Teachable Moments in Diversity Part 1

My friends and family ask me all the time about what it’s like to serve in Armenia.  They ask me the basic questions about what I’m doing here, whether it’s as worthwhile as I thought it was going to be, what I’m planning on doing afterwards, etc.  But no one really asks about what challenges are present for me outside of my inability to get Reese’s Cups, Chick-fil-a, a Wawa Sandwich at midnight, or not having an A/C unit in my apartment in 100 degree heat.  There are difficulties in being here that have nothing to do with the physical hardships that I come up against.  The biggest challenge that I constantly have to deal with has to do with the fact that I’m so clearly not white.

As a volunteer, I am constantly being changed and my own thoughts about how things should be also change a lot.  But me being here and being different from what’s expected gives me the opportunity to challenge preconceived notions on the part of HCNs on what American diversity looks like.In the words of Wendy Lee, RPCV Cameroon, “Peace Corps is less a development organization and more a training ground for cultural sensitivity…[my Peace Corps service] equipped me with the important ability to approach a different culture with humility and respect, and to listen, and to understand.”

But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck sometimes, and more often than not, it can sometimes feel more like a hardship rather than an opportunity to engage in teachable moments.

Before we start diving into this difficult and unique hardship, I think it’s important to say that this is going to be a two-part post.  I have a lot to say about racial diversity and how it relates to how I view my Peace Corps service, and I feel like it’s not really fair to talk about ignorant things that have been said to me by HCN’s without talking about some of the ignorance that I have gotten from PCVs, and some ignorance that I have also imparted.  It’s not fair to point the finger and judge the ignorance of people that get the vast majority of their opinions from TV shows and state sponsored news that often reflects the worst of society (black people are drug dealers, gang bangers, only athletes, exceptionally good singers, African, etc.), or that perpetuate the (sometimes true) stereotypes of people.  It’s hard to only judge on the ignorance of a community whose text books reflect the ignorance perpetuated by some of these preconceived notions.

When I came to Armenia, I knew that I would face challenges as a person of color.  I had read in the cultural handbook about some of the difficult things that volunteers of color, or of other ethnicities, have had to deal with while serving—more than being stared at.  And while I expected this to be difficult, I really felt like those challenges were non-existent for me during PST.  There were a few minor things during PST that were tilt-of-the-head worthy, but for the most part, I felt really insulated from any of the “zoo” feeling some of the other volunteers would get.  I would hang out with one person in particular who would have people converge on them like that PCV was part of an exhibit on rare and beautiful things.  I was more often-than-not shunted to the side, because this other volunteer looked much more ethnic than I did, and therefore, more interesting.  At the time, I would think to myself, “I’m so glad this doesn’t happen to me.”

But a year later, I almost wish that it did happen to me more during PST, because I would’ve been able to practice dealing with the unwanted attention and the questions of my parentage, nationality, and heritage in a “safe space.”  I never learned how to deal with these moments with the grace and understanding that other volunteers of color seem to deal with it.  When I moved to my village, my host family had enough sense to not delve right into the uncomfortable questions that I will sometimes get from taxi drivers or community members.  My counterpart and director also held back from asking me questions I knew had to be burning inside of them.  Granted, both my counterpart and my director had spent time in the U.S., and knew that Americans come in all shades.  My host family too, had experienced four other volunteers before me, and I’m sure they had met other volunteers who looked more like me through them.  But the questions and comments did come, and still come today.

Some of these questions and comments have been:

“Can I take a picture?”

“Are you Indian?”

“Where in Africa are you from?”
“…yeah, but where are you really from?”

“But, you must have a passport other than American?  You’re clearly Indian or African or Asian.”

“Who’s the negro in your family?”

“How’d you get your lips to get that big?”
“HEYYYY sevi chocolat come over here”

“I really want to have a black baby.”

“Hold my baby so I can take a picture.”

“Why can’t I have your picture?  I want your picture.”

“You’re from America, and I’m from Zimbabwe.”

