to do with the internet as a social and political sphere, see the Events page at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Privacy and Identity... danah boyd

First off, I'd like to draw everybody's attention to the Digital Native newsfeed I added to my blog this morning. It comes from the Berkman Center at Harvard, which I posted more about yesterday.

Also through the Berkman Center, I came across a link to danah boyd's blog. Boyd is a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center and a researcher for Microsoft who deals with new media issues, such as privacy and identity. I found a good amount of posts on this blog that have helped me to better understand my topic, such as the post "Facebook and radical transparency (a rant)" and "Pew Research confirms that youth care about their reputation".

So, do danah boyd and I agree on identity issues in the online world, you ask? Her ideas have definitely helped me consider new facets of my argument, such as the tie between identity and privacy. In her Facebook rant post mentioned above, boyd argues that Facebook ought to do a much better job of keeping people informed about how their privacy settings are configured. We must have the right to choose and consent to our identity in cyberspace. If people want to be very public, such as boyd, who makes herself public through Facebook and Twitter, that's great--but they ought to have the right to know exactly what information is being published.

Boyd's rant came in response mostly to Mark Zuckerberg, and the changing of Facebook's privacy standards. Zuckerberg said “You have one identity… The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly…"

So where do I fall in this debate? Well, I guess I agree more with boyd. People care about their online identities, and they ought to be able to control those identities. I'm still trying to figure out if boyd would agree that this measure of control over multiple identities is basically the same as forming an aggregate online identity. Like one of boyd's commenters said, "truth is the aggregation of a gazillion interactions." So that's where I'm headed in my research process right now.

Palfrey, Harvard, and Identity Play

Aren't these leaves gorgeous? Yes, they are. Well, let me explain where they come from. This is a picture taken at Harvard University Campus in the autumn. I've never been to Massachusetts, but I did consider sending all my ACT and SAT scores there when I was in high school, just for kicks and giggles (I've been pretty set on attending BYU since I was old enough to know that the letter Y and the color blue are by nature inseparable).

So, how does Harvard's beautiful campus relate to my thesis on identity in the digital age? Well, it all started as I began hunting around for some blogs and other online conversation about this topic. I found this Harvard intern blog a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd take another look today. Searching around this blog led me to the blog of John Palfrey, who was the co-writer of the book Born Digital, which I've blogged about before here and here. John Palfrey, by the way, is a Professor of Law and the Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard (that school with the beautiful campus). I searched through some of Palfrey's blog entries looking for some more of his insight on identity in the digital age. One of Palfrey's posts is a series of notes taken at a conference, where Palfrey states that others studying in the field of the "networked self" have said that "In privacy, you need space left over for identity play, for engagement in unpredictable activity."

Well, this fits my thesis... sort of. I'm arguing that the internet allows people to experiment with identity, which in turns often allows them to form a singular identity. Basically, experimentation with identity leads to a MORE firm sense of self.

But is this what Palfrey meant when he referenced "identity play"? Hmm. You got me. So I looked it up and found a pretty concise definition, which also states that "In whatever way [identity play] happens, Identity Play allows people to explore a wider variety of experiences and enjoy a more fluid sense of self."

So, is it fair to say that this supports my thesis? I think it does. Multiple identies formed on the internet do not fracture peoples' lives. They can lead to a "sense of self" that is MORE whole. The ability to be fluid in our identities actually provides us with something like a more complete identity. We play with idenitity, and in playing, we figure out what we like, what we are... we become more ourselves.

Just some thoughts. I think I'm going to google more Harvard pictures now.

Online Identity: Multiple Forms Singular

Lately I've been posting about identity issues that confront digital natives—as well as other online patrons—as they connect to social networking sites and other online services. As an English major in Brigham Young University's College of Humanities, I've looked at identity politics before in a wide variety of contexts—but never in the face of digital or “new” media. However, looking at identity through this different medium has not largely changed my perspective or opinions on identity—in all circumstances, identity remains a complex issue that engenders debate and differing opinions. I would argue that online identity establishment consists of a singular, visible identity that is created by the aggregate of multiple online identities.

Not So Unfamiliar
My claims regarding online media perhaps are not so far-fetched, because of what we have learned and studied regarding identity in literature before. In looking at how humans have viewed the simultaneous existence of multiple and singular identities in the past, I will draw primarily upon Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club, published in 1989. This book deals with four Chinese mothers who have a hard time relating with their Americanized daughters.

Before delving into the dynamics of the establishment of identity, it is necessary to understand why studying the identity issues in this book is relevant and beneficial to understanding online identity today. As part of the book Ethnicity and the American Short Story, Rocio Davis wrote a piece claiming that this The Joy Luck Club deals with the identity issues that result when a person is thrown into “the waning influence of an older culture and the overwhelming presence of another”. If this doesn't describe the digital age, I don't know what does. Humans have tried to figure out identity when coming into contact with another culture before—perhaps the digital paradigm is not all that different. “The difficulties of a culture undergoing transformation” perhaps are the same whether you're talking about the a fictional Chinese-American family, or an online world trying to make sense of how social media impacts a sense of personal identity.

Identity in the Joy Luck Club is not a simple issue. I've posted about identity issues in The Joy Luck Club before; see here for explications of identity and the character of Jing-mei. Many of the characters deal with the multiplicity of identity that Jing-mei deals with. In the segment entitled “Double Face,” Lindo Jong, a Chinese mother, sits in a chair in front of the famous American hair-stylist Mr. Rory. She sees herself in the mirror, and she hears her daughter tell Mr. Rory how her hair ought to be done—how she ought to look. Mr. Rory can't help but notice how similar mother and daughter look, but it is not only the two hereditary female faces that Lindo considers—Lindo, a Chinese immigrant, also sees two women, two faces, within herself. “Which one is American? Which one is Chinese? Which one is better? If you show the one, you must always sacrifice the other.”

