Inherited Silence: (Re)Discovering Cultural Identity Through Intergenerational Storytelling

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Five
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT059 (Sunday)

Abstract

This duoethnography (Sawyer & Norris, 2012) seeks to explore and tell the story of my grandmother’s identity development as a first-generation American Black girl of Latin ancestry in 1960s Harlem and how this development impacted generations. Further, examining my own identity alignment as her granddaughter raised solely by Black American culture. We address the dynamics of linguistic hegemony, intergenerational identity formation and loss, and how educational and societal structures influenced our family’s cultural continuity. We aim to uncover our own story, bring forward our histories, and advance a decolonial approach to knowledge production.

Author

• Ayanna Samuels-Francis, University of Maryland