Imposter Syndrome & Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim: Part I

by Patricia Park
A descendant of Korean immigrants who had initially settled in Argentina, high school senior Alejandra Kim does not feel like she belongs in either her diverse New York City neighborhood or the private school she attends on a scholarship.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part I, Part II, Part III
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. pretentious
    creating an appearance of importance or distinction
    You know, like those annoying people who go to a bodega and order a “CWAH-sson,” when the rest of us commoners just say “cruh-SAHNT.”
    But if you’re the one ordering croissants from a corner bodega, that’s the least of your pretentious problems.
  2. solidarity
    a union of interests or purposes among members of a group
    If I were Dominican or Puerto Rican or Colombian or Mexican, then at least I’d have some solidarity in New York with “mi gente,” my people.
  3. adjunct
    of or relating to a person who is subordinate to another
    Quaker Oats invites experts in different subjects to teach electives to us high schoolers. Usually they’re adjunct professors from Columbia or NYU looking for a side hustle.
  4. caste
    social status conferred by a system based on class
    I get tongue-tied around her—not because of a girl crush, but in, like, a feudal caste kind of a way. She’s tall, waifish, and bland-pretty in the face, like a Madewell model. I’m more like the invisible ethnic assistant at the photo shoot who’s supposed to fetch her organic alkaline water.
  5. chagrin
    cause to feel shame
    “Anyone who pulls out an electronic device will automatically fail this class.”
    Claire seems chagrined as she shoves her computer back in her bag.
  6. audit
    attend academic courses without getting credit
    I work at the store to help pay off my tuition and to have extra money for books and field trips and things. While the rest of my classmates spent their summers off volunteering on a blueberry farm in Maine or auditing college classes at Bennington or the Sorbonne or on an anthropological expedition to Cairo or the Orkney Islands.
  7. gauche
    lacking social poise or refinement
    Being “monied” isn’t just about shopping sprees in Beverly Hills or ski trips to the Alps. That would be tacky and gauche—a demonstration of “conspicuous consumption.”
  8. sanction
    approve or show acceptance of
    And because I laugh along, I’ve basically sanctioned that it’s okay.
  9. polyglot
    a person who speaks more than one language
    She was away at Middlebury, studying Arabic. Laurel’s a polyglot. English, of course, and French lessons since she was a kid, and Latin and Greek at Quaker Oats, and even the Trinidadian Creole she learned from her caregiver.
  10. scrutinize
    look at critically or searchingly, or in minute detail
    “I’m being ironic,” I say, and we laugh, but of course it bothers me a little the way Laurel scrutinizes my lunch.
  11. coalesce
    fuse or cause to come together
    “I spent all summer working on my Whyder essay,” Laurel says. “But it’s just not coalescing.”
  12. legacy
    an applicant with a relative who attended the same school
    Laurel’s got a 99.9 percent chance of getting into Whyder, for several reasons:
    1. She’s applying ED—early decision.
    2. She’s legacy.
  13. holistic
    emphasizing the organic relation between parts and the whole
    It doesn’t matter that I did better on the SATs than Laurel; Whyder doesn’t care about “statistics.” They look at the “holistic picture” because “each Whydee” is “more than just a number.”
  14. ethos
    the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era
    That’s also part of the Quaker ethos—helping everyone rise up together as a community.
  15. blatant
    without any attempt at concealment; completely obvious
    It’s too much: the fried rice, the smoking, Ma’s blatant disengaging from this conversation.
  16. ambivalent
    uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow
    Ma was ambivalent about my academic ambitions, but ever since Papi’s death she’s just checked out of momhood in all the wrong ways.
  17. barrio
    a Spanish-speaking quarter in a town or city
    He’s wanted out of this barrio, this world, for as long as I have.
  18. panopticon
    a circular prison with cells around a surveillance station
    Or what Foucault thought about panopticons?
    Also, what the heck is a panopticon?
  19. penance
    a Catholic sacrament involving confession and atonement
    I talk into Montoya Fountain like it’s some priestly confessional box. I wait for a penance that never comes. But all the Hail Marys in the world won’t bring him back.
