Defining My Identity through Language:

What I Learned about Literacy Narratives​

Kim Liao

Big Confession: I Didn’t Know What A Literacy Narrative Was Until I Taught ENG 2100.

When I first started teaching ENG 2100 at Baruch, I was confronted with a burning question: What on earth is a literacy narrative? As a professional writer, when approaching new writing situations, I usually surround myself with models, try to learn the conventions of the genre, and understand my new audience. However, the stakes felt very high in this scenario, since I was about to teach a genre of writing I had never attempted to write.

Yes, sometimes even your teachers feel like imposters!

First, I went to the Internet. (Let’s be honest: we all start there.) According to my Google search, I learned that a literacy narrative is a personal narrative about the acquisition of literacy, but this was just a starting point for my inquiry. (Note: Google is a good beginning for research, but it’s not the end!) I also learned that literacy narratives are common first-year writing assignments, since they encourage students to think explicitly about their own writing process, which is also called metacognition (I call it “thinking about thinking”). This kind of direct examination of the writing process can help us make more deliberate writing choices. However, one drawback of this preliminary definition of a literacy narrative is that it often forces students to think about reading and writing in school. While school is great, constraining the content of a literacy narrative to a student’s prior educational experiences seems limiting at best, and excruciating at worst.

So I wondered if the definition of a literacy narrative could be a bit more dynamic. After some research, I realized that literacy can have a much more expansive meaning: beyond learning to read and write, literacy could also encompass what you know about a certain subject and how you came to know it.

Suddenly, I had a breakthrough: literacy narratives can be stories about how we form our identities through language! Moreover, I began to realize that many of my essays directly engaged with questions of identity, culture, origin, tradition, and belonging. Had I been writing literacy narratives all along without realizing it?

I took a look back through some of my published essays in order to glean insights about what a literacy narrative could be. In doing so, I tried to identify features of successful literacy narratives to share with my students. I offer the below investigation of literacy narratives with the hope that some of these ideas may resonate for you when you tackle the literacy narrative assignment.

1) A Literacy Narrative Can Define One’s Cultural Identity

In “How to Be a Good Chinese-Jewish Hapa,” published in Fringe Magazine, I tangled with my experience of growing up biracial in the 1980s and ‘90s. In an essay cast in the second person (here, “You” stands in for “I”), I illustrated my difficulty defining my biracial identity through an inability to check off just one box in the ethnicity section of my college application.

I wrote, “You’ve stopped looking for your Chinese grandmother’s eyes in your reflection in the mirror. Your mother’s European traits dominate your face, but there is something that no one can ever quite put their finger on; an ‘exotic flair.’ Sunscreen was never necessary. People have looked at your olive-toned skin and asked, ‘What are you?’” (Liao, “How to Be a Good Chinese-Jewish Hapa”)

Once I was in college, I learned that being half-Asian and half-Russian Jewish might actually have a cultural label: “hapa.” However, I had some trepidation about whether the label really fit my identity, and whether I was actually emotionally prepared to live in the identity that the label alluded to:

Learn from your classmates about an emerging multiracial community group on campus. Endlessly dissect the word hapa; originally meaning “half” or “part” in Hawaiian, it now can also mean “mixed Asian” in California…Wonder why a description for multiracial identity has to be imported from somewhere else. Wonder if hapa is only really applicable in Hawaii, or if you too, can wear the label for just a little longer, until a better one comes along.

Decide against joining the multiracial group. Tell yourself that you’re not ready to publicly overanalyze your identity. Worry that you’re “not mixed enough.” Immerse yourself in courses in European literature, philosophy, and drama. Avoid words like “ethnic,” “postcolonial,” “feminist,” and “diaspora.” Savor the stark neutrality of the white, male-dominated academic discourse that you see the world through like a pane of clear glass. Stand looking out that window, nose pressed up against the glass, long enough that you almost forget what shape your nose really is. (Liao, “How to Be a Good Chinese-Jewish Hapa”)

In this essay, I struggled to attach a label to my own biracial ethnic identity, while simultaneously being fascinated and validated by its existence. The tension that I felt about “identifying” as a part of one particular ethnic or cultural group is illustrated by my desire to erase my own body and point of view in favor of participating in a dominant academic discourse. Language here played a huge role in defining where I thought I did or didn’t belong.

In a literacy narrative about defining cultural identity, the language we use to describe ourselves may take center stage. Identity, culture, and linguistic origins are all interconnected; therefore, a narrative of this kind may look directly at the challenge of building an identity through language that seeks to separate ourselves from our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, or neighbors. However, it can also be important to acknowledge these figures’ primacy in shaping our identities, since many of these people offer us the language that we use to describe our place in the world.

