Do you ever return home and sense that you are vastly different from the person your hometown friends and family know you to be?
I couldn’t stop thinking about this phenomenon during my commute to Midtown Manhattan and then back to the Bronx over the weekend, when I attended the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference in New York City. More than 15,000 educational scholars from all over the world convene at this conference to share their research and network with colleagues.
As a New York City native currently living in Philadelphia, I was relieved that the conference was close by. It was a lot more affordable given that I was able to stay at home with my family in the Bronx and commute daily to conference activities.
However, during the 40-minute commute, I am reminded of the “double life” I constantly feel like I am living.
As I enter the graffiti-stricken subway station in the Bronx, I encounter a group of teenagers arguing over the tension between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. I look at the billboards on the train cart and see that it is filled with advertisements of for-profit colleges in New York City. As the train travels further downtown, the occupants of the cart change drastically, and I am one of very few persons of color on the train.
“Why do these kids care so much about this celebrity gossip?” I thought. “I wonder how effective these ads are given that many low-income students enroll and never earn a post-secondary credential at these places.” As if I wasn’t a naive teenager, consumed with celebrity gossip and thinking that these schools were a good option for me. I begin to feel hypocritical as I find myself reading posts from Instragram accounts like @theshaderoom about the same celebrity drama that these kids are consumed by.
As I walk through Times Square to one of the many conference hotels, the imposter syndrome starts to kick in. I need to turn my “scholar self” on. As I mentally prepare for the roundtable I am a part of, I begin feeling my stomach drop for the session. Although confident about the material I am about to present, I begin to worry I might be asked a question I cannot answer. Will I be taken seriously?
