LaTanya Spencer is no ordinary college student: This amazing young woman has managed to code-switch her way into her campus’s most exclusive sorority!
We’re amazed at what LaTanya has accomplished just by dramatically changing her way of speaking.
“I never thought I could get into Gamma Kappa Delta,” said Ms. Spencer. “But it turns out, all I had to do to pledge is transform my language and manner of speech to fit a classist and racially discriminatory norm and I was in, no problem!”
Through the complex and difficult act of code-switching to assimilate to the dominant culture on campus, LaTanya was able to trick her sorority sisters and fellow pledges into believing that she was of adequate social standing!
“It was really amazing,” added Spencer. “The way the sorority treated me after I radically altered the way I speak naturally was markedly different than before. I felt immediate sisterhood!”
Wow! It’s inspiring that LaTanya managed to fit in just by changing herself in a huge way!
Several sorority members backed up LaTanya’s account of the way she became a sister.
“Before she started code-switching around us, she was a little…rough around the edges,” said Kimberly Raine, LaTanya’s big. “But now she sounds just like the rest of us. Plus I love how diverse she makes us! Diversity is so important.”
“She changed her speech and now she’s like a whole new person,” added Becky Ruspin, another sister. “And that new person is definitely a Delta!”
As for LaTanya, she has big plans for the future.
“Now that I code-switched my way into an exclusive sorority, imagine what else I can do!” she says. “If all it takes is rejecting the linguistically recognized dialect I was raised with to be considered a socially acceptable candidate for a job or an apartment, I’ve cracked the code! The next step is changing my name for the same reason. I’m thinking just Tanya. Or, Katie?”
You go, LaTanya!
