Summary

In Chapter 5, “Politics of Respectability,” attending VDS exhausted Rodríguez. Almost as soon as she enrolled, she learned that she “had to be extraordinary” (89). Her classmates and instructors had many expectations for who she should be and how she should perform. She had to be “gentle and smart,” “soft and kind and approachable” (90). Because she was the first in her family to accomplish many academic feats, she “felt pressured” (91). Despite her successes, she realized “white people did not want [her] in their elite spaces” (92). She therefore had to make herself respectable for the white majority.

“‘Respectability politics’” is a concept “coined by a Black woman, Evelyn Higginbotham” (93). Respectability politics is the way BIPOC switch their “speech, accents, behaviors, appearances into more palatable ones around normative culture” (93). While code-switching is a survival mechanism, Rodríguez argues that it also endangers BIPOC.

At VDS, Rodr...