Yoshino

IX – “Everyone covers. To cover is to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream.”
“All of us struggle for self-expression; we all have covered selves.” (25)

~ This is part of what I am thinking for my theory. That identities that are thought positively about are salient over those that are thought negatively about.

8 – Concept of multiple selves

~ Can you kill one and keep the other intact? Or if you rid yourself of one identity does it change/damage all the other selves, too?  Something to think about while forming my theory.

10 – “…Emotional risks often…more real…than physical or analytic ones.”

~ What if emotional items are more important that physical or analytical things? Must we make our emotional selves whole before we move to make our physical selves whole? Or before we analyze something  must we come to terms with our emotions first? Maybe emotional attachments to identities make them more important than identities without any emotional attachment.

14 – “The act of giving birth to oneself is miraculous and terrifying, but unlikely to be calm.”

~ I see this as gaining identity will not be a calm occurrence.

15 – Symbols play an important role in identities. Pink triangle, rainbow and gays; the color black and artists; gavel for lawyers; white lab coat and stethoscope for doctors, etc,

~ This might also play into the idea of identity-related possessions.

17 – Hide one identity to help another.

~ How does this affect overall identity? How does the global self deal with this sort of occurrence? How does this trickle down to other identities?

17-18 – Conversion, 2. Personal acceptance, public denial, 3. Passing 4. Covering

~ The stages Yoshino came up with.

20 – Assimilation is the American Dream –

~ Whose dream? The parents? (27) assimilation means that one way better than another – leads to covering; does assimilation happen when creating global self? Or just separate identities?

22 – Separation between what you ‘are’ and what you ‘act’ – which one is your real identity? Are both? Neither? Something in between? Laws only protect ‘being’ not ‘doing’ (24)

23 – Be authentic

~ Maybe the goal for the global self is simply authenticity. But then the question becomes what is authenticity.

25 – Self-definition; “…Mainstream is a myth.”

~ Self-definition is a nice idea, but you cannot define yourself without influences from the outside world playing a part.

27 – Covering makes equality difficult/impossible

~ Unless all equal because all covering? But is it the same? Different levels of covering still equals inequality.

44 – Why do we differ between children and adults? Doesn’t this lead to the difficulties of teenage and college years? Do we all not form identities? Are there really that many differences in how this occurs? I wonder if its possible to creating a theory that encompasses pretty much all age groups?

61 – Constrained when at home, easier to be self in new place

~ Is this why college is so important? Because it allows people to break from the norms and form new identities faster and more completely because of fewer stereotypes they already have placed on them.

67 – Passing & death

~ Does a part of your identity die when you pass it off as something else? Or does it just go dormant?

70 – Military used to ask conversion, now asked to pass

~ Which is worse?

79 – Four ways to cover: Appearance, affiliation, activism, association

~ Good info to know

82 – Covering voice can be internal or external

~ Kind of like how identities can be expressed or oppressed internally or externally.

114 – “Children of confused blood” –

~ Is this the stigma we give all children born with two different skin colored parents?

115 – Can you assimilate into something that you’re not fully a part of? Or just pass?

116 – “I passed Japanese language but flunked Japanese race.”

~ Is it possible to pass in a part of one culture or identity and not in the another?

117 – Can you ever fully stop passing and just be? Like his sister? Or must you posses some innate quality to be able to do this (like being Japanese)?

125 – Covering for too long changes you

~ I think what he’s trying to say is that covering one identity for too long changes both your global self and your other identities.

135 – Covering soothes others’ fears

~ This is one of the reasons why people do not always express their identity.

137-8 – Language and identity

~ How to symbolize your ethnicity

145 – Covering and reverse-covering at Yale; focuses more on gender differences

~ The idea of covering and reverse-covering is fairly interesting.

171 – Does covering hurt us at all? Are we afraid when we cover, being brave, trying not to show how afraid we are?

172 – Those who cover trying to avoid being victims, is that why PLAs who complain about being victims annoy those who cover sometimes?

173 – Assimilation model description

~ Covers being from a group but not doing what that group does

184-5 – True and False self; creativity and futility; False self used to protect True self

~ True and False selves are like oppressing and expressing identities. I think that every self, whether true or false is an identity. I think they are not as much true and false as they are internal and external.

Yoshino, K. (2006). Covering: The hidden assault on our civil rights. New York: Random House.