What are your masks?

In my everyday conversation with my Dean of Student Affairs, we got to talking about code-switching and role playing in the field of student affairs. He intrigued my curiosity in Erving Hoffman’s dramaturgical analysis. Hoffman states that we are all living “actors who have both a 'front' stage behavior and a 'back' stage behavior”. However, this type of acting pays way less than your average actor, sometimes nothing. I got to thinking about the evolution of our social justice lens in student affairs as we move in, out, or about in the field. 

I am half way through my second year out of graduate school and back in good old Texas. For those of you who know me, I am proud of my Tejana identity, but it took a trip to Vermont for me to discover that.  I did not realize it then, but I was living in my ‘front-stage’ putting up a façade fulfilling society’s stereotypes and expectations for people like me. While I battled with the instinct of confronting the dominant narrative, I constantly felt myself falling short of my personal expectations.  I come from a working class family where my parents worked the fields to put food on the table, and lived my life hiding behind my visible and invisible disabilities, both learning and physical disabilities. I succumbed to the labels of classism and ableism and thought it okay to academically and physically underperform. I settled for my performance, and struggled to find the self-motivation to try harder, smarter, and better. I was a B student when I knew I could have been an A student. I settled for alternate forms of physical activity as opposed to gym class or track because of body image issues. This outlook changed when college came.  I slowly engaged in leadership roles and challenged myself to continue learning outside of the classroom. I am my own example of the success student affairs and involvement has on our students.  

Today, I find myself in a small east Texas town continuing to challenge the dominant narrative and seeking allies. I have learned to skillfully move in and out of various roles to communicate ‘appropriately’ with my changing surroundings. With change come new stages, new actors, new props, and new masks. I think most of you would agree with me when I say that no matter the job, no matter the people, no matter what literature says, we still have to wear our masks to move forward in a society like ours. In this case, I try not to live up to societal expectations, but break down the stereotypes by utilizing the tenets of assimilation. In student affairs we talk about wearing multiple hats, but where is the conversation of wearing multiple masks?  I do not believe it is a horrible thing, but it is something we must recognize and acknowledge in order to understand ourselves, our peers, and our students.  While we may go around saying “he/she/ze is two-faced”, or “I don’t play that game”, the institution of oppression has forced us to wear these masks, and make it a part of our everyday existence.

Through his research and practice, Goffman tries to answer the questions: 

•  Why do we perform?  
•  Are we expected to perform? 
•  Do we perform to be accepted into society? 
• Do we not realize it, or is performing just embedded into our everyday life?

I have informally toyed with Goffman’s theory and have concluded that our stages lay on a spectrum between front-stage and back-stage (and these may be different for you). When we look at a play and analyze the location of actors on a stage, some of them never make it to the other side, some are more towards the front to emphasize their story, and others are back characters. But just like every location and every actor completes a play . . . every space, every mask completes our lives.

Most of us have heard the cliché “we are the only ones”.  That concept was introduced to me during a professional Latino caucus at a national conference. I thought, “But there are a lot of us, look at us, there is a room full of Latino professionals right now”. After I left that space to come back home, I evaluated my surroundings, and to my immediate surprise, I am the only Latina in my department (I think with today’s social network, I subconsciously believed I had more Latinos in my ‘space’)and currently, am the FIRST Latina in the institution to hold this ‘high’ of a title (interim director). WHAT?! But it’s 2012?! There is still much progress left to go. So, when I am outside of the space of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, my front-stage mask comes on. This front-stage moves on a spectrum from the building that houses our upper-level administrators like our Associate VP, to the office of our Dean, followed by our Assistant Dean and so on and so forth. My back-stage includes the movement between my office desk/space, to our office area, and to the offices of my allies outside of student affairs (that includes faculty spaces). 

My front-stage mask includes (simple things, but they make a difference):

• Intentionally speaking slower 
• Taking more time to think before responding 
• Wear a blazer, preferably black 
• Wear my name tag 
• And walk and stand straighter (I know we should do this automatically, but sometimes it hurts) 

My back-stage includes:

• Letting my Spanglish flow 
• Wear bright colors 
• Wear a fleece jacket (my students have threatened to burn this one fleece because it does not go with my outfit) 
• Casually launch with the crowd (mainly students) 
• Be a person of color

This is what I believe exists in my respective stages, however this does not necessarily reflect your stages and masks. There are also props and actors, and I can create a visual of how my stages look and we can analyze them deeper, but that’s for another post. Now, what happens to our masks when the characters in our front-stage, enter our back-stage space? Or when our back-stage characters enter our front-stage spaces? This can be compared to affinity spaces. When upper-level administrators enter my space, I feel less scrutinized, less pressured to act assimilated, and I move closer to my back-stage mask on the spectrum. When a student enters my front-stage spaces (meetings with upper-level administrators), I have to learn to straddle my masks between front and back stage. Or when a student enters my office/desk space, I know I have entered their back-stage.

