Yams
12/21/2005Halfway through Invisible Man the narrator, on a frigid winter afternoon in Harlem, catches the scent of baking yams and is overcome with nostalgia and homesickness and, when he takes a bite, of exhilarating freedom. He loves yams and, whether eating them on the street was "proper" or not, the taste was "like nectar." "They're my birthmark," he said. "I yam what I am!"
As we finished the novel in my class last week, students had been sharing their own musical yams and we talked about these in a kind of yam session. Here were some of their songs' lyrics:
"Let's take a trip down memory, lane at the cemetery" and in another, "I can't see 'em comin down my eyes / So I gotta make the song cry" (Jay-Z); "Cause I'm not afraid / Of what I don't know / For understanding is all that I earn / What is for sure is I'm gonna to go / I'm gonna to live and I'm going to learn" (Hoobastank); "But I've reason to believe / We all will be received / In Graceland" (Paul Simon); "'cause it's all going off without you / excuse me, too busy you're writing your tragedy" (Frou Frou); "he has cleared all his things / and he's put them in boxes / things that remind him / that life has been good" (Ben Folds); "Like Clockwork / I commit the crime / I pretend to be / everything they like / I've been here before" (Trapt); "Because of you / I never stray too far from the sidewalk / Because of you / I learned to play on the safe side / So I don't get hurt" (Kelly Clarkson); "And then you will see the morning will come / And every day will be bright as the sun / All of your fears cast them on me / I just want you to see" (R. Kelly); "And I don't want the world to see me / Cause I don't think that they'd understand / When everything's made to be broken / I just want you to know who I am" (Goo Goo Dolls).
The students spoke in powerful ways about how those songs reflect the joy, hope and pain that characterizes their own lives. I was sitting at lunch last week talking about some of this with a colleague when another faculty member came by with a bunch of student projects, also from the Freshman Seminar on Dimensions of the Self. These weren't straightforward analytical papers. Instead they were creative and constructive pieces in other media. One was a provocative collage of images from the American Girl Dolls advertisements, including "She's Just Like You." Another was a fascinating book a student made, consisting of excerpts from other texts organized by themes of balance, emotion, death, body, family, suffering and soul, and drawing upon Eastern religion, Islam, Catholicism, and fairy tales. Thumbing through it now I find lots of my own favorites! Yamlike.
There was a brilliant collection of images and words entitled "Can you See your Self?" dedicated to "all those who just want to be seen as they truly are and not as they ought to be." It consists of twin pages for 17 Dominican freshmen, one page characterizing each as "the flirt," "the soccer star," "the sick girl," "the prettyboy," "the girl in the background," "the drama queen," and others. Stereotypical quotes about each stereotypical self surround a stereotypical staged photo, countered on the facing page with the student's actual name, quotes from the student that reveal who s/he really is, as well as a more genuine photo. Some of those autobiographical quotes were extraordinary: "usually there is no question where I stand and you can always tell if I'm in a room," "I find enough time to make myself better," "I take things seriously," "I feel we can get so wrapped up in our own lives, petty problems and situations, while there are much bigger issues going on all around the world that we should know about," "I am not always as happy as I seem," "the most important thing in my life is family," "because normal is so boring," "I need to learn what it is I want in life and stop letting others do it for me," "gay and devoutly catholic and traditional," "I really like to smile," "proud of my secrets but most of all I'm proud of knowing my dreams and capabilities," "cares about school and grades," "I like to play my viola at home," "I was depressed like every other person in this world," and "I'm not normal, but who is?"
There were other superb artifacts of student reflection from that class—just a little sample, I know, of all the terrific work our students did this semester across all our majors and programs. I'm so impressed with our students and their ideas. Hands down, getting to know students and their work, along with that of their teachers, is the highlight of my job. So after a long and busy semester, these yams really hit the spot.