Intro: How do you describe who you are? What words do you choose? What meanings do your choices carry with them? Current OHMA student Lily Doron ponders these questions in this essay on identity, language, and how we see ourselves. It is inspired by Carlin Zia’s OHMA workshop presentation, Uncertain Journeys.

Who are you?

Before you continue reading, take some time to reflect on that question. You can jot down a few key words or phrases, or just think about them; you can take thirty seconds or a few minutes. It’s a question we may spend our whole lives trying to answer, but for you, right now, what are the most important aspects of who you are?

Now that you have had time to reflect, let me explain the backstory of this exercise:

“Who are you?” was the first question posed to Carlin Zia, author of Uncertain Journeys – an epic poem about interviewing her grandfather, and, through that process, working to define her own identity – in our small-group discussion before her public presentation of her award-winning OHMA thesis. This is her answer:

I am (pause) thinking a lot these days about identity as nouns versus identity as verbs, so that question is actually really interesting with some of the thinking I’ve been doing.

I am a New Hampshire kid, I grew up there on the campus of a boarding high school where my mom taught math. I have an older brother. My mom taught math, as I said; my dad still works for the National Science Foundation which is in, just outside of D.C., in Virginia. And as I was growing up he commuted back and forth, so he was there three days a week and worked from home Mondays and Fridays. I’m a soccer player. I’m a big reader. I’m a recreational cellist and even more recreational piano player.

And I’m mentioning all of those things because I do actually really believe that they’re all important to the work that I do in one way or another.

I had previously talked to Carlin one-on-one about language and identity, specifically, as Carlin phrased it, “identity as nouns versus identity as verbs.” To illustrate the distinction using Carlin’s answer above, she says “I’m a soccer player” (a noun) instead of “I play soccer” (a verb); she said, “I have an older brother” (a verb) instead of ‘I am a sister’ (a noun).

This distinction – noun versus verb – is what I want to discuss in this post. I am fascinated by identity: how we view ourselves, how others view us, and how those two things interact; how our past experiences define how we see ourselves; and how our identities both shape and are shaped by the stories we tell.

(Disclaimer: I want to note that the thoughts in this post are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or musings of Carlin. Also, the points I am about to make do not necessarily hold true in all cases. Identity is deeply personal, and therefore the meanings of the language we use to define ourselves can vary depending on the person.)

One theme I have been thinking about is permanence. For example, Carlin is a soccer player. To me, using a noun here suggests that even when she is not actively playing the sport, she continues to embody that identity and carry it with her.

In the same vein, my OHMA thesis focuses on Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), where participants who speak in meetings first give their name, then follow it with: “I am an alcoholic.” There have been debates whether this labeling is beneficial or harmful. It seems the debates stem from the use of the noun form (“I am an alcoholic”) instead of the verb (“I am addicted to alcohol” or “I have a drinking problem”), and views and feelings on this largely depend on the individual.

The goal of AA is to keep people sober, and many participants have not had a drink for years. To me, an outsider, it would seem that since they are not currently consuming alcohol, the verb-form of their identity no longer exactly fits. However, AA is a life-long program, and a core belief of the organization is that alcoholism is a disease that does not go away when people get sober. People have to continuously and actively work to remain abstinent. Thus, by repeatedly affirming that participants are alcoholics despite not actively drinking, the noun form of their identity suggests a permanent condition. This language encourages continual participation in AA and emphasizes conscious sobriety though deliberate decision-making.

Another interesting pattern is that a single aspect of a person’s identity can seemingly become all-defining when phrased in noun form. In contrast, when described using verbs, a trait is more obviously seen as one aspect of a person, rather than their whole self.

Thus, the verb form allows for some distancing of oneself from that specific identity, leaving room for other aspects of identity to be acknowledged. This phenomenon may be especially important for socially stigmatized identities where, it seems to me, the rejection of the noun form is more common.

On the other hand, one way activists have worked to destigmatize identities is by adopting the noun form and putting it front and center in their movements (for example, the embracing the label “Queer”).

Additionally, identities forced onto people by outsiders carry meanings – political, social, etc. – that the individuals may not themselves associate with. For example, in 2016 I interviewed people seeking asylum in Europe, as well as aid workers. I found seemingly large differences in public sentiment and acceptance when someone was labeled a “migrant” or a “refugee” versus a person “fleeing persecution” or “seeking safety.” And when governments defined people as “migrants” or “refugees” – not only in noun form, but in plural, too – that politically-loaded word became these individuals’ whole identity in the eyes of society and politicians. Other, more personal characteristics that were central to their own sense of self (pharmacist, father, etc.) were ignored or denied.

A final thought for this blog post is how the language used to express one aspect of identity can imply other aspects of identity, personality, or behavior.

For example, in response to the “Who are you?” question, Carlin defined herself as a soccer player. In verb form, “playing soccer” implies that soccer is an activity or a pastime. But by using the noun form, Carlin adopts an identity that encompasses other unspoken traits. She emphasizes this later by explaining that, because she is a soccer player, she has internalized the process of following rules. Thus, when writing Uncertain Journeys, Carlin was able to invent her own rules for the structure of the poem and then follow them to a T, no matter how complicated or puzzling they were (at least to an outsider).

From this example, it seems that defining oneself in noun form implies that not only the physical characteristics of that identity are present (physically playing a sport or having a sibling), but other less obvious identity traits are also embodied, and become apparent in other situations.

I ask you to now think back to how you answered that first “Who are you?” question at the beginning of this post. What aspects of your identity did you define using verbs, nouns? Why? What patterns do you see? Do they match my analysis?

I am still thinking through this theme of identity, language, how we define ourselves, and what that means. This post is not meant to provide definitive conclusions, just thoughts and hypotheses. Like many, I am still trying to figure out who I am and how I want to define myself. So if you have any thoughts, different perspectives, or want to share some of the language you use to define yourself, please post in the comments section below; I would love to read it!

Lily Doron is a student in Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts program. She graduated from Duke University in 2017 with a major in ethics, human rights, and documentary studies. Lily has done oral history projects around the world and produced a podcast before coming to Columbia. She is currently working on a project to understand how storytelling is used as a strategy for healing in Alcoholics Anonymous. Lily is fascinated by how the stories we tell, the stories we hear, and the language we use, all create and reinforce identity. She recently launched a website – Who Are You?: An Experiment in Storytelling – which explores these themes interactively in real time.