Tell me about Your identity crisis | Cedrice Webber | TEDxSanDiego

[Music] [Applause] born and raised in West Los Angeles in the neighborhood 75% african-american was told that I am a mixture of Chinese and Spanish been made filipino from an island in asia but was told that i am not Asian I was babysat by Hispanics who spoke Spanish to all the kids including me now tell me about your identity crisis tell me about your identity crisis this made me question my own challenges of Who I am now and who I want to become for a speech team competition I performed an interpretation piece that weave the poetic voices of others around one theme the identity struggle of being multi-ethnic in the process of practicing this montage of poems I realize how much I keep struggling with the same questions at a performance an audience member asked me to perform my piece in front of a new audience and at that event more people came up to tell me about their identity crisis one artist sharing his honest struggle inspired me to search for more poems that harmonized into a bigger conversation about identity now most of us would hide from it or ignore it most of us wouldn't even give a name to the messy parts embracing the identity struggle leads to more authenticity we can unplug from the voices of everyone else the social construct and start to hear the hum of the truth it's the voice inside that says man when I do this I feel alive I feel free and then that voice asks well why don't I do this more often or why don't I do this for a living I've been described as exotic which is a polite way of saying your unknown origin is interesting or a romanticized way of saying that I'm foreign I've also been described as very brave to walk out in public without a wig over my bald head as I started to learn to stand in my own truth I realized that I was an identity crisis waiting to happen the hardest part with practicing this this whole speech and talk was not the content or rehearsing the delivery the hardest part was my first assignment the bio who are you who are you do you know how hard it is to explain who you are when you're still trying to figure it out yourself I had to call ten of my friends hey hey how would you describe me I felt the pressure of having that to have all the right answers instead I started focusing on asking the right questions the poetic voices that I will be referencing come from two poems identity crisis by Brian Oliva and buffet etiquette by Hugh when hearing the description of someone else's identity struggle helped me gain clarity on my own if you've ever been asked what are you it's a very funny question what are you Brian Oliva talks about the impact of when people don't know how to understand the ethnic other for example in college we're asked to pick and choose a major so that they can categorize us according to our academic goal meanwhile we fill out these generic surveys asking us to pick and choose one box that best describes you the boxes read black white Latino Hispanic Asian Pacific Islander then we pack to move to the suburbs new hood no good now at 40% essays is 40% brothers 15% hockey and 5% other and it got to the point where everyone just started to ask me what are you what are you I used to come up with a smart remark like oh I'm human but if you're asking me about my ethnic background I'm african-american Irish German and Filipino to which they would respond oh so you're like a mud as I grew older I decided to revamp that question instead I would ask what are you in this world my multi ethnic ambiguity prompted my identity struggle and then it led me to find my voice in music so when I transfer to a four-year university I wanted to explore my ethnic backgrounds through my interest in music so I joined a gospel choir a Pacific Islander music Club and theatre but I couldn't quite figure out where I belonged I was confronted with more obstacles I wasn't enough I didn't speak Tagalog so I wasn't Filipino enough I wasn't dark enough to be considered black I certainly didn't look white so if we're not enough of one thing then where do we belong my voice is bleach my voice has no history it's the ringing of an empty picture frame the frequency of a TV turned off I'm forgetting how to say the simple things to my mother they're the words in my periphery dangling from its wires and I am only fluent in apologies I've accepted the fact that I am no longer Vietnamese I am just Asian if I didn't speak the native languages of my people then what was my voice I was sitting on campus one day humming a pop tune when a student sat next to me and he says hey do you sing are you a singer well I sing but I wouldn't consider myself a singer I didn't speak music I didn't read music well enough I didn't have enough experience performing so I wasn't enough of a singer to being a band so No so then he asked me to sing something familiar singing an Alicia Keys song so I took a deep breath and I sang some people wanna but I don't wanna be little if it aint you baby if I ain't got you baby so then he asked me to join his band now his band was a mixture of R&B jazz hip-hop and soul if that band was told to pick and choose a box that best fits you in a generic survey they would pick other my multi-ethnic struggle of being the other made me realize that where I belong is to music but there was more to explore so I had to ask myself what kind of singer do I choose to be I am finding my voice as a songwriter now I have the ability to sing other people's songs and lyrics in Spanish Portuguese Swedish and Tagalog these songs help me connect to different parts of the world then of course I sing these songs in my own style but finding my voice as a songwriter is another identity struggle on its own this struggle is going to continue to pull at me until I perform my own original music the words that I choose define who I am as a vocalist music is universal I want my lyrics to be - I want to sing my own words I would rather be lost in this world with a dream than have to keep my head down and I would rather say I surrendered my heart and I gained I lost for true poets helped me find clarity around a theme of ethnic confusion the pursuit of knowing who I truly am made me realize that where I belong is to music music led me to create a future of who I want to become as a songwriter embracing the identity struggle leads to more authenticity my multi-ethnic struggle with being the other made me feel alone one voice stripped down to share an honest struggle can inspire others to share their own story so tell me about your identity struggle by embracing the identity struggle we can find more of our own selves we can create a future without having all the right answers we can unplug from the noise the social construct and start to hear the hum of our own truth we can keep growing keep embracing your identity struggle and keep showing up in the messy parts of authenticity many voices can come together around one theme and harmonize into a larger identity conversation there is power in finding out who we truly are you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 84,337

Rating: 4.9540796 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Discrimination, Identity, Inequality, Music (topic), Race, Social Interaction, Society

Id: xpGKTIKfS4c

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2018