In a narrative, a narrator is struggling against a tension, whether that tension is a specific situational conflict or a more abstract difficulty accepting or embodying a particular idea. If the story of the narrative is defining a cultural or personal identity, it can be important to consider these questions: What’s at stake? What’s the challenge or obstacle? Why is this not a cut-and-dry or straightforward activity? We may also want to consider what evolves between generations within a family or cultural community, and how the language we use to define our lives is so very different from that of our parents and grandparents.

2) A Literacy Narrative Can Document A Journey From Confusion to Fluency

As the acquisition of literacy can be understood as a movement towards fluency, knowledge, understanding, and/or the successful use of linguistic tools, a literacy narrative can trace the movement from not knowing to knowing, or document the process of becoming fluent in a particular language or discourse. In this sense, a literacy narrative can be about joining or relating with a discourse community, which is a community that shares a common language and goals.

A number of my students have written successful literacy narratives about becoming fluent in the discourse of video gaming communities, and other students have written powerful narratives about developing fluency in a previously abandoned “mother tongue” in order to communicate with grandparents. These would all be narratives about acquiring fluency in a particular language or discourse.

In an essay I wrote called “The Attic,” published by Vol. 1 Brooklyn, I discuss the physical and metaphorical journey that I took to my grandfather’s Taiwanese hometown of Silai, in order to try to find the site of the former ancestral home. This was part of a larger quest for self-discovery and an understanding of my family’s history, but I was woefully unprepared, from a linguistic perspective—my spoken Chinese was very poor. So I struggled to communicate throughout this trip.

Through a series of linguistic stumbles and the immense kindness of strangers encountered along the way, I found the site of the ancestral home. I wrote, “I had succeeded in finding this geographic origin, the place where [my grandfather] Thomas grew up, where the story of my grandparents began, and it was gone. Rebuilt, razed, knocked down and replaced… Silai had always been a question in my heart, a void—yet now that I was finally here, it had been emptied of our family’s past. I was too late” (Liao, “The Attic”). In this moment, the narrative’s climax is the failure to achieve what I wanted, which was some semblance of belonging. I was unable to reach this for a number of reasons: my ineptitude in speaking Chinese, my lack of knowledge of the people and places of the town, and my unpreparedness for the search I undertook. However, there’s a twist at the end:

I decided to stop for lunch before embarking on the several hours trip back. I went into a small restaurant run by a friendly middle-aged woman. The proprietor noticed my necklace, which I had been wearing all day. It was a golden circular pendant, framing the “Liao” character in Chinese. I had put it on for luck, laughing at my own superstition, and as some kind of identification proof—I’m a Liao! I belong here. Even though I don’t look like you. Yet now someone had taken notice. “Ni xing Liao? Wo xing Liao!!!” she exclaimed. (Is your last name Liao? My last name is Liao!)

… We ran across the street and she dragged me into a building with a stone storefront. Inside, I discovered the Silai historical society, whose interior was a faithful restoration of a traditional Taiwanese house, and which hosted an exhibition space showing historic photos of Silai from the past 100 years. “Xiaoxin,” she instructed (be careful!), and led me up into the attic. We walked carefully over the rafters. She pointed into the far corner. “Look! Liao Wen-Yi and your family.” There he was, Thomas Liao, my grandfather, and with him, my family. Four huge exhibition displays held pictures of my grandfather Thomas and his siblings, as well as his nephew, my Uncle Suho, and his wife, Aunt Margaret. Under the photos were descriptions in Mandarin of each family member’s role in the Taiwanese Independence Movement… Today, completely unprepared but spurred on by kind help from strangers, I had finally come home. (Liao, “The Attic”)

In “The Attic,” it was through the assistance of the residents of Silai—and especially from the kind owner of the shop where I ate lunch—that I was offered access to knowledge about my family’s history, despite my linguistic difficulties. I would never have found the attic full of treasures on my own.

It could be worth noting that in this type of literacy narrative, in which the narrator goes from illiteracy to fluency, there is often help from a literacy sponsor of some kind. A literacy sponsor could be a mentor, teacher, or a fairy godmother of some kind who helps us open the door to a particular form of language or knowledge that was previously closed to us. In my case, I met my literacy sponsor through her lucky recognition of a linguistic totem: the “Liao” Chinese character pendant necklace that I was wearing, which was an incredible coincidence. But the fascinating thing is that when we dig deep into our memories, trying to remember important moments of great transformation, we may find that sometimes that most important moments are facilitated by tiny actions.

Here are some things to think about if you’d like to write a narrative about going from confusion to fluency: what are moments in your life when something really changed for you, in terms of identity, culture, and your ability to understand knowledge? Was there a moment when all of a sudden, the world of musical fluency opened up to you, or was it through developing literacy in a particular sport that you came out of your shell and made friends? Did you always feel like an outcast in high school until you discovered a discourse community of theater kids, chess players, video gamers, or tennis enthusiasts? How did one type of literacy help to shape your identity?

