When I first started the school year, I did not know what to expect from taking humanities core. I thought it was simply a course requirement for the campus honors program and a fast and easy way to complete my GEs. I didn’t expect to like humcore as much as I do now. I enjoyed learning more about the history of the Inca Empire and Southeast Asian countries in the context of imperialism as well as reimagining different texts throughout history. Humcore has taught me how to analyze different primary sources and artifacts to understand seemingly simple concepts in complex, insightful ways.

The theme of Humcore that resonated most deeply with me was the concept of identity and how different cultural and historical events shaped it. Professor O’Toole’s lectures, especially, helped me reimagine how identity changes and reshapes itself by explaining the history of the Inca and Andean people in the face of the Spanish empire. Originally, the understanding of the Spanish empire that I had was that the Spanish conquered the Incas. Period. End of Story. I did not know much further than that except that the Spanish empire enjoyed great prosperity and that to this day, people speak the Incan language Quechua.

Learning more in depth of the history of the Spanish and Incan empires with Professor O’Toole opened my eyes to the complexities of identity, especially in regards to cultural consumption and self-fashioning. Cultural consumption helped me understand a different form of responding to cultural clashes. For example, former Incan leaders refashioned the idea of the coat of arms with a symbol of the amaru, the Incan snake. In this way, Incan and Andean people were able to preserve their culture by creating a compromise between these two cultures. This taught me that culture and identity can change and adapt to preserve the old and embrace the new. It also helped me understand how immigrants create a balance between their two cultures in order to live happily in a foreign environment.

Another concept of expressing identity that I thought was really interesting was self-fashioning. I liked learning how our cultural lenses influence the way we perceive ourselves and how people perceive us. For example, when Martin Chambi portrayed the Inca and himself, he self-fashioned a positive, modern, Andean indigenous identity that built on the ruins of empire. This changed the narrative of imperialism and oppression to one of energy and spirit. Understanding self-fashioning taught me how image is so central in our society and essential in how we interact with others. People are so concerned with their self-image that they feel the need to change themselves. I like the concept of self-fashioning because it’s taking the negative connotations of stereotypes and reimagining it in a positive light. Thus, through the efforts of self-fashionists, people gain a clearer understanding of different identities.

Through analysis of different texts throughout the year, I gained a greater understanding of the complexities of identity. I learned how when cultures clash, new beliefs and thoughts emerge that define the new culture. Humcore has taught me how to take primary sources and break down the different layers to understand history in a more complex and holistic way. I’m greatly thankful for my time in humcore and am excited for its continuation!