“All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” -Chimamanda Adichie
As a first year student, you will often be asked where you are from. My answer used to be “the Seattle area” for two reasons. One, I doubted people knew my city of Federal Way, Washington. Second, I was relatively insecure about the single stories people associated with my hometown. I really did not want people to take that bit of information for granted in their judgment of who I am, so I opted to mask my heritage in the ambiguity that is “the Seattle area.”
I did this hoping people would get to know me in my complexity. Some salient aspects of my identity as an incoming Zag were being a middle child, a student leader, a Christian, in a long distance relationship, an African American, a curious questioner, an aspiring community leader, and a student athlete. Like so many of us, I was looking for a place to belong, and I was pleased to find groups people with whom I could express myself. I participated in a phenomenal pre-orientation program called BRIDGE, finding myself in a community of first generation students and students of color. I joined Gonzaga Cheerleading, and rallied the Kennel Club with either a partner or megaphone in hand.
Each space offered something distinct, and allowed me to share a different part of myself. It helped me along my transition into Gonzaga, but eventually I began to want more. I found myself feeling one-dimensional in most communities. Among the cheerleaders, I would disconnect from my racial identity. In the classroom, I would shy away from speaking of my experiences of adversity related to socioeconomic status. Among my friends of color, I would disengage from my critical academic outlook. I would hold back from being wholly true to myself, only allowing partial truths at a time — especially when I assumed that parts of my identity and experiences were not well represented around me. (Careful with the assumptions!)
One of the greatest challenges of our time is being united across differences, and that is the sort of community that I want to be a part of. I am not satisfied being constrained to compress my complexity into a silent and simple sameness. I want to be Black and scholarly and spiritual and athletic and silly, because I am all of those things. I am done with picking parts of myself to matter when each of them do.
The best therapy for me when feeling conflicted and alienated is to be mindful of others conflicted-ness and experiences of alienation. I began to consider how I, too, contribute to a campus environment that reduces people to single stories. Do I presume that a classmate must be homosexual for being gender nonconforming? Do I affirm my floor mates in appreciation of their differing experience of socioeconomic status or do they only feel like we are on good terms if they present themselves to have similar experiences as me? Ultimately, I realized that I should extend the same grace to others to be different that I want for myself, and it has made all the difference.
In light of our commitment to “dignity of the human person, social justice, diversity, intercultural competence, global engagement, [and] solidarity with the poor and vulnerable,” I am working to transcend the communal comfort zone of one-dimensional similarities, and hope that you will join me. But it is difficult! It is only possible in our community when each of us get to be our authentic, complex selves, even when find ourselves to be different from one another. It is the invitation to the very vulnerable and worthy work of true community building, of social harmony, of unity in diversity.
My new introduction is this: “My name is Caleb Dawson, and I am from Federal Way — just 20 minutes south of Seattle.” I am still learning to be unapologetic about who I am and where I am from, and now I am honored to invite you to live out your complexity with us at Gonzaga University. Welcome to our community of dynamic differences! Who are you and where are you from?
Caleb Dawson is a senior double majoring in Sociology and Economics with a minor in Women and Gender Studies. Dawosn is a member of the hip hop dance team known as “Bomb Squad,” and is serving as the President of the Gonzaga Student Body Association.