Prabha Singh

WRT 205

Strategic reflection

Feb 6 2019

A Dynamic Identity

A person is bounded to characteristics like their ethnicity or origin, but should that define

who they are? The interchanging perception between oneself and the world is constantly

redefined as both rapidly change through experiences, epiphanies, and time. In a sense, it’s

reasonable to say that these permanent characteristics can influence who someone is, but as time

goes on, experiences mesh with given traits to form new identities and qualities that one chooses

to define themselves as. Finding who I am as a dynamic person has been a never ending process

yet some qualities I’ve acquired will always stick with me. The process of redefining myself

influenced the path I took and continue to take in life socially, academically, and politically.

Throughout my life, being a woman of color has been an identity that I was born with yet it has

gradually acquired importance in my life. This unchangeable identity as well as my experiences

have provided me with heightened a sense of independence and tenacity that drove me towards

choosing a STEM major and intersectional feminism.

Being a dynamic person that underwent a lot of challenges and upbringings, I’ve found

that most of my qualities are derived from my core identity: a woman of color. Growing up in a

community that lacked diversity on a drastic scale, feeling a sense of exclusion was no foreign

concept to me. Partaking in my academic pursuits left me with an incredibly formative concept:

underrepresentation. Really definitive moments for me always had to be class debates as it

revealed the distinction between perspectives that often rooted from racial identity. Specifically,

when it came to talking about the 2016 presidential election in class, most shared a conservative

outlook on most fiscal issues and some social issues such as affirmative action. Being a woman

of color drew me towards social ideas that promoted aiding disenfranchised groups, but the fear

developed of speaking against the majority left an imprint on me to where I have trouble voicing

my opinion. In a society where political affiliation can be so divisive, being underrepresented

within my community made me feel vocally suppressed feeling like once my ideas were seen as

“wrong”, they were invalidated thereon. Consequently, I have a timid nature formed by these

experiences, but I’ll always hold on to my core identity because I feel that shaped my perspective

the most regardless of how outnumbered I was. Underrepresentation sort of transitioned into a

perceived feeling of underestimation throughout my academic journey. Often within math

oriented classes, or certain science clubs that I was apart of, I always felt like the world expected

less of me than my former peers. As a result, I always pushed myself on exams and to get as high

as I could in our school’s ranking system to prove that although I was different, I was capable of

the same or better. My identity influenced my perception of the world believing I was incapable,

although my perception was slightly misconstrued, I am glad that I was invoked with a sense of

independence and determination through these experiences in the effort of validating who I was.

Ultimately, my perception of my own identity is what has been transformative throughout this

journey, and being a woman of color now symbolizes my capability and perseverance in any

environment where I am underrepresented.

In the pursuits of redefining myself and figuring out my own potential, I was driven

towards my academic field, aerospace engineering, as well as immersing myself into certain
empowerment movements. With prior knowledge that entering a STEM field would have an

unbalanced gender ratio, I was hesitant at first in pursuing it. However, I was driven towards

engineering because although I felt singled out by my identity, I simultaneously knew that the

way that I came to think fit the mindset of an engineer. At my high school, there was a specific

guest speaker who was a mechanical engineer and they sort of wrapped the basis of engineering

around the idea that engineers look at the world through a critical factual lens that focuses on the

“hows” rather than the “whys”. That speech resonated with me because I appreciated the idea of

looking at the world with the certainty that comes with science and mathematics since it is less

opinion based. Overall, I am an aspiring aerospace engineer, my identity gives me the security of

knowing I’m capable in my field, but I also like how my career’s nature separates the ideas from

the person.

When it comes to my political interests, my identity plays a huge role in what I choose to

develop a strong opinion in. I have always appreciated the idea of feminism ever since a young

age, but until about two years ago, my sister introduced the idea of intersectionality to me. Until

then, it never occurred to me that my race and gender could intersect because it was something

that was never explicitly taught or talked about. The General Motors case that Kimberle

Crenshaw talks about where the legal system hid racial discrimination under the facade that the

workplace lacked sex discrimination is incredibly meaningful to me. Connecting to my

previously mentioned experience with hearing my peers’ criticisms about affirmative action,

Crenshaw’s point with intersectionality validates my previously unpopular positive outlook on

affirmative action and other programs to help women, minorities, and women who are

minorities. The modern conversation we face with social awareness helps me draw my identity
as a woman of color to the forefront of who I am as opposed to the past where I hid away from it.

My identity has evolved to the stage where I embrace it and apply it to where I can support

intersectionality as a young adult so that I can use the voice that I hesitated to in the past.

Throughout my life, my perception of my own identity has been constantly changing. As

I became more defined as a person and grew certain abilities and qualities, my identity was

strengthened because I realized how it allowed me to overcome struggles and pursue what I truly

wanted to do in life regardless of the implications. From all of my experiences and choices, I

understand myself to be an independent and determined individual which I believe is mainly

derived from my identity. I embrace the unchangeable aspect of being a woman of color and the

impact that it has had on my life allows me to truly display who I am to the world.
 Reflection Essay

Finding what I wanted to base my strategic reflection on revolved around me initially

asking myself what aspect of myself was the most influential to my life. I tried to visually

conceptualize what my morals and values were in a chart and connected them to identities they

were formed out of. In addition, I made a t-chart to separate qualities of myself that I was born

with or given as opposed to qualities that I have acquired throughout my life because I knew that

in my strategic reflection, I wanted to attribute my identity to something that I didn’t choose but

adapted to. With the activity in class, when peers interpreted my own words and wrote them

down, it was interesting to see how my words came across to others and allowed me to shape my

main idea around that. I decided my main thesis would deal in my journey with my core identity

as a woman of color when I noticed that most of my notes and diagrams shared that particular

similarity. After creating a very rough outline, I did not like the direction that the paper was

going because I felt like I centralized the paper more on other people than myself since most of

my personal experiences were relating to what others saw of me rather than what I saw of

myself. So I redid the outline with personal experiences that more clearly showed the distinction

that I felt from everyone else on a racial level and actually took out some political aspects since I

thought it drew attention away from the main idea. After writing the outline, creating my rough

draft was the most difficult part for me and I actually wrote parts of the rough draft in different

places to help me think. I wrote it over the span of 3 days, and particularly went to the library to

write my introduction last because I knew I would need complete silence to figure out how to

dive into the depths of my journey with identity. I did not show my rough draft to close friends

or relatives but I did end up asking my sister some questions about myself to see if what I was
trying to convey from my experiences to the reader was legitimate and even non offensive. After

writing my final draft, I had already highlighted areas that still lacked emphasis or details and

also decided to include some textual evidence within my last paragraphs. The revision process

was not too strenuous but I do wish I incorporated more time between when I wrote the final

draft and my actual revision of it.

 Works Cited

Crenshaw, Kimberle () "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist

Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist 4eory and Antiracist Politics," ​University of

Chicago Legal Forum:​ Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8.