Code Switching in Sag Harbour
We think of summer as a time of endless freedom, a time to slack off and sleep in all day, but also a period of time long enough to change. For Benji, summer is an opportunity to reinvent themselves and shock everyone once they all meet again in the fall. But what exactly is he rebuilding? And is he the one who gets to decide what to change?
Sag Harbour follows Benji as he escapes his predominantly white prep school in Manhattan to spend the summer in Sag Harbour, a historically Black coastal community, on Long Island. In Sag Harbour, Benji is with a community where he can navigate his identity and also the pressures to code-switch. Code switching, a common phenomenon where individuals alternate between two or more dialects or registers within a single situation, is mainly influenced by social, cultural, and practical factors. Benji experiences this firsthand through the contrast of Sag Harbour and his school in Manhattan.
During the school year, Benji is “Ben”, the polite and proper Black student trying to fit into a white situation. He has learned to adapt and quiet himself to survive. However, in Sag Harbour, he is surrounded by other Black teens from similar backgrounds, he still doesn’t belong. His inability to talk and act the way his friends do make him an easy target for teasing, even among his peers that fit his cultural background further. This contrast between being “too black” and “too white” for either space defines much of Benji’s conflict. His friends tease him for sounding “white”, his twin brother Reggie begins to drift away into his own identity, and Benji starts to realize his identity isn’t something he can switch around or adapt to based on whichever environment he’s in. His identity is something he has to figure out, and Benji’s upbringing as a relatively wealthy successful person complicates his crisis even further.
In many ways, Benji’s journey isn’t about perfecting his act between either locations, it’s about not being boxed in by white norms or by the rigid expectations set in Sag Harbour. There’s no final breakthrough in the book or a dramatic climax and that’s the point. At the end of the novel, Benji hasn’t magically formed a new identity or figured himself out, but he’s closer. Through all his experiences, whether his job at the ice cream store or nights with his uncles and friends, he begins to understand that all his versions are all parts of the same whole. His identity isn’t fixed based on who he’s with, it’s an evolving happy medium where he can be himself in any setting. Not only does Sag Harbour show Benji’s personal coming of age, it also gives a voice to the quiet experiences of many young POC’s struggling to find their sense of self when they’re forced to keep switching.
Hi Heidi, I found it really interesting in the book how the narrator explicitly mentions how none of the kids actually know how they are supposed to "act more black" since most of them are well off and go to rich posh schools. This leads to an interesting dynamic where they are all pretending and trying to be more street, but in doing so are inventing a new genre.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that the "white culture" that Benji is leaning toward at this period in his life is something that doesn't seem to be part of his prep-school scene, where he depicts himself as having few close friends, not getting invited to parties, etc. He seems to have discovered bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Smiths, and of course Kraftwerk through his older sister and her mixtapes and LPs--which I can attest is how this stuff was done in the 1980s. Most if not all of the kids at Benji's school would not be going downtown to the Village or over to Bleecker St. (home of CBGB's and Bleecker Bob's Records) to try to score some rare British imports. Benji is getting into what would become known as "alternative" music later in the decade, and it was a minority taste to be sure--you had to have an older friend or sibling who could turn you on to this kind of music, and a cool record store in your area that carried these records. Benji is increasingly willing to explore sounds and styles that resonate with him, and which his friends would make fun of or see as "white music"--but he's really carving his own "hybrid" path, being equally open to Kraftwerk AND Afrika Bambaataa. And he's learning valuable lessons about the heat-absorbing effects of black fabric at the same time!
ReplyDeleteHeidi, I like how you point out that there is no real "final breakthrough" in this novel. In the end when Benji is talking about reinvention, he talks about how instead completely changing once a year, it is possible to change every 1/3 or part of a year. Your blog refers to the slow development of Benji throughout summer break. There is no real changing moment, instead Benji mutiple experiences which mold him into a different person.
ReplyDeleteEven though I didn't think about this aspect of Benji's identity, this makes a lot of sense! There's a lot of instances in Sag Harbor that affect Benji's idea of his identity, like his friends telling him he sounds 'white' as you pointed out, or when his manager patted him on the head and he and his friends were speculating what race Martine was. I really like that you talked about how Benji, even at the end of the novel, isn't finished figuring out his identity, either in Sag Harbor or back in the city.
ReplyDeleteHi Heidi! This is a really interesting blog post. Though Benji struggles to find himself throughout this book, I never thought of it that way. It is interesting how Benji and his friends are almost their own subcategory since they are rich and go to nice schools during the year but come out to sag during the summer. It creates a very interesting dynamic.
ReplyDeleteHi Heidi, this was probably the most interesting post I read. You did a good job analyzing how Benji's codeswitching develops. Codeswitching is often seen as a negative attribute--that codeswitchers are fake or inauthentic. However, I think Sag Harbor shows that it can develop naturally as the best option someone has in an environment. I think most people are codeswitchers to some extent, and the interactions between Benji and his friends make it easy to see why that is.
ReplyDeleteHi Heidi! I like how you analyzed how Benji's code-switching, identity, and relationship with Sag Harbor developed throughout the novel. I also liked how you pointed out the realism with how Benji doesn't experience a complete and linear change by the end of a novel, but rather a more realistic progression. Great post!
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