The argument here regarding multiple and singular identity issues is presented indirectly, but not subtly. Lindo believes in identity sacrifice, because, although people feel the tensions of different identities within themselves, only one identity should be allowed to show at a time. It is a human characteristic to switch between identities. As Lindo interacts with Mr. Rory and her daughter, she informs her audience about which “face,” or which identity, she is using: “I use my American face...I smile, this time with my Chinese face.” However, Lindo's daughter Waverly understands this identity-switching that her mother indulges in. She informs her mother that people know that her and her mother are “two-faced.”

Analysis of this section of The Joy Luck Club leads me to three conclusions. First, multiple identities do exist. However, a Chinese woman finds her singular identity in part because of the way that she has chosen to vacillate between identities. She may want to sacrifice one identity over the other, but she really can't. Lastly, the world surrounding the Chinese woman is at least partly aware of her multiple identities, which, in turn, allows the world to define the woman based on a singular identity.

Current Concerns
So, is the complex way of establishing and dealing with identity in the Joy Luck Club an applicable metaphor for understanding identity in the online world? I would say it is, not only for the parallels previously established, but also because people are concerned about the ramifications social media will have on identity, just as the Chinese mothers were concerned about the ramifications of American society on their own identity as well as on the identities of their daughters.

While studying online identity issues, a colleague, Allison, who is studying social media as a means of rebellion, gave me a link to an article entitled “Does Social Media Produce Groupthink?” This article expresses the fear that social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, can be “stifling” and encourage “groupthink,” basically a tendency to identify with opinions shared by the masses at the expense of personal moral judgment. While this article does not directly articulate opinions about the formation of online identity, I think it is a clear indicator that the digital culture has caused some people to wonder if singular identity—or any “identity” at all—is being crushed by social media. Perhaps less apocalyptic is the article “Keeping True Identity Becomes a Battle Online,” shared with me by a classmate Amanda, which highlights the difficulty of maintaining personal identity in a era that allows “digital squatters” to claim vanity website addresses attached to one certain name. In his study on the Bloggernacle, another classmate, Ben, brought my attention to the blog Mormon Feminist Housewives where women worried about the online identity that they were presenting in their blogs. One women commented, “it concerns me that I'm too split,” when speaking about her blog identity versus her offline identity.

So, identity is an issue, and a concern, a concern that used to be written about in print literature, but is now resurging as we face the implications of the digital age. But, if Lindo Jong really did have a singular definition of self through her multiple definitions of self, might the same thing be possible for us today?

Multiplicity of Identity Leading to Singularity of Identity
The first chapter in the book Born Digital, a seminal text about the digital age and digital natives that my professor, Dr. Burton, brought to my attention, is entirely focused on identity issues for youth who spend a considerable amount of time in the online world. This chapter argues that “the conventional understanding of identity holds that, over time, one can create multiple versions of oneself.” Certainly, the digital world makes the creation of multiple identities easier than ever before. However, this text argues that the digital age allows these separate identities to “converge—and converge even more than identities ever converged before the digital age.” This convergence of identities is not necessarily tied to how an online user wants to be perceived by others. However,

from the perspective of the onlooker, much more of the Digital Native's identity may be visible at any one moment than was possible for individuals in pre-Internet eras. If the Digital Native has created multiple identities, those identities might be connected to create a much fuller picture of the individual than was possible before, spanning a greater period of time.

So, the digital age is actually able to aid in the construction of a singular identity simply because multiple identities are able to be linked and seen together. The tension that Lindo Jong experienced is still present—but like Lindo Jong, one identity is formed by a multiple of different identities. The only difference is that that newly formed identity is much more visible for an online user than for Lindo.

The Desire for Singularity of Identity
In her book Psychology of the Internet, which I have blogged about before here, Patricia Wallace acknowledges the fact that is it almost a necessity for people to experiment with different identities. After all, “if we don't try things out, we don't know what fits best.” However, this kind of experimentation and reinvention of identity, which is easily accomplished online, does not lead to the establishment of identity that is fragmented, contradictory, or detrimental. Rather, experimenting with identity online leads to “a deeper sense of self.” I think that this sense of self could certainly be called a singular identity that is, again, formed from multiple identities. This kind of singular identity is much like the one that was discussed in Born Digital, except for the fact that it is more intentional. Wallace claimed that when experimenting with identity online, "many people stay close to their home self and just tinker with a few traits they wish they could improve." This statement is in-sync with Born Digital, which claims that “young people tend to express their personal and social identities online much as people always have in real space, and in ways that are consistent with their identities in real space." So, while manipulation of identity is certain on the internet, most people tend to express the fact that what they are looking for through the creation of multiple identities is the sense of singular identity. Furthermore, if a singular identity can be extrapolated through the internet easily, there is also a pretty good chance that this singular identity is very much in-line with the person's nature in reality. And, in large part, that identity is what people want to express.

So What?
So what is the point of this knowledge? Why argue that multiple identities can be aggregated into a singular identity on the internet? Why use literature to understand these things?

Because this discussion is not going to go away. The digital age will grow—perhaps even be entirely replaced by an age that we cannot even see on the horizon. But the issues surrounding identity will not drastically change or disappear. We do face uncertainties in how to approach the identity debate in the digital world—but we've faced these issues before. I hope that in realizing that, we can be better equipped to deal with identity issues in a well-educated, open way. Identity issues in the digital world may not be completely understood—but we are capable of trying to find ways to understand them, and through understanding, find positive implications and new hope in what the digital age can accomplish.