So, what are we doing in student affairs to talk about our multiple masks? How can we start talking about it? Do our students notice the way we shift our masks? Is mask-shifting, role-playing, or code-switching healthy or unhealthy? And to what extent? First, we must start with ourselves. How do you define your stages? What are your masks?

Affirmative Action for Who

A few posts ago I briefly mentioned the story of UC-San Diego. UC-San Diego caught the nation's eye when the university found itself in the midst of heighten racial tension. In the article medical students protest for the creation of a more inclusive environment. Often times, I reflect on my work as a multicultural educator and social justice advocate and wonder: Do we have to wait for chaos to erupt on a campus before proactively seeking ways to be more inclusive? This question, and several others, haunt me as I delve deeper in the field and area of social advocacy.

Affirmative Action was created to aid disadvantaged communities, however there are countless of US universities who have yet to establish a rooted Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity office. At my current institution, faculty, staff, and students who experience bias and/or hate incidents do not have access to a system where they can report these incidents, hence leaving them feeling unsafe in their new 'home'. Recently, I received a phone call from a university staff member looking for a place to report a bias incident. Being unaware myself about my university's services, I had not other place to direct him to but human resources with the hope that his concern would not just be written and then ignored. Unfortunately, many campuses, and businesses for that matter, ignore most cases because let's face it, they have 'better' things to deal with.

So, in the case of UCSD, their resolution to their situation was to hire an individual to head "Diversity Initiatives". UCSD's current situation clearly represents the way many multicultural centers and AAEO offices are created. They are created out of reactions. We live in a reactive society, and I understand that, however in my field, we have to be proactive, and be the few in many to be proactive.  I sometimes wonder how it would feel to just give up, go to my corner, and work to the betterment of my own life? I don't think I want to know. I firmly believe we all enter this world to create a better world for others, selfless service right? What kind of society would we be living in if we all operated from that philosophy? (another blog). Anyhow, of a director for Diversity Initiatives, UCSD did the unspeakable, they fired the director nine months. Nine months? The article clearly articulates my own emotions to their actions. Freire speaks about the need for the 'oppressor' and the 'oppressed' to work together. Until we form relationships of allyship will we be free from each other.  I vividly remember sitting in a finance class and the professor talking about mutual funds and stocks, and a whole lot of finance gibberish. I dropped the class. It was not her fault, it was not the subject's fault, I blamed my parents for not teaching me about finance. But then again, it wasn't their fault either. It was society's fault. In my circle of identities (Latina, female, working class) society hindered me from accessing said information. Latinos are not supposed to be wealthy or have stocks, all we are worth is working in the fields. Women don't have high paying jobs, ya'll  are better off at home and educating about home economics. Working class individuals just don't need to mess with finances, we'll put you on welfare and say you had it good. Like mom once said, "Ten, y di que te fue bien".

Mrs. Baiz-Torres probably followed all protocol when working to developing Diversity Initiatives, however she spoke up to much. One can also tie this to gender roles and the notion that women should not speak up, or race in the sense that Latinos do not have a voice (hence the concept Silent Voices). I am sure if UCSD had an affirmative action office in place or even equal employment opportunity, the university might have handled this situation better. They would have had a team of multicultural competent individuals aiming for a better working environment for all. After all, affirmative action is about creating equal opportunities for all and protecting the historically disenfranchised communities in the US.

Latinos in Multicultural Affairs

Tip #2: Understand the Challenge(s) you are Welcoming. When I began my job search I wanted a place where I could work with students of color, and the only place I could think of were multicultural centers. For the most part, Texas schools only have multicultural centers, as opposed to individual identity cultural centers like our northern counterparts. So it was no surprise when my job offer came through and it was the Office of Multicultural Affairs. I was excited. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but what I misunderstood were the type of challenges.

