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MICHEL DEGRAFF: So,
yes, this course is--

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the core of it is discussions.

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And in order for the
course to be successful,

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we have to be able to discuss
very delicate, personal issues

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in a very safe way
and to be honest.

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It cannot be that students
are afraid to reveal

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their positions on various
topics including race,

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language, identity.

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And one way to do
it is to, given

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that I had at the very
beginning of the course,

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I had the questionnaires
about where they came from,

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what languages they
spoke, where they grew up,

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I was able to use that
to trigger discussions.

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So if we read a text about
authenticity, for example,

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if you are an African, can
you be an authentic writer

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if you write in
English, for example?

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Then I knew that
some of the students

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had dealt with this issue.

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For example, we
had a student who,

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although she was
Black and Hispanic,

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but she wasn't very
fluent in Spanish.

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And she wasn't clear whether
her not being fluent in Spanish

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made her any less Hispanic.

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You see, so I could--

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I was able to use that in order
to trigger a discussion around

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this notion that we had read
in the famous debate between

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Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa
Thiong'o about African writers.

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Can an African-- can a writer
be authentically African

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if they write in English
or French for that matter?

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So that was one way to
trigger rich discussion,

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by taking a text that
connected to these issues

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and making it personal.

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So the motto there
was rich discussions

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are best arrived at if they
stem from a personal basis

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where students are
invested in trying

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to find an answer
that can work for them

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in their personal lives.

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Or in the lives
of their families,

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their communities,
their countries, etc.

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So that was the
one key technique.

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And then, there was
another condition for it,

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to have these discussions.

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It's to have mutual
respect and trust.

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Because, in these questions,
there cannot be a right

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and wrong answer.

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So it is based on your own level
of comfort, what, you know,

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choices you've made
your personal life,

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for your identity.

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And we have to be able to
accept different opinions.

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But sometimes,
that was not easy.

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Because they were,
like in the class,

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there was another student
who spoke Spanish fluently

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and will view
himself as Hispanic.

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And there was
another student who

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didn't speak
Spanish so fluently,

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who also view
herself as Hispanic.

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So right there, there
was a potential for who

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was more Hispanic, you see.

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But yet, they are both Hispanic
in their own ways, you see.

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And this is where the debate
gets very interesting.

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How do you define
being Hispanic?

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And then we are back to
that very core question.

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Who belongs?

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Who doesn't belong?

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And this is where, again,
language and identity

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become tools for either
inclusion or exclusion.

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And since the course is
eventually about inclusion,

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then how can we use these
different identities to create

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a space where one can
have a sum that's much

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larger than the parts, you see.