When today’s society seems centered on labels, categories and the exact places in which all people are supposed to “belong,” it often takes a wise voice to remind people that they all fall under the same species. Shana Walton, an anthropologist, is a new instructor at Nicholls. This semester, she is teaching ethnic studies in literature and will teach an Acadian folklore class in the spring 2009 semester.

She said she thinks people are becoming more bothered by labels.

“We don’t want to be a label anymore whether that label is white, black. One of the things we have to deal with in our lives are these labels,” Walton says.

She says she hopes to address some of these issues in her classes.

“I hope that in the ethnic studies class, we’re all going to work together to try and figure out how we all fit in,” she says. “Because it’s so complicated, who you are, and how you see yourself.”

On the vast topic of race, Walton offers the idea that humans make separations and differences more noticeable than they actually are in the ways they act and speak.

“We take things that aren’t real, like race. We construct a social reality with our words and actions,” she says, “I’m always amazed at what we can create just by speaking it into being.”

Walton even shared her thoughts on answering interview questions and related it to another topic: discovering herself.

“I don’t think I can really answer a lot of questions, because I don’t have answers. I’m just sort of on an exploratory journey I started a few years ago,” Walton says.

Nicholls is the most recent addition to Walton’s long list of achievements. She shared some of the other stops in her journey, which includes times of hardship as well as accomplishment.

“I was working at Tulane University as associate director of the Deep South community there, and Katrina hit, and we all lost our jobs.” Walton says.

Because of the lack of anthropology jobs in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, she found several alternative jobs for some time.

“I got a job teaching religious education at a church, then I got a job directing a health clinic,” Walton says. “Then I got a job teaching kindergarten for the recovery school district in New Orleans.”

Walton taught at the school district for one year and shared some of her memories from the experience. One in particular was the classrooms lacking desks, tables and supplies as well as constantly changing classrooms. Still, it was an enjoyable experience for her.

“I had the most fun,” she says. “I really enjoyed the work. The kids were great and the people I worked with were great.”

For some time as well, Walton served as the director of oral history for the University of Southern Mississippi.

Walton shared one of her ongoing personal goals.

“My goal is to continually explore my own identity and to figure out how I fit in a system in which these labels afford certain people power and take power away from other people. And I really don’t know that yet.