Shape Shifting, Code-Switching

A couple weeks ago, my elementary aged child (6) shared an experience with me where they were explaining to their friends why he had been absent from school the previous week. He shared with his friends that he went out of town to go visit his “baba”. Baba, is short for Obachan in Japanese. He continued to explain to me how he made the decision to stop saying “baba” for the remainder of his story and instead refer to her as “grandma”, because it seemed to be “confusing” his friends. I saw an opportunity to connect with my own child about the reality of code-switching. I explained to him in a developmentally appropriate way what it meant to code-switch, and we unpacked a little more about his experience and choice/decision to do this. In short, I explained to him that code-switching is our ability or our need to change what we say or do to meet the needs of the environment or those around us—or to simply be seen and understood.

Many of the folks I get to work with therapeutically come to me processing countless experiences around code- switching, shape shifting & adapting. My own child’s experience may even be very “mild” (and yet still very valid) when I think about and witness the way other people in this world code-switch in the regular. Needless to say, there are many elements to consider around code-switching and I want to offer just a few.

Just like most of everything else, code-switching can be nuanced and very layered. On the one hand, code-switching—the ability to adapt to the people and environment around us, may have some privilege to it: we have the ability to decide how and when to act or show up in a particular way. Knowing that this will allow for perhaps a stronger sense of “belonging”, being seen as “professional”, or to simply be better understood. The ability for many of us to code-switch has allowed for our survival. It’s how we have been able to move through spaces, interact with others, and survive in this world. The adaptation to shape shift and code-switch has brought many of us to a point of awareness where we may even be wondering, “is this how I want to keep moving in my life and through this world?”.

Code-switching and endless ability to adapt at the drop of a hat is also very exhausting and we may even begin to be aware of the harm around this adaptation. Some of us have become so skilled at code-switching and shape shifting that we begin to integrate these adaptations as a part of who we are, turning away from the parts of us that root us and connect us to our cultures, identities, families, lineages, ancestry, etc. When we code-switch, we are simultaneously deciding to not show up as our full, true Self. I see this happening so much and often, especially with our young children, with it becoming increasingly habitual as we develop into adults. That is, unless we have the capacity, privilege, and space to slow down enough and recognize this pattern. That we decide the when, the how, and the IF we want to choose to shape shift and code-switch. And that we also have the ability to decide “I will no longer be in spaces or with others where I have to be anything less than my whole true Self”. Because sometimes, constantly adapting to the dominant culture is way too exhausting, unsafe, and dysregulating.

So, my question for us is: How and what environments are you contributing to? Are you acknowledging that “everyone is welcome” into your space or are you intentionally creating spaces and community where each of our gifts, parts, and identities are valued and recognized so that there is less likelihood of folks needing to endlessly code-switch and adapt to your standard of a “safe” environment? What does this look like and feel like in your home? In your classroom? In your workplace? On your child’s play dates?

Code switching has allowed for our survival. And I/we are ready to do more than survive. We are here to thrive.