Language, Race, and Identity

There are a couple of things that have been on my mind increasingly as of late. These are some issues I’ve seen and felt and experienced to the point that I think it’s important for everyone to spend a little time thinking about them, too.

In the US, it’s obvious that English is the ruling language. And while attempts have been made to validate Spanish on a governmental level, it’s quite clear what the state’s opinion is. English is the way of life. And that’s not something that is too difficult to live by, especially in Washington state. We don’t neighbor Mexico, or any non-English speaking countries. We don’t think about it. We assume that the store checker speaks English. We assume our neighbors understand every word we speak. It’s a form of privilege, the right to assume.

In South Africa, it’s the same, while it’s also not. South Africa has 11 official languages. Here, people speak Afrikaans. People speak IsiNdebele, and IsiXhosa. They speak IsiZulu, as well as Setswana. People speak Xitsonga, SiSwati, Sesotho, and Sepedi. People speak Tshivenda. That’s ten. Of course, you can’t forget English. Because everyone speaks English, right?

Wrong.

White people speak English, and everyone else is forced to learn. So, it’s still a privilege to assume here. I can assume people have taken the time to learn my language, while so many Americans laugh and make fun of the indigenous tongues spoken in “all those third-world countries.”

Another huge issue here, especially regarding language, is segregation and racism. And by here, I even mean Stellenbosch University. This school was, and is still to a certain extent, an Afrikaans-only university. It was funded that way, with donors applying contingencies to their money. At first, I saw that as a positive thing. Finally! A school that appreciates it’s heritage and isn’t conforming to this English rule. I quickly learned.

Afrikaans, while the name may fool you, is not exactly an indigenous language, either. When you listen to it, it sounds like Dutch. Well, that’s because it is Dutch to a large extent. It’s African/English-ized Dutch.

Here’s a very brief history lesson. In the 17th century, Southern Africa was “discovered” and colonized by the Dutch who were trying to get to India for spices (what is it with India being the cause of colonization?) and, ostensibly, money. They got tired going around the bottom of Africa, so they made a pit-stop and took over the cape. After a while, they made slaves out of the San people (or, as we know them, Bush People) and exploited the hell out of them.

So, even Afrikaans is a white language. They were trying to make SU a white school, and for the most part, it worked. I don’t know a single person of color who speaks Afrikaans, so how in the world are they supposed to go to school here? It’s du jure segregation at its finest, people.
Now, of course, classes are being offered in English as well, and as we all know, everyone speaks English, so the school is diversifying.

One of my personal topics with which I’ve been working on is the nature of Identity. It’s interesting to compare where I’ve come from, where identity is all about uniqueness, to where I currently am, where identity is much more powerful. To identify as white means something even more profound than in the states. I have a friend, Stephanie, who is Mexican American. She lives in El Paso, and is very much “a Mexican” at home. However, the second she set foot on African soil, she was white. How can that be? Aren’t we taught that race is genetic? You can’t just switch like that. Except race is hardly genetic. In a biological sense, race doesn’t exist. It’s a socio-political tool. We are much less aware of identity in the US than I am now becoming here. And not just in a color-of-my-skin way. Cultural identity is obvious, especially throughout the international community. There are people of color here from the states and from Europe. And they struggle just as much as anyone in terms of knowing oneself in the context of another culture. I am becoming much more aware of who I am, how I work and think, and why I am on this planet. I feel my identity here. I feel it changing, and I feel it solidifying.

I’m sorry this post has been so heavy, but these were all things I needed to get off my chest. I’m certainly not done with them, but I feel as though I’ve laid a sort of foundation on which to build my thoughts. Thank you for exploring them with me.