“Ni hoa”

“Namaste”

At first glance, not all of these questions and comments look as bad as they sometimes feel, but part of that is because I’ve left out all context.  While the selfie culture is a real thing here, and I do get asked by my students and friends to be in pictures, it’s the people that I don’t know that are bold enough to make me feel like I’m an oddity.  There have been so many times where I’ve been traveling, or in the bigger town near my village where complete strangers will come up to me and ask for my picture.  They’ll stop me and insist upon it, and when I say no (and am firm in my no), they have the nerve to be offended and hurt. Like, “why won’t this girl who is clearly something take a picture with me so I can show all my Facebook friends?!”  Sometimes, I’m not even asked to have my picture taken, people will try to do it sneakily.  Just the other week, I went to help my host family harvest apricots when some of the migrant workers that were working for my host family started asking questions.  My host mom explained who I was and why I was there, and when asked if I understood what was being said, allowed me to show off.  However, when I was helping my host brother’s wife clean up lunch, I noticed a woman trying to sneakily take my picture (after we all decided no pictures would be taken because we all looked like crap).  At least she had the decency to look ashamed when I caught her.

Other questions about my ethnicity come from cab drivers, and people I’m just meeting.  But it isn’t the question that’s bothersome, it’s what will sometimes happen after I say that I’m from America.  Some of the drivers just nod their heads, while others like my friend’s landlady will ask other probing questions as sensitively as they can, like “oh, so you’re African American?” or “Ok, but your ancestors came from Africa, right?”  But more often then not you have the ones that are so insistent that I’m not telling the full story, or that I’m lying, which makes these moments some of the worst.

Also, because I don’t look like the stereotypical black or mixed woman, and I have features that could easily belong to other ethnicities, I get some of the mocking comments of “ni hao” or “namaste.”  With the popularity of the Indian soap operas that everyone is so obsessed with (myself included—but only The Rejected) I do get stopped more often.  My host mom thought it was hilarious when I told her about a recent trip to Yerevan where a boy around 11 years-old cut my friend off to stop me to bow and say, “namaste” because he and his mother were convinced I was Indian.

In retrospect, some of these situations can be amusing, but in the moment, I can feel myself become uncomfortable, because suddenly there’s so much pressure to say and do the right thing in representing what feels like the entirety of my race, instead of just representing myself.  I mean, what if I say the wrong thing?  How can I represent a whole race when I don’t fit into the boxes of most of the stereotypes?  Why didn’t I take African studies in college so I can better represent “my people?!”

So, how do I deal with this?

Well, that really depends on the day, and it also depends on the rules I’ve given myself to follow.  Some of those rules include not posing for pictures with strangers.  While I know some volunteers who will take pictures whenever someone asks, I’m just not one of those people.  I personally feel like doing so normalizes this idea that whenever someone who looks different enters my community that it’s okay to demand pictures from them.  I don’t mind taking pictures with people whom I have some type of relationship, and on the rare occasion I might take a picture with a stranger for someone who has been really good to me.  An example of that was one of the cleaning ladies at our PST training school who went above and beyond.

Other rules I have is answering questions for people who are generally interested about my background, but not engaging with people who become rude or just want to be ignorant.  And I definitely won’t engage with anyone who shouts at me from across the street.  An example of what that might look like would be when a teacher at my school began to ask me questions about whether I’d see my family that went into a “where did you get your dark skin from?”  When I didn’t understand her question, she used the word negro, which literally means black in Russian rather than using the Armenian word for black sev.  I wasn’t offended and I knew that she was asking in a way that wouldn’t make me feel awkward.  An example of a get-up-and-walk-away moment was at a bar when some Syrian Armenian guy was trying to pick up anyone asked me my background and insisted on calling me Africa.  Instead of saying what I wanted to say (“and you’re not really Armenian, Syria.”) I got up and left.

Finally, if I can, I’ll try and look at these moments as “teachable” moments by answering questions and engaging in the awkward.  How will people know what’s correct and what’s not if you never have these moments with people, especially HCNs?  I was encouraged to listen to this really amazing podcast on Posh Corps called Teachable Moments.  This particular podcast is a discussion by Black Peace Corps Volunteers and what their experience was like, and I was struck by a comment made by Adrienne Hall where she says “it wasn’t that people were trying to deny me of being an American because I’m black…but it feels that you’re denying your roots when you say you’re only American…it feels like you’re setting yourself apart.”  Although Adrienne’s experience was elsewhere, she embodies this idea for me that I’m more defensive about “where I’m from,” because I can’t answer that question.  And if I had had more sense, I would’ve thought about this question before coming into Peace Corps, rather than winging it like I so often do.  I think I would’ve prepared myself to better handle these teachable moments that so often happen in a Peace Corps country.