From the classroom to the kitchen: Embodying identity in NYC

Abstract

Attending college, for many immigrant families, is a critical step in achieving the American Dream. This essay, written as a reflection and response between professor and student, explores the conflicting messages young community college students negotiate and process as they move through the City, revealing how knowledge learned in the college classroom is imbued with value beyond that knowledge that they have learned in their homes and neighborhoods. It shares how a research interest from their professor in the knowledge and practices their families have to teach was a point of processing and potential reconciliation of these conflicts related shifting identities, and notes the potential therapeutic value of the embodiment of heritage practices as part of ethnographic research and beyond.