Reading between the lines

What are some of the ways that race, gender and class interact with the formation of one’s identity?

On Tuesday, Feb. 21, the Everybody Reads program will host a panel in the Millar Library featuring Portland State professors who will discuss how this year’s book selection, Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, confronts these issues as they relate to identity and child-rearing.

This event, titled “Everybody Reads: Child-Rearing and Identity” and sponsored by the Multnomah County Library and PSU, continues a series designed to promote community involvement through literacy and intellectual, society-based dialogue.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky tells the story of a biracial young woman in 1980s Portland who endures personal tragedy, oppression and the struggle to balance multiple cultural identities while navigating adolescence. Although the book has obvious local appeal—Durrow graduated from Jefferson High School—the Everybody Reads program selected it because of the range of topical issues it highlights.

“In the tradition of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, here is a portrait of a young girl—and society’s ideas of race, class, and beauty,” said an L.A. Times book review.

To ensure the event presents a dynamic and varied analysis of the topics at hand, each panelist—professors Alma Trinidad, Martha Balshem and Cheryl Forster—was chosen because of her educational background.

Because of Forster’s degree in psychology and her work at the university’s Student Health and Counseling Center, she will be discussing biracial identity development and the effects of attachment and trauma.

“I was invited by Maude Hines, the coordinator of this event, in the fall. I believe my name came up as a potential panelist because of the equity, diversity and inclusion work I do as part of my role at SHAC,” Forster said. “I first fell in love with racial-ethnic identity development models when I was still in graduate school. It was one of those pivotal moments when something core to your felt and observed experience finally gets validated.”

Balshem, a professor of sociology, will primarily focus on cultural models and the roles they play in shaping identity. In addition, she will be discussing the processes involved in how members of a society are taught to manage issues of race, class and gender.

“I was on a panel for last year’s Everybody Reads, too, so this is my second year. The events [in the program] bring a lot of people together. People from PSU and from the community come together to talk about these wonderful books,” Balshem said. “It’s a really great program, and I’m proud that PSU is so active in it.”

Through these group learning experiences, the program’s developers hope that participating staff and students can learn about, and cope with, some of the most challenging and sensitive issues of our time.

“Simply put, we all have a racial-ethnic identity, whether we are from dominant or non-dominant groups, and the question of ‘Who am I?’ with respect to how others and society perceive me is primary,” Forster explained. “The process and effects of power, oppression and privilege on an individual are considered along a continuum.”

Attendees are encouraged to ask questions, critically analyze the book and suggest avenues for effecting social change along the lines of race, gender and class. In particular, the panel will discuss how institutions such as the family and the educational system can address the intersection of race and identity.

“I wish all students were introduced to these models,” Forster said. “I think it would allow people to be less afraid to talk about racism, be more compassionate towards one another, have more effective conversations about intercultural and social justice issues and avoid things like color-blind racism, however well-intentioned it is.”

The struggles that Durrow’s protagonist faces can apply to just about anyone.

“As particular as her story is, we can all recognize the family issues that she and others in the book face,” Balshem said. “The characters in the book are beautifully drawn, and the family issues that they struggle with—loss, sacrifice and the yearning to belong—are universal.”

At the final event of the series, to be held Tuesday, March 6, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Durrow will speak and answer questions about her book.

“Sharing, engaging and communicating with a sense of curiosity is so important for our own growth and learning, as well as relationships with one another,” Forster said.