Registration season is once again upon us at Washington and Lee.

As a senior, this latest round of signing up for winter-term courses has never gone more smoothly. As a French major who has somehow managed to fulfill all of her degree requirements with time to spare, I’ve actually been able to look into classes that I could take for fun—while I write a 50-page honors thesis in French, that is. As a creative writing minor who is one category away from completion of the track, I have first pick among many interesting English classes that would satisfy this final requirement. But as a black woman at a predominantly white institution, and a student who also frequents departments where both of these minority identities are even more noticeable, registration is difficult. It’s a constant reminder that for many courses, the ‘classic’ topics seem to take priority over more their more ‘diverse’ counterparts—even when a class could potentially be taught both ways.

For example, I’d taken enough English classes that I considered picking it up as a major during my sophomore year. I was excited to try my hand at comparative literature  Since there is so much potential to discuss and examine minority works throughout the Americas, I aimed to complement French literature with American literature. The department offers several American Lit classes every semester, so my hopes were high every time registration came around. However, based on the descriptions that I saw, it always seemed that there would not be much diversity of subject matter. Sadly, this year was no different.

Consider this excerpt of a description for an upcoming class on the American Short Story:

“This course is a study of the evolution of the short story in America from its roots, both domestic (Poe, Irving, Hawthorne, Melville) and international (Gogol, Chekhov, Maupassant), tracing the main branches of its development in the 20th century…we focus our attention on the work of two American masters of the form…, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. We examine how they were influenced by their predecessors and by each other and how each helped to shape the genre.”

To be fair, I had a slightly different definition of the term “American” when I first happened upon this course title in the catalog; I initially thought it would include works from all of the Americas. It is also a bit odd to see a list of mostly Northern writers and to still label the topic as “American.” I realize that this might be a specialty topic chosen by the professor, hence the focus on Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

I was definitely taken aback by the selection of writers that are actually listed in the description. Why? Because none of the aforementioned writers are female, people of color, or both—yet both minority groups were vital to the establishment and development of the American short story in the 20^th century. I can only wonder if other key writers, such as Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, Ralph Ellison, Eudora Welty, Toni Bambara, or Ernest Gaines, might still be discussed.

I know that a small blurb does not outline an entire course, but this recurring registration issue highlights a bigger problem. First-years and non-English majors may not be familiar with a lot of popular writers, so they can’t exactly anticipate the ones a professor might teach. For them, a course description like this one is probably all of the information they will get, unless they formally request a syllabus.

But if a woman, a person of color, or a woman of color happens to be considering this particular American Literature course, then a description that essentially credits the creation and mastery of the American short story to Northern and European white men is problematic.

Personally, I was left to wonder if I would have to sacrifice my own diverse interests yet again. Then I started obsessing over potential ways to “fix” my experience in a course in which I wasn’t even enrolled:

 “That can’t be all of the writers we would study, right?”

“Okay, but focusing on Hemingway means the professor would have to mention Gertrude Stein, so technically a woman writer is still in the curriculum. Right?”

“Would it be inappropriate for me to request a lesson or two on a writer of color?”

I know it seems silly that so much uncertainty could stem from a few lines in the course description, but those few lines were enough. This is only one blip in the hunt for curricular diversity that I (and students like me) often experience. I’ve found that I have to hope for diverse subject matter, and then I try to justify the lack thereof if it’s not delivered. I shouldn’t have to go into a class with my fingers crossed.

This is the standard race and ethnicity checklist that everyone has probably had to fill out, on one official document or another:

 

Race /Ethnicity (circle one):

American Indian or Alaska Native

Asian

Black or African American

Hispanic or Latino

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

 

 

Not a lot of people pay it much mind, but I do. Frankly, filling it out has always felt like a set-up.  I have no choice but to tell a half-truth—for the sake of someone else’s demographics chart. If I stare at the list for too long, it gets even more confusing:

 

Why do they set up race and ethnicity to be interchangeable? What’s the difference, anyway?

 

What if there was an ‘and’ between the ‘Black’ and ‘African American’ categories? Would I feel better about them being in the same category?

 

What even am I ?!  WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!

 

Here’s my dilemma: lists like these are setting up ‘Black’ and ‘African American’ as though they’re one and the same. I understand that this may be an easy way to group people together by skin color, for the sake of a diversity chart, but not every black person in the United States is African-American.

 

In my case, I am a black, American-born citizen, but I am also a first-generation Haitian American. Haiti is one of the many Caribbean countries that exist as a result of the African diasporic migrations. I am a product of a particular migration of African peoples to the West Indies, but technically I’m not of direct African descent. As for my American-ness, I am American by birth but not by culture since I was raised in Haitian customs and traditions. At best, ‘Afro-Carribbean’ would be the most accurate way to describe my ethnicity, moreso than ‘African-American.’

 

Unfortunately, not everyone’s ‘most accurate’ is an option—unless they’re willing to write in the classification they prefer at the bottom of every checklist they come across. Instead, they settle for the next, more tangential option with which they may or may not agree. For most of my life, I was also willing to settle. I believed there was no other choice.

 

Until I read Americanah by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie.

In the novel, Adichie creates a new way to both racially and ethnically classify her black characters: ‘American-Black’ and ‘Non-American Black’ (AB and NAB). I immediately identified with both of these; their sudden intrusion into my life felt like putting names to two familiar, elusive faces. I’ve never been able to define the wishy-washy, in-between space that I occupy so clearly before. Neither term is as vaguely concrete as ‘Black’ or as confusing as ‘African American.’ If anything, they expand the reach of their limited predecessors. An American-born black person who might consider themselves too removed from potential African ancestors can use the term ‘American Black’ instead of African American. Similarly, the use of the term ‘Non-American Black’ could unlock a new cultural identity for Pan-African and Afro-Latino immigrants, as well as for first generation Americans like myself, who had previously considered themselves invisible among other black people.

It is important to remember that AB and NAB are not perfect terms; there are people of direct and indirect African descent who are not black at all. Still, the way in which Adichie creates these new categories and incorporates them into the structure of her novel is an important call to action in the struggle for cultural visibility. If you can’t find yourself on the standard list, you can always create new categories, and in turn, a new list.