Instruction
Edith Maud Eaton was born to an English father and a Chinese mother, but, as we saw in Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian, she could easily pass for European. No one knew she was Chinese unless she mentioned it. (See, for instance, the dinner scene on pages 837-38.) This was not the case for our Native American writers and writers of African descent; because their distance from conventional Anglo-American identity was visible in their skin color, their ethnicity was always immediately apparent.
For this essay, explore how an invisible ethnicity could or would change the experience of ethnicity. That is, how does this experience change when the subject can chose whether and when to reveal ethnic identity? Does this make it less real? Less difficult? Is visible ethnicity significantly different from ‘invisible’ or ‘voluntary’ ethnicity?
Build your essay on a careful analysis of Leaves from the Mental Portfolio. Keep in mind that, even if she’s not specifically discussing her appearance, everyone Eaton meets is seeing her as European. Therefore, she’s always negotiating these questions of whether and how to reveal and inhabit her identity as ‘ethnic'.
While your primary focus should be on Leaves, compare Eaton’s account to at least one text by a writer of African descent. Feel free to begin or conclude your essay with reflections on your personal experience or observation of visible or invisible ethnicity.
Your essay should be 1000-1300 words.