Clinging to the Coattails of Identity by Allison E. '27

The summer before you come to MIT, there’s a bunch of forms to fill out–housing preferences, FPOP applications⁠01 First Year Pre-Orientation Programs–totally not required to apply, but they're super fun! , advisor forms… You thought the get-to-know-you questions ended with college apps? Nope!

“Tell us about who you are, your background, and your interests (e.g. where are you from, your interests and hobbies, what you do for fun outside of class, what your advisor should know about you).” It’s a question that loosely summarizes identity as two things: where you come from, and what your interests are.

So, where am I from? That’s easy, and maybe moderately interesting. I’m from Hawaii–famous for our beautiful beaches and perfect weather, but also for our unique culture. If you’re in the market for somewhere to be from, I give Hawaii a resounding endorsement.

Saying I’m “from Hawaii” isn’t an entirely true statement, though. The real claim to being “from Hawaii”–to being a true “local”–generally involves being born and raised on island. I was not born in Hawaii. My dad was, and his parents, and their parents all were, so I grew up eating spam musubi and portuguese sausage, listening to Ka‘au Crater Boys and Iz, and learning to boogie board. But I lived in North Carolina up until middle school, and even several years after moving to Hawaii, home to me was still in NC. Hawaii’s beaches and weather and culture never really became a significant part of my identity.

So am I “from North Carolina”? A mainland girl at heart? Nothing can beat my dad’s smoked barbecue brisket, or the smell of fresh mulch in spring. Some of my best memories are of Fourth of July celebrations, when my little neighborhood world would coalesce into a patchwork of picnic blankets, char-grilled hotdogs, and cold Capri-Sun, where we’d wait for the family next door to light up their stash of fireworks smuggled across the South Carolina border. 

But, then again, it’s hard to proudly claim the mainland identity of “American” when I’ve also grown up in a place that America forcefully conquered, illegally annexed, culturally repressed, and militarily exploited⁠02 Look up a bit of Hawaii’s history sometime–there’s a reason you rarely see US flags flying in the 50th state . It’s hard to proudly claim the identity “American” when a guy at McDonald’s tells me to my face that I’m not actually from here. It’s hard to proudly claim the identity “American” when there’s so much about America that I’m not proud of.

To be honest, my solution in high school was just… not to care too much about where I was from. It just wasn’t a big part of my identity.

Ok, so what about my interests and hobbies, then? Well… this was also a tricky one. My first reaction to reading this part of the prompt was “… I don’t think I have any hobbies? Crap! I don’t have any hobbies!?!”

Sure, once upon a time I had hobbies. In elementary school, I summed up my identity exclusively with hobbies, all on a little charm bracelet: knitting needles, soccer ball, and a colorful stack of books. And honestly, I’d say that was a pretty accurate picture. Like a lot of people, though, I lost many of those hobbies when I started middle school. In theory I still liked crafts and reading, but I hadn’t picked up a pair of knitting needles or a soccer ball in years.

But hey, I was about to become an MIT student, right? Surely I had academic interests as well. And yeah, physics was cool, math problems were satisfying to solve, and space was fun to learn about. The thing was, though, I didn’t do any of these things for fun. I didn’t do math in my free time, or watch YouTube videos about Rayleigh scattering, or keep up with the NASA launch livestreams. If I woke up one day with absolutely zero interest in physics or crafts, I didn’t think I’d have an identity crisis. I didn’t think I’d be a different person. 

Instead, every time I tried to answer that “tell us about who you are” question, whether in college apps or desktop backgrounds or Discord “About Me” descriptions, I always ended up identifying myself by the extracurricular communities I was a part of. When I thought about who I was, I thought of trying to sneak pieces of blue painters tape onto the backs of my Sci Oly teammates. I thought of fastening the clasp on a friend’s marching band uniform. I thought of waking up at 3 am to a “team alive?” message on a Science Bowl group chat. I thought of covering our math team coach’s chalkboard with dotted lines instead of actual math, and of joining a circle of fifty girls to stretch out after a cross country practice. 

So when I first read the prompt “Tell us about who you are, your background, and your interests,” I was frustrated at how it boiled down identity to just background and interests. It maybe even felt like my identity was a little invalid.

After a few minutes of typing a slightly-annoyed response to the prompt, though, I realized that I was being a bit dramatic. “Oh no! How dare they ask a simple get-to-know-you question instead of demanding a detailed dissection of my mind, heart, and soul!” This is not another college application, Allison. They just want a way for you to connect with your advisor. You’re done with college applications, Allison. You’re done with—oh shit. You’re done with high school, Allison. You’re done with marching band, Allison. You’re done with Sci Oly and Math Team and cross country and…”

[Cue existential crisis]

So… yeah. That was the kicker. My identity was completely tied up in communities that I was leaving behind. Everything I had based my identity around for the past four years was going to disappear in three, two, one…

Zero.

It’s September 2023. My freshman year has begun, and I don’t really know who I am anymore. I can’t even be “the STEM kid” anymore, because it’s MIT, and everyone is the STEM kid. So who am I now?

Well, everyone is asking the same questions. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What’s your major?” 

You repeat the answers to those questions enough times, and eventually that version of identity becomes good enough. I became Allison, the girl from Hawaii, majoring in aerospace engineering. I cooked local Hawaii food for my friends–chicken long rice, butter mochi, and somen salad–even though I never ate much of it at home. I embraced my role as the token American in my international friend group’s conversations about culture, comparing our customs of respect, discussing middle school social dynamics, and touting the supremacy of Fahrenheit⁠03 I will DIE upon the Fahrenheit hill–10˚F is the perfect discretization for temperature, 0˚F = 0% hot, 100˚F = 100% hot, and anything outside those bounds is hell. Fight me. . I declared Course 16⁠04 Aero/Astro or Aerospace Engineering as my major and joined a NASA challenge team to learn more about space exploration.

It’s the kind of identity that feels safe. I was placing myself in a very box-shaped box, as if I’d taken a sharpie and drawn a line around my identity, highlighting it in bright yellow for everyone to see. 

And yet, as much as these are real things I care about, a part of me now feels like I’m just clinging to the coattails of an alter ego’s identity. An alter ego who actually loves the beaches at Waimanalo, and who actually watched Perseverance’s landing on Mars. Hell, I’m not even an aerospace engineering major anymore⁠05 instead I’m now just another CS major… . Maybe this identity I’ve been building is a fraud, or a costume I’ve been zipping myself into every day. 

Is it? Is it? Is it? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I don’t know. 

I’m still trying to figure out who I am outside of the simple, structured shorthand, so I don’t really have a good conclusion for this blog. I know that I love shenanigans, and snow, and big skirts, and laughing uproariously at things that maybe aren’t so funny. I know that time with friends is more important to me than my studies. Is that enough to make an identity? A pile of statements? I don’t know. But we’re figuring it out, I suppose. I guess I’ll always be figuring it out.