3) A Literacy Narrative Can Be About Insights from Juggling Several Linguistic Identities

I’m going to depart from my own experiences here to make a point about another important type of literacy narrative that I have not written—one of juggling multiple literacies as you form your own identity. I think it’s pretty clear from the language woes discussed above that I’ll never be truly fluent in more than one language (a limitation I accept with no small amount of resignation). So this particular type of experience is one that is foreign to me. But my favorite example of this type of literacy narrative is Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue."

In “Mother Tongue,” Tan reflects on the different Englishes she speaks: as a first-generation Chinese-American daughter with her mother, which she contrasts with her use of Standard American English as a famous author. Tan writes of the English she uses with her mother, “It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with…Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It’s my mother tongue” (Tan 7). In her description of the way her mother speaks English, Tan communicates the difficulty of growing up as a first-generation Chinese immigrant, faced with the difficult reality of white America not understanding the accented or “broken” English of her mother.

Tan also presents the idea that translating between her mother’s English and standard English has shaped how she views the world, offering a unique perspective on Americans who treat non-native English speakers badly, making syntax and pronunciation elusive keys to access valuable services. In the section below, Tan translates for her mother on a phone call to resolve a financial misunderstanding:

My mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, “Why he don’t send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.”

And then I said in perfect English, “Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.”

Then she began to talk more loudly. “What he want, I come to New York tell him front of his boss, you cheating me?” And I was trying to calm her down, make her be quiet, while telling the stockbroker, “I can’t tolerate any more excuses. If I don’t receive the check immediately, I am going to have to speak to your manager when I’m in New York next week.” And sure enough, the following week there we were in front of this astonished stockbroker, and I was sitting there red-faced and quiet, and my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his boss in her impeccable broken English. (Tan 7)

In the above example, Tan shows us an example of her mother’s “mother tongue,” her own translation into standard English, and also the tension of being placed in the middle—“red-faced and quiet”—of her mother and the target of her mother’s justified anger (##). In so doing, she illustrates the effect that these linguistic acrobatics had on her identity as she grew up. I’ve had discussions with students about Tan’s text, they often say, “that feels so familiar, because my mom also makes me translate for her!”

This type of literacy narrative is also an endorsement and affirmation of the fact that many of us carry around multiple literacies in our lives, not simply the “standard English” speaker we are often expected to be in school. Thus, writing a literacy narrative is an opportunity to examine that struggle between the multiple literacies that you may negotiate between on a daily basis. If you choose to write a literacy narrative about juggling several linguistic identities, you may want to consider how each one forms a facet of your larger identity. How does a particular family or cultural group speak to you, and how do you respond? How do you translate your ideas (or “code switch”) between multiple communities, languages, or discourses? What does this translation do you for your identity? Does it feel like a benefit or a superpower, or can it be frustrating? What does considering these translations help you realize about your own literacy, growth, and identity in this complex world?

Okay, So What Did I Learn About Writing a Successful Literacy Narrative?

From my own experiences writing literacy narratives and working with my students as they approach this assignment, here are a few things I learned about literacy narratives:

Literacy narratives are stories in which something changes. If nothing changes, then it’s not a narrative. How did a particular moment change or help you achieve some greater awareness about culture, identity, or the world as you know it?

Literacy narratives both show and tell. Successful literacy narratives use specific examples to illustrate ideas about literacy that we’ve acquired as a result of our own experiences, and explain explicitly why these ideas are important. These examples could be scenes, anecdotes, episodes, or some other descriptive narrative, and the more details they include will help the reader feel that importance too.

Many successful literacy narratives start with a single instance of reading, writing, language acquisition, a cultural tradition, a particular discourse community that the narrator joined, or some other moment of importance—as a jumping off point for the narrative.

Ultimately, every narrative, essay, or story has a takeaway for the reader, whether or not this point is ever explicitly stated. What can your literacy narrative show to others, or help others to understand something about the world they might otherwise miss?

We all discover things by putting our experiences into language and interrogating that language to uncover hidden meanings, assumptions, and relationships. Give it a try; you might surprise yourself with what you discover!

Works Cited

Liao, Kim. “How to Be a Good Chinese-Jewish Hapa.” Fringe Magazine. Issue 31. June 11, 2012. http://sundresspublications.com/fringe/lit/vintage/how-to-be-a-good-chinese-jewish-hapa-vintage/

Liao, Kim. “The Attic.” Vol. 1 Brooklyn. February 24, 2016. http://vol1brooklyn.com/2016/02/24/the-attic/

Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." The Threepenny Review, No. 43 (Autumn 1990), pp. 7-8, www.jstor.org/stable/4383908.