Carrillo-Rowe's piece on identity really stood out to me for its compelling arguments on what being who you are really means and how this can shape over time. Rowe writes, "Still, one cannot make a world with simple atoms. There has to be a "clinamen." There has to be an inclination or an inclining from one toward the other, of one by the other, or from one to the other. Community is at least the "clinamen" of the 'individual' ". I found this statement to be interesting because as complicated as it is written, the statement being made is that our identity is formed by being a part of and surrounded by people that influence who you are. Identity is found through community and bias lies within the people we choose to spend out time with/ let influence us. I also think that throughout this piece, Carrillo-Rowe is arguing that we as humans are constantly evolving and shifting our own identities. We are never the same person we were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. Identity gradually changes as our live events shift and who we surround ourselves with alters.
An example of this from my personal life is my transition from living in a small town in Wisconsin, to moving to Minneapolis for college. When living in Cedarburg, WI, I was apart of a community that was very white dominated. My sports teams were typically only made up of white women, my classes were never diverse, and my friend group fit this mold as well. Who I was at this time was very blindly privileged and unaware of the world around me. I was in a bubble of the people I knew, who looked like me. It was really not until college that I began to surround myself with people of different races, cultures and backgrounds. Since living in Minneapolis, I really found a new sense of identity. While I still look the same as I did in Wisconsin, I feel that my identity has changed by learning about these different stories and involving myself in groups where I was no longer in this bubble of "safety". My perspectives broadened, my acceptance and understanding grew. I am much more proud of the person I am today, with the shift in identity that I have done. And I attribute that to the location I am now in, and the amazing people I have met in it.
Rowe, Aimee Marie Carrillo. "Be Longing: Toward a Feminist Politics of Relation." NWSA Journal, vol. 17 no. 2, 2005, p. 15-46. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/184750.
I liked your interpretation of the Carrillo-Rowe piece, specifically about how our identity is defined by the people we are around. I agree with this and believe that we are defined by the way we think we are perceived by the world, and most importantly, the people around us. I also relate to your example of living in small town Wisconsin and coming to a college in Minnesota. My mother lives in Minneapolis and my father lives in a small town in Wisconsin, and even as a kid I was aware of the vast changes in people that I would interact with.
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