Negotiating the discovery of self is deeply introspective work; however, it has also provoked me to dig deeper by taking tangible steps to uncover my story. ‘Item 1465’ in the Book of Negroes - that is my great, great, great grandfather. Recorded by the name of his former enslaver, his life before arrival in Nova Scotia is difficult to trace. He was Black, and these stories were often not recorded. “Black knowledge and remembrances [were] purposefully forgotten by academic historians wedded to whiteness” (Green, 2025, p. 6) as a source of truth.
Despite past and present efforts to oppress, erase, dehumanize, or break Black people - through violence, denial of humanity, and silencing - we are still here. Unbroken.
Unbroken signifies my journey here: my stories, the stories of my ancestors, and the stories of the many whom white colonizers sought to break. I now understand that intergenerational trauma exists
Photo from Unsplash, Manuel Sardo
alongside resilience. Stories of resistance and agency, stories of the unrelenting, and stories of those who refuse to settle, making space for transformative action, alternative possibilities, and future potential.
Seen this way, unbroken also connects to hope. As Birch (2020) suggests, “hope means the story is capable of changing and that we can never define, control, or predict our future landscapes or the worlds we might inhabit tomorrow or in a decade or a century” (p. 985).
Taken together, the metaphor reflects my commitment to my undivided self, as described by Palmer (2012): “In the undivided self, every major thread of one’s life experience is honored, creating a weave of such coherence and strength that it can hold students and subject as well as self” (p.16). This portfolio traces that undivided self - my life, my work, and my commitments to early childhood education - as unfinished, ethical, and continuously in the making.