This was a collaborative project brought to you by the Diversity Club (4U Squad) at Torrey Pines Elementary School in La Jolla, California. Inspiration and motivation for the project are rooted The Hapa Project, an exploration of multiracial identities, carried out in 2011 by artist Kip Fulbeck and a later adapted collaborative project at Thurgood Marshall College at UC San Diego and the UCLA Bruin Resource Center in 2012.
Our aim is to illuminate the vast diversity of our school, and allow the kids to express their ever evolving identities.
I asked them to simply answer the question "Who are you? by writing their response in their own handwriting. Often, and especially as kids move through the school system, and through a cycle of socialization, they are rarely asked to explore this question nor examine how their identities show up in their lives at home and at school. We hope that increased self awareness will lead to an openness and hunger for learning about others' identities. Ultimately inclusion, understanding and care for others will emerge through this type of exploration.
We encourage the breaking of boundaries and to promote the expansion of opportunities. The salience of different identities will become apparent in what we share about ourselves. Some may see themselves through more traditional lenses, but what those identities mean are made into their own sources of power, pride, and individuality.
However, and whatever is shared here are solely the views of those who expressed them and are not the words, expressions, feelings, or intent of Torrey Pines Elementary School, or its affiliates."
eeman agrama: photographer
June 2019
© eeman agrama 2023, myownbeat photography
