By Sneha Anand
“In the beginning was the word. And the word was made flesh.
It was so in the beginning and it is so today. The language,
the Word, carries within it the history, the culture of traditions,
the very life of a people, the flesh. Language is people. We
cannot conceive of a people without a language, or a language without a people.
The two are one and the same. To know one is to know the other.”
–Ulibarri, 1972
Identity is a funny thing. No, really. You can go on living your life without ever questioning your identity or you can suddenly be consumed by the question: What is my identity and what makes my identity? The place where I was born, the institution from which I completed my education, or my mother tongue – do these make my identity? Or it is just what I think I am and not what others want to slot me as according their own understanding of the category most befitting me? I think identity can be ten thousand things and then, there are another ten thousand and ten things it isn’t.