  20. livid
    furiously angry
    At lunch, Laurel is livid.
    “Why didn’t you tell me what JBJ said to you on the first day of class? ‘Talk about multi-culti’? ‘You’ll have no trouble getting into college’?”
  21. prattle
    speak about unimportant matters rapidly and incessantly
    So Karen prattled on about her favorite K-dramas and her family’s summer in Riviera Maya and how “sí, se puede hablar español” if I “prefer that to inglés.”
  22. complicit
    associated with or involved in some crime or wrongdoing
    By keeping him in office—she crosses out the word “office” and writes “classroom”—Quaker Oats is complicit in sanctioning the otherization as well as discrimination of our Students of Color.
  23. garner
    acquire or deserve by one's efforts or actions
    The good thing about Laurel’s petitions is that they never really take off. Her last one, to get the cafeteria staff unionized, only garnered four signatures, including ours.
  24. cynical
    believing the worst of human nature and motives
    The “real world”—or, at least, Michael Oppa’s cynical take on it—sounds miserable.
  25. vagary
    an unexpected and inexplicable change in something
    “Real art, true art,” he says, puffing out his chest, “is writing beyond the vagaries of ‘identity politics.’ Don’t pander to what’s ‘trending’ in the public consciousness, tempting though that may be to garner attention.”
  26. pander
    yield to; give satisfaction to
    “Real art, true art,” he says, puffing out his chest, “is writing beyond the vagaries of ‘identity politics.’ Don’t pander to what’s ‘trending’ in the public consciousness, tempting though that may be to garner attention.”
  27. posterity
    all future generations
    “Real art delves into the essential core of the human condition. Real writers write for posterity.”
  28. rangy
    tall and thin and having long slender limbs
    He’s tall and rangy, his arms resting on his legs.
  29. cadence
    the rhythmic rise and fall of the voice
    The voice sounds both familiar and not. Its cadence—the rhythms to the words—I recognize.
  30. eponymous
    relating to a name derived from a person
    We were reading Jane Eyre, and Jane is the eponymous heroine of the book.
  31. coddle
    treat with excessive indulgence
    Writers need to develop a thick skin. It would be unethical for me to participate in the coddling of the next generation.
  32. ubiquitous
    being present everywhere at once
    Native New Yorkers have certain rules about celebrities, since they’re as ubiquitous as coffee carts and cockroaches:
    1. Ignore them. When eight million people are jammed up in the same tight space, it’s all about boundaries.
    2. Like you’re going to let them think you think they’re better than you? It’s called self-respect.
  33. facade
    the front of a building
    A home that’s nothing like Laurel’s home, with its stocked pantry and marble countertops and preserved facade on a historic, landmarked street.
  34. treatise
    a formal text that treats a particular topic systematically
    It’d be a whole treatise on race, injustice, and homeland.
  35. seminal
    influential and providing a basis for later development
    Becoming Brooklyn is a seminal work in the fiction writing field.
  36. pestilent
    likely to spread and cause an epidemic disease
    The mice that brazenly saunter across the apt’s concrete floors offer a simultaneous portrait of the empowered working-class poor, as well as the increasingly pestilent presence of the “Undesirable”s that permeate through JBJ’s work.
  37. trepidation
    a feeling of alarm or dread
    Consider my trepidation, admiration, and anticipation in meeting and receiving tutelage from such a staggering and highly-lauded literary figure.
  38. heuristic
    a commonsense rule to help solve some problem
    It was as if the only lens, or heuristics if you will, through which he views the world is a racialized, otherizing one.
  39. culminate
    end, especially to reach a final or climactic stage
    These assemblies are usually snooze fests, culminating with someone from the school’s fundraising office soliciting donations—from current students, no less—to “support the next wave of future Anne Austere thinkers, shakers, and Quakers.”
  40. inaugural
    serving to set in motion
    And with that, it is our great honor to present our inaugural Distinction over Adversity Award to Ale-ahem!-dra Kim.
Created on Mon Aug 26 12:38:25 EDT 2024 (updated Mon Aug 26 18:21:07 EDT 2024)

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