Month: January 2019

January 29, 2019

Kenji Yoshino defines covering as “to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream,”. Yoshino covers himself as he is a gay civil right lawyer. He believes that he needs to hide that his sexuality because of his job. Everyone covers no matter their circumstances. Yoshino gives examples of what people cover, they are: covering ethnicity when changing the name, your sexuality, covering disabilities, etc. From what I have read, I have conducted my own definition of covering. Covering when a person hides something about them from the community to avoid harmful judgments and comments. One example that I can relate to covering is if someone was transgender. They would hide it from everyone around them. Yoshino and my definition of covering are different and the same. He connects covering to fit into the mainstream. I  connect it to fitting into the community. Those two are connected in many ways. 

In the article D.W.  Winnicott, explains what True and False Self is. He talks about how they are connected in many ways. True Self is the self that gives an individual the feeling of being real and False Self is the self that gives an individual the feeling of being unreal. One positive function of the false self is that one who is false to self is aware of their boundaries. Winnicott explains how “in the healthy individual, the False Self is reduced to a “polite and mannered social attitude,” a tool available to the fully realized True Self.”  

In A Toast Story, the author talks about many different cafes in the San Fransico area that serve fancy toast. He visited one cafe called Trouble. After his visit, he decided to meet the owner, Giulietta Carrelli. She talked about how growing up she was raised in an immigrant family. Her father was a tailor from Italy and her mother was an ex-nun. This identifies her as Italian and someone who grew up in an immigrant family. After Carrelli talked to the author about the cafe and why it is the way it is she then made her way into talking about her life and how the cafe came to be. Carrelli talked about however since high school she has had schizoaffective disorder. This has caused her many ups and downs throughout her life. This plays a part in identity.  She identifies as having this disorder because it affects who she is. She then began to talk about how she was homeless and jobless. These two things identify her too. She would get identified into two categorized, which are homeless and unemployed. As the article goes on talking about Trouble and Carrelli’s life, they pointed out many different things that identify her. As I was reading some quotes stuck out to me and explained why she set up her cafe as she did. Trouble is set up so that there is no seating and many of the customers gather outside of the storefront to enjoy their coffee and toast. She explained that she set this up as a “sociological experiment in engineering spontaneous communication between strangers”(paragraph 24). She wants her customers to communicate with each other even if they do not know each other. At her cafe, she sells coconuts to her customers. When I read this I was very interested to learn why this is.  Later on, as I was reading she explained ” I did a study in New York and San Franciso, standing on the same street corner holding a sandwich, saying hello to people. no one would talk to me. But id I was standing on the same street corner and I was holding a coconut? People would engage”(Paragraph 24).  This shows that when people are next to strangers they may not engage with them unless they are doing or have something that is unique.

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When people ask me what my name is and I say Alivia with an A they always say “that is so pretty”. Some people even ask “how did your parents pick that name?”. Before I was born, my mom was dedicated to naming me, Mackenzie. She loved that name however when my mom was in labor, my aunt brought up the name Alivia. She said she thought it was very pretty and when you pronouce Olivia, you pronouce the O as an A. By the time I was born my mom ended up loving the name. My name has no real meaning to my family. However, my name middle name is what is meaningful. My middle name is Jean, which is also my great-grandmothers name, my grandmother’s middle name, my aunt’s middle name, and my middle name. My aunt who got married into the family moms first name is Jean. so that means that my aunt’s middle name and my cousin’s middle name too is Jean. Someday when I have a daughter, I will have her middle name Jean so that I can keep it in the family and I hope that she will do the same. Back to the name Alivia, from that my friends and family mostly call me Liv or Livvy. I liked having nicknames because it means that the person who calls me has a close relationship with me. My name means more to me than others. I like it because and is unique. Many people do not have the same name as me. Never have I ever thought that I wanted a different name because it means to me. Names are more than just a name, it identifies and defines you as a person.