Brandon's Self Portrait

Brandon Ramdayal

Professors Caçoilo and O’Leary

Imagery Identity and Culture

Artist Statement

The form that this self-portrait takes on is a short autobiographical story. The reason I chose to take on was that I feel that this is the best way to bring my personal narrative to life. As a journalism and video production major, this is a step out of my comfort zone since I haven’t written short stories since high school (which was many moons ago.) On the contrary, I feel that it is a necessary to help me become a better journalist and a better videographer (after all, screenplays do arise from scripts, right? [Case in point: Project Blue Book.]) The content of this self-portrait includes many facets of my life that revolve around the topics of identity, imagery, and culture. Throughout my life, I’ve been faced with a variety of challenges that define who I am today. Finding my identity was possibly the biggest, from trying to figure out what I liked to finding what I want to do with my life. I still have those struggles to this day, but it’s a little clearer now thanks to the help of this class and the artists that were discussed in this semester.

Another challenge that I’ve faced in my life was being in touch with my culture. Being born in the United States, I’ve always felt like I was separated from what my family knew and the values they embrace every day. However, as time progressed I began to feel more in touch with my culture and how to identify myself with that culture. As an American with Guyanese descent, I’ve always felt that there was a stigma that you had to follow a certain career path, and if you didn’t, then you would be judged a certain way within that community. Today, I’m beginning to learn that might’ve been the case for my mother and father and the people that came before them. However, that stigma is slowly fading away, and it starts with my generation, the generation that’s evolving to do bigger and better things every day.

This self-portrait is inspired by the many works of artists that we’ve discussed in this class. Some inspiration has come from Judith Howard’s SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF IDENTITIES. Howard writes, “Strong identification with a group need not, in principle, be correlated with out-group hostility. Only under conditions of intergroup threat and competition are in-group identification and out-group discrimination correlated (Branscombe & Wann 1994, Grant & Brown 1995). Social identity theory maintains that it is ingroup identification that causes out-group bias.” (Howard 370) Another inspiration was Renée Cherow O’Leary’s AGING, PASSION, AND DEATH: PASSION AS MEANING AND STRUCTURE IN THE FACE OF TIME AND CHANGE, who writes “Living with passion also requires liberation from rigid models of behavior, opening even to excess. It means saying yes instead of no to the wider world of choices. This, to me, is the key to living a passionate life—being open to the unexpected, embracing the enigmatic.” This is what my self-portrait was inspired by, and what it entails. I hope you enjoy it!


Finding Brandon

By Brandon Ramdayal

It was my senior year of high school, and I was filling out my college applications. As I get through each question, I got stuck on two questions, “What is your nationality?” and “Select your Major of Interest.” Unsure of what to put, as conversations about my nationality between my parents about my nationality and I began to ring in my ears. “You’re an American,” my mother would say. “No, Brandon you’re Guyanese.” Since there was no option for Caribbean, Guyanese or American with Guyanese descent, I just selected “Other” and called it a day. Unsure of what to select for the major question, I selected “Business Administration” to the schools that had business programs, and “Journalism” for the schools that didn’t. I thought it seemed appropriate to go into business since my father owned one and I would follow in his footsteps. However, I also had an interest in Journalism, I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling that it could be in my future. Once I got through the questions, I clicked submit and carried on with my life.

It’s still senior year of high school, just a few months have passed and I’m beginning to get my decisions from the colleges I applied to and I got into all into all of them. Excited to share the news with my parents, I run downstairs shouting “I GOT IN!” repeatedly from the top of my lungs. My parents smile and give me a hug and start calling my relatives to relay the message. Messages of congratulations and happiness for me flood the phone and my Facebook. Happy to be on the receiving end of all the good news I reply with a simple “Thanks” and proceed to have a conversation with them. After all was said and done, I’m faced with another challenge, picking a school to go to. I was always told to go with the school that’s giving the most money, which is a wise choice because then I don’t have to worry about student debt when I graduate. Then the big question came, “What do you want to study?” Every time this question came to me, I’d always say Business just to sound professional and like I had a grip on what I wanted to do with my life, but in reality, I had no idea at all. I was afraid of telling them that I wanted to pursue and face ridicule like “That’s for white people” or “You’re not going to make a lot of money from that career.”

Graduation is around the corner, and I’m set on going to NJCU’s school of business. The free ride there with some other incentives, and I’m going to be with most of my friends from high school. It’ll be great, or so I thought. I’m in the living room at home with my dad. On the television, I see CNN’s on, it’s one of my dad’s favorite things to watch. As I’m watching with him, he asked me, “Are you sure you want to do business?” Still not sure with what I wanted to do with my life, I assured him that this was what I wanted to do. “But you’re so much more happy with Journalism and Video Production, I see it in your face and the way you act, you’d be much better off at Rutgers. Think about it.” Afraid of the thought that there weren’t many journalists of my color, personalities like Don Lemon and Sanjay Gupta begin to appear on the screen as they report on the newest story, my anxiety gets alleviated. Normally, I thought my parents would want me to pursue something that would help me make a lot of money, like a doctor or a lawyer, or something else, but it was very reassuring that they were supportive of whatever I liked. At the time, I received a decision from Rutgers-Newark, because New Brunswick was too far for me to travel, and dorming wasn’t an option. I wasn’t too sure if this was the right path for me, as there weren’t too many people like me that have those degrees, but I figured I’d be the first of many. I’d have to sacrifice my free ride and pay out of pocket to go to this school, but it was a choice I was willing to take.

Finally, the big day comes, Graduation Day. The day was filled with nothing but excitement and hope for the future. The boring parts of graduation felt like the slowest, the speeches and the hours of sitting. Finally, the best part came along, getting the diploma. As our names were called, we walked up, did our celebration, got our hard earned piece of paper and walked off the stage. After that came the moving of the tassels or whatever it was called, and we were finally graduates. We then threw our hats in the air and walked out in the traditional way. When it was all set and done, I celebrated with the friends I made over the four years and my family with more photos than you could ever imagine, excited about the next fours of my life.