The intersection identifies the cultural groups that a person claims affiliation with and indicates how those cultural groups interact to influence the way that person lives their life.
An identity intersection (Foss, 2002) is a graphic representation of interrelated and interconnected aspects of one person’s cultural identity (see Figure 1). One way I have encouraged readers to explore the cultural backgrounds and cultural identities of book characters is through a learning engagement that uses identity intersections. Every person participates in a number of different cultural groups, which wax and wane in importance depending on time, location, and context. Rather than being essentialized and simple, culture and the cultural identities of people living within a culture are hybrid, interrelated, and constantly changing. Instead of characters’ actions making sense within their cultural setting, readers may view their actions as weird, exotic, or wrong.
When readers approach multicultural or global literature with such a limited set of labels and understandings, it is easy to misconstrue the reasons characters act in the ways that they do. Many students have simplistic understandings of culture and cultural identity, which leads to essentialized expectations of human behavior as people reduce the complexity of what it means to be human to labels and stereotypes. It is easy for readers who do not understand how culture shapes behavior within a particular cultural setting to misinterpret the actions, beliefs and values of characters and how the characters interact with others within that setting. When books are set in unfamiliar cultures, however, some readers have difficulty understanding the culturally driven behaviors and motivations of characters. I believe it is important for students to experience the breadth and variety of available literature and to explore new cultures. Exploring the Cultural Identities of Students and Book Characters with Identity IntersectionsĪs a professor of undergraduate and graduate children’s literature courses, I have always encouraged my students to read global and multicultural literature.
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