Because You Can’t

Abstract

This autoethnographic project explores my familial context regarding the concepts of covering and narrative inheritance. According to Yoshino, “to cover is to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream.”1 On the other hand, narrative inheritance refers to stories given to children by and about family members. The stories we inherit within the family provide us with a framework to understand our identities through our forebears. In talking about what we inherit narratively, we achieve a sense of completion and fulfillment.2 All the narratives included in this article render pivotal moments in my family history of truth omission and distortion, which, in hindsight, began to predominate my family’s communication style in the wake of my mother’s death in October 2003. Utilizing creative autoethnographic narratives to investigate covering in the context of my narrative inheritance, I attempt to fill in the holes that I have come across examining my family history and unpacking my identity, and to piece together family silences and secrets. In doing so, I aim to fulfill my narrative inheritance and illuminate ways that secrets can breed tension in family relationships, disorient our identities, and disrupt our lives. I hope that providing this evocative account can foster better understanding of how members of a family present values, restrain identity, constitute communication styles, and negotiate family culture by engaging in patterns of covering.