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Looking Beneath the Surface: Trauma, Invisibility, and the Negotiation of Identity in the Minyan

When I first moved to the United States as a child, I considered my home to be my birthplace in India where I lived with my family for seven years. Later in adolescence, I developed the sense that my home is the in the United States. Since migrating to the United States, I have been periodically asked by Americans of various ethnic backgrounds about the place of my origin, my home. It is the visibility of my physical features, such as my dark skin color, that largely propels this question, which has become a reminder of difference. This question regarding home is one that is perhaps too often asked of people who look physically different in some way from mainstream White Americans and too little of those who bear more resemblance to White Americans. The authors of the minyan collection bring to our attention the nature of invisibility in the experience of many Jewish Americans while the physical and psychological notions of home and identity are transformed, sometimes dramatically, throughout their lives. These women reflect on their life journeys with honesty and depth and welcome the reader to experience the complex ways in which identity is shaped by trauma, persecution, strength and adversity within family dynamics, and resiliency. While each essay contains a unique perspective that illustrates the diversity within the experiences of Jewish American women, two overlapping themes were particularly salient for me, including the experience of trauma and related silence and the influence of migration on identity and invisibility. I am mindful of the fact that my commentary on these narratives is developed against the backdrop of my own experiences as a Hindu, Indian American woman, and psychologist. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to read these narratives as they inform us not only of the nuances of Jewish identity in contemporary times but also raise important questions about identity transformation for those of us who negotiate multiple identities.