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Photo courtesy of Nicolas Dorazio
For Masterman high schoolers, third period offers a variety of opportunities for different clubs and activities. Each year old ones are revived and new ones are created. This school year marks the inaugural year of MISC, the Mixed Identity Student Collective, founded by juniors Candelaria Beatty and Nicolas Dorazio. In their words, “MISC is essentially an affinity club for students of mixed background, race, culture or heritage. Our goal is to create a safe space for students of those backgrounds, for people who never really felt like they fit in any one group.” The club's name itself is a play off of that idea. “Misc” is often short for miscellaneous, which highlights the diverse and collective nature of the club.
Misc’s founders are very passionate about creating a safe space for students of mixed identities to come together and feel confident about their identities. “It's hard to feel like you can find exactly where you fit in and we just want to eliminate that problem, especially for students of mixed backgrounds,” says Beatty. “The two of us are not the only biracial students in the entire school so it was important to us for everyone else to have a space, '' adds Dorazio. This extends beyond highschool as there has been discussion of extending a version of this club to the middle school “I definitely want to expand to find some way to reach out to middle schoolers because I feel like if this club had existed for me when I was in middle school, I probably would have had a very different experience in my identity at Masterman,” says Beatty.
In terms of club meetings themselves, “We are not extremely structured, it's very relaxed because we want to create an environment where people are able to come forward, feel able to speak up, and having everything structured would not necessarily allow for that to happen.” says Dorazio. “We really want to foster a community that is interested in discussion and really open to talking about issues that are personal to us. In the future we are looking to do lessons on terminology and general racial literacy and sensitivity, microaggressions. Things that can expand our toolbelt so that people of all backgrounds can feel comfortable talking about our origins and our backgrounds because I think that that is one of the most important parts about being an affinity group, it's learning how to talk about your identity and feeling comfortable doing that,” adds Beatty.
Overall, Nicolas and Clara want people to know that everyone is welcome at MISC. “ The goal is to have as many people feel like they can talk about their identities. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. You can come even if you are not comfortable talking about your identity because that is something we can work on, something we can build as a group because I don't think anybody at this age has it completely figured out.”
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