This can go for any first-year professional, but I think it's even more salient and pertinent to those in multicultural affairs. Multicultural affairs is a tricky and sticky area in student affairs. It was one of the few centers and/or services that were created out of protests. Every center I can think of that deals with marginalized communities have resulted because of protests from students and the university community. My office was a result of one student who in 1991 felt it was necessary for students of color, specifically African American students, to have a place for solidarity, as well as an increase in faculty of color and courses dealing with multicultural issues. (By the date, you can tell our center is premature considering the emergence of other centers, but what we have to take into consideration is that we are in east Texas).

Anyhow, I have learned that one must slow your pace down, your approach, your attitude, your style, maybe even you stroll. It's not bad, its just having to know, understand, and accept those changes/challenges. It is important to be aware that our jobs may be at stake given the circumstances, come to think of it, we have to be careful. The higher up we go up the ladder, the more careful we have to be, but yet our social justice lens must get sharper and clearer with every advance. It's like a walking contradiction: You have to have a sharp lens, but you have to be careful with how you use it and direct it. Recently, a school in California experienced racial tension, and as a resulted hired a chief diversity officer to 'manage' the tension. At the end, the woman was fired on the basis of her radicalism. Our jobs are on the line. Daily.

Second, you have to come to understand "self-tokenization". This concept came up when a friend of mine and I began sharing our experiences in multicultural affairs. He is Latino and is supervised by a Black supervisor, and so am I. We started thinking about Latino Directors of multicultural centers, but couldn't quite think of any, at least none in our circles. We could think of assistant Latinos, and Latinos who are directors of Latino communities. So, we began dissecting the concept of self-tokenization. Why did we choose to enter multicultural affairs?

I decided on multicultural affairs because I wanted to be the go-to individual for Latino students in Multicultural Affairs. From personal experiences, my friend and I shared how there was a lack of Latino student involvement in multicultural centers at our peer institutions. Why? And that question comes up constantly in conferences where the "Vanishing Latino" theory is addressed. How can we engage Latino students? Latino students on average are less engaged than any other student community, thus being less present in multicultural centers. (This does not include individual identity centers).

So in essence, self-tokenization can look different to many people. However, for multicultural educators, we must prepare ourselves to be "The Only One" in the room, and to slow down. So, do we as multicultural educators tokenize ourselves? And to what extend will we continue to slow down our to accommodate the educational system(s)?  Perhaps these two concepts are necessary for the survival of social justice.

A Balancing Act

So, it's been a while since I last posted. I was losing the focus of this blog in the process. After much thinking and spending time in my current job, I realized I needed to change the direction of this blog. I'm leaning more towards tips, pointers, stories, even questions, for early multicultural advocates. As my first position in multicultural affairs, I've come up against various walls. The first tip I have for those interested in joining the fabulous life of multicultural affairs is: KNOW THY SELF.

Multicultural work is not only a process of educating others about social justice and diversity, but its a continual journey of re-discovering, and re-engaging with yourself, in order to become the great educator you aspire to be. College is a time for learning, exploring, growing, and experimenting, and that's just what I received from my undergraduate experience. However, given the conservative atmosphere, parts of me still felt suffocated. I took in all the leadership opportunities I could take, and developed a leadership identity at the expense of my cultural identity.  Moving to Vermont allowed me to explore a part of myself that I had never ventured to understand because of the stigma I faced in Texas in accepting my whole self. Doing multicultural work helped me understand why the work is needed and how I can use my story to catapult my professional direction.

Today, I find myself struggling to balance my new found self with the conservative atmosphere that kept me from finding myself to begin with. I have a fiery cat-like instinct to jump on every 'racist' moment I see, wanting to challenge others to go where they've never gone before. However, I've reached a point where most of my conflicting attitudes with this place are slowly being dispelled with the solution of: It's just not going to happen right now. Which I think I am okay with, because at the end of the day, I know who I am, I know what road I took to find myself, and if I lose myself in said conservative environment, I know what my next step would and should be.

I am a Latina, Tejana, activist, seeking justice in the all the wrong places, and while I might be feeling discomfort and frustration in my job, I just have to keep reminding myself of the reasons for why I chose it, and above all, reminding myself of who I am and that as long as I stay true to myself, nothing should go wrong.

For now, I find stress-relieving in exercising and in processing these experiences with my fellow multicultural educators (again because I know myself, and I understand what I need to do to keep a healthy mindset) So, I challenge you. Who are you? What makes your tick? And what helps you keep those ticks from becoming bombs?