Intersectionality - The Complicated Entanglement of Uniqueness

Intersectionality is a wonderfully complex, yet sometimes frustrating thing for many individuals. We are, of course, greater than the sum of our "parts", yet those same multi-layered parts that make us unique are often the very things that are picked apart by the outside world. There will always be someone looking at you, trying to find something about you-be it sexuality, gender, class, race, religion,etc.-that they find familiar. That sameness that can be found is what draws people together. Only when those similarities, that sense of comfortable recognition, is not found, do we begin to have problems.

Let's take a look at Alsultany, Clare, and Martin. Their intersectionalities have given them their unique sense of identity while at the same time putting them into situations of persecution, as well as quests for understanding of how their identity fits-and sometimes doesn't-in with those around them. In "Los Intersticios", Alsultany reveals that she is of Iraqi and Cuban descent then procedes to give us examples of how her bi-racial heritage has put her into scenarios where her identity is fractured. The drastic perception of her heritage spans from her Cubanness being utterly forgotten, though with apparently good intentions, by the Muslim in the NYC subway after she tells her identity and is offered the chance of an arranged marriage to having the illusion of blending in obliterated by the slur of the woman in the coffee shop in Costa Rica because she is only part Cuban. Clare and Martin both approach the-sometimes violent-opposition they've met with in ways unique as themselves. Martin, fully cognizant of her multi-faceted self, states "All the Lauren's get harassed, in every way that people read me: as girl (cute), as boy (probably gay), as dyke (all I need is a good...), as Asian (here comes the feishists), as genderqueer [what the fuck is that?), as racially ambiguous (certainly not white, or at least not WASP)" [pg. 6]. And while Clare responds to those who stare at hir "crip style", it's resistance to normativity done, admirably, with sheer mirth. "These days, I practice overt resistance and unabashed pride, gawking at the gawkers and flirting as hard as I know how. The two go together." (Clare, pg. 226)

With all of the challenges we all face in the daily grind of life, wouldn't it be fabulous if we could look at each other's intersectionalities as something not to be offsetting, but instead, as Clare seeks, to learn from and begin trying for a better understanding?