- In the past, anxiety was what stopped me from being completely honest in my writing. It also created a fear that the specific setting was not one appropriate for saying what I really wanted to say, even when it was. My anxiety with writing creates self-doubt. This caused me to submit mediocre work because I let that fear of doing things wrong in writing, allow me to settle with what was okay. One way I plan to use Eickmeyer’s strategy is by breaking it down and spacing out my writing for the literacy narrative. I tend to try and write whole essays in one setting but when Eickmeyer said “ The papers you have to write are just too long, too com-plex, and require too much research for some last-minute flash of brilliance to get you there,” I realized just how true that was. For the amount of pages I have to write, in order to not over stress myself and give myself time to think parts through, I have to pace myself.
- Two world’s I exist in are life as a Black American, and life as an African. Even though I wasn’t born in Sierra Leone or Ghana, like my parents, I still consider myself African because they are from there. Even though, in America, we are not treated very differently, unfortunately we have created a barrier between ourselves and a sort of dislike between both communities. On one half I try to stay true to my parents culture and the way they were raised and the things they value, on the other half I was born into a country where being my skin color aligns with a different culture, history, and common way of life. These two worlds are always colliding and sometimes make me question my identity. In one particular instance, I was talking to my dad about police brutality. My argument steered way more towards that of the majority of black Americans, however, my dad’s viewpoint seems to come more from a place of ignorance and lack of understanding. It surprised me because I know that for the time he’s been living here he’s had experiences like those of black Americans but his different cultural upbringing in Ghana didn’t allow him to see and feel what I did being born and raised in this country as a black woman.
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Very insightful work, Akosua; you write about the tension or mutual incomprehension that separates the two worlds you identify with— American Black identity and African identity— with clarity and specificity. And re Eickmeyer, I hope breaking down your work gives you some relief from the overwhelming anxiety around honesty in your writing. The main thing I hope to communicate to you and the class about literacy narratives is: permission. I hope you feel free to describe whichever journey toward fluency you want, and that you feel free to do so with as much candor and clarity as possible.