You're listening to Code Switch from MPR.

I'm Lori Lysarraga.

You know the bios section on your social media profiles?

Mine is always some version of, you know,

Latina, daughter of immigrants,

middle child, Code Switch co-host,

journalist, Napper.

I mean, it's updated some through the years,

but to be honest, it reads today a lot like it did a decade ago,

because some of our personal qualities

induct us into certain identity groups for life, right?

And group identity is a hugely central part

of how we understand each other.

In a lot of ways, it shapes what we come to know

and to expect from people in certain groups,

people outside certain groups, and from ourselves.

Group identity often hangs on some central experience,

a formative or historical event

that becomes this story we hear about again and again,

one that we all know and go back to.

It's those big moments that often come to define a group's identity,

for better or for worse, like slavery for African Americans,

...