Rude Strength

... nventions of scholarly discourse, reflects at least some of my academic training, the language in which I speak still betrays my differentness in the academy. Now, among my fellow doctoral students, most of whom speak in calm, objective-sounding, and measured words, my language sounds even stranger than it did when I was an undergraduate. Often, I feel like my Italian aunts must have felt when they tried to articulate stories about their native village to me; I feel like I am translating my ideas. My language betrays my excitement, anger, and impatience, and I pause often to be sure that I'm being understood, making sense. "I have something to say," I hear myself saying behind my words, "and I want to get it right." When I teach, this is even more noticeable because I have more space at my command, more room to make use of as I gesture and pace out my words. I slide into my working-class vernacular much more easily, joke with my students, punctuate our discussions with damn-rights and hell-yesses. Last semester, a friend and colleague told me that, in class, when I explain my ideas or take issue with someone else's, or even when I just make a comment, I speak with a rough grace and intensity that makes me sound like the speaking equivalent of a bar fighter. He knows how I grew up and meant this as a compliment, but even if he had not, I do not think I could have taken it any other way.

But that was not always the case. I heard my fair share of insults about my background before I learned to take them as compliments. A ...