As I look back on previous experiences throughout my life, differences in cultural identities have placed me in the midst of various "contact zones," the most recent being in my high school right in the heart of upstate New York. I was subject to witness my African American companion, Darius, who wa

s engulfed by the presence of an overwhelming white population, struggle and conform to the characteristics of that community. Pratt describes this as “transculturation,” the phenomenon in which a dominated culture or someone from a dominated culture adopts some characteristics of the prevailing culture as their own. Darius eventually marginalized a point of entry into the dominant circuits of the existing culture by “transculturizing,” much like Guaman Poma's New Chronicle in Pratt’s essay, the “Arts of the Contact Zone.”

After evaluating Darius’ situation of being one of only three minorities present within the classroom, I recall how each of them “transculturized” into the dominant group, often altering their normal speech and attitude while in the classroom. Darius was certainly willing to give up many of his cultural characteristics and values while he attended school in order to become part of the dominant and educated majority. His studies were extremely important to him, so he discarded his discrepancies, and proceeded through the day like everyone else, always leaving his different apparel at home and his Ebonics slang outside as he entered the school each morning.

Many different examples of “contact zones” are investigated in various locations and situations all over, but as for D

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