Short Wave - Organic Chemistry Helped Me Embrace My Identities

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

As a kid, Ariana Remmel had a hard time figuring out where they fit in. So they found comfort in the certainty and understanding of what the world was made of: atoms and molecules and the periodic table of elements. Years later, they went on to become a chemist and science writer. On today's show, Ari talks with host Maddie Sofia about how chemistry has helped them embrace their mixed identities. For more, read Ari's recent essay in Catapult Magazine: 'Organic Chemistry Taught Me to Fully Inhabit My Mixed Identities.'See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Ariana Remel has always been frustrated by those bubble sheets that ask you about stuff like race and gender. You know, those little forms you have to fill out like for the census or at the doctor. I'm one of those people who has bubble phobia. I see these bubble forms that want to kind of bin me into these certain categories of gender categories, racial categories, all of these other demographics. And as someone who doesn't fit nicely into those bins, I tend to be to actually spiral as a result, trying to figure out, like, where am I supposed to fit? Ari is non-binary, which doesn't always show up as an option on those forms.

It just makes it hard to be like to choose the prefer not to say bubble when it's like, I would prefer to say, actually. I would prefer to say, but you did not give me a bubble for it. This pressure to fit into a perfect little category has always been there since Ari was a kid. I mean, I grew up with the influences of being in the American South, and I grew up very Catholic. And it was a very gendered experience. You know, there was a certain way that I was supposed to dress in order to go to Mass. You know, there was a certain way that I was expected to present to be a godly Catholic.

Catholic child. And, you know, being a kid is about wandering through a world of uncertainty and making discoveries. But I felt like I was really in the dark when it came to my gender identity, but also my racial identity because I was brought up primarily around white relatives. Their mom is Mexican-American, and their dad is white. And between race and religion and gender, it was hard for Ari to figure out just where they fit in. I just didn't have language to describe what it was that I was experiencing, nor did I feel like I had role models around me who could help me navigate what I was feeling. So as a kid, Ari found comfort uncertainty and understanding what the world was made of,

learning about atoms and molecules, the periodic table of elements, you know, classic kid stuff. Years later, they went on to become a chemist and science. science writer. And in a recent piece for Catapult Magazine, Ari wrote about how chemistry helped them embrace their mixed identities. I feel like chemistry has allowed me to explore different parts of the world that I didn't know I could before. And it turned out that there are some metaphors and models that exist in chemistry that I found to be very applicable to my human which was kind of a lovely discovery for me. I'm Maddie Safaya. This is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.

Okay, I am here with Ari R.E. Remil. Ari you recently wrote a piece for Catapult Magazine called Organic Chemistry taught me to fully inhabit my mixed identities. Ariana, why did you write this piece? I wrote this piece because I was locked in my house for COVID. and felt like I was experiencing all of these big, scary questions that often happen when one is locked in their house about who I am and who I want to be in the world. And as I thought through those questions, I did as I do and went to the molecules to see what I could learn from them.

And so this piece was me trying to explore my own human experience with my background in chemistry and see what happened. And I actually found it to be surprisingly really useful. Yeah. I mean, you're very invested in this idea of how understanding the molecules that make you up can inform your experience of being a human person. I mean, tell me a little bit more about that. concept. Yeah, I am, I've always, I've always taken things really literally. And so I remember some of my, some of my first questions about, you know, being a little kid thinking about the world and asking, you know, what my place in it was, was really trying to figure out what things were made of. And the

easiest answer, or rather line of questioning that was afforded to me as a kid was, was thinking about atoms and molecules, you know. It was really easy for teachers to hand me a pure, periodic table and say, start here. And so I kind of ran with that. And I've always found it really comforting and also amazing. I mean, the idea that even a glass of water, I mean, we look at it as kind of this clear, almost tasteless liquid, but no water is the same. I mean, the molecular makeup of the tap water in the southern United States is going to be different from New York, is going to be different from California, there are universes in even the smallest objects that we interact with on a day-to-day basis. And I find that inspiring and exciting and comforting. And for me,

the way to fully appreciate all of that was by trying to study the chemical principles that underpin all of it. Yeah. And I want to talk to you about like one specific concept in chemistry that you identify with. It's called resonance. Walk me through, having mercy on me, as I am not a chemist, walk me through what that is and how you relate to it. Yeah. So resonance is a property that has to do with chemical bonds. Chemical bonds are the ways in which atoms share electrons. And depending on how many electrons two atoms are sharing, we might, as chemists describe it as a single bond or a double bond or a triple bonds, sometimes we get like super kooky and get quadruple bonds. But depending on how many electrons are shared between those atoms, you get different properties in terms of how flexible

the bond is or how long or short. But when we think about bonds, we're often talking about them inside molecules, which is, you know, an organization of lots of different bonds between lots of different atoms. And resonance is a property where a bond between two atoms might actually be influenced by electrons on a neighboring atom. But what this results in is instead of having a bond that is strictly a single bond or strictly a double bond, resonance allows this kind of in-between where you get bonds that are not quite as short as a double bond, but not quite as long as a single bond, a little bit more flexible than a double bond, but not quite as freely wiggly. You get these in-between properties,

you know, ultimately, we're actually trying to find a way to get our heads around a single object that has kind of shared properties of the two, but it's its own unique thing. Mm, mm-hmm. So it wasn't one thing or another. It was all of those things. It was all of those things. And as I thought about my experience as, you know, being non-binary, trying to exist in this world of, you know, boy girl, and then also being a mixed race person trying to figure out, you know, where I fit on this spectrum. Again, with this idea of these, the bubble sheets. You know, I realized that just because I was filling out one bubble or another, I wasn't. betraying myself. And I wasn't necessarily lying. It's that I am a single human who has multiple truths associated with who I am and how I exist in the world. It gave me the ability to kind of step away from the chaos and spiraling that came from questioning my own identity and just hold a space just for me to be who I am and to let that be not only enough,

But not only enough, but a worthy, a worthy thing. Wow. Wow. Thank you, chemistry, you know? Yeah, really. Yeah. And Ari, at the end of your essay, you kind of wrapped this up beautifully. You wrote this powerful kind of closing to the piece about focusing on what makes you up, your biology, on your identity.

And I'm wondering if you'd read that last part for me, because I just want to share it with our listeners. because I think it is so beautiful. Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to. Bonds do not jump from one form to the other, just like I am not boy than girl, white than brown. They're not oscillating between two states like I might try to draw them, confined to graphite and paper, like this form in the mail would have me dissected in a database.

When I really take a moment to see these bonds for what they are, a union of atoms in three dimensions, I also witness my sense of self, split between mixed identities, scooched to a sweet spot in the center that is a space all its own. And with that, I finally feel my consciousness settling back into my exhausted form. Everything is okay. I'm not half of anything. I'm not back and forth one thing to the other. I'm only me, a single whole with multiple truths. I am resonant. That is just so lovely, Ari. Thank you. What do you want,

to take away from this about science and identity and learning to live comfortably within all of your identities? Like, you know, is there anything you want to leave our audience with? I mean, there's a lot. First of all, I just, I, I am always saddened to hear that chemistry is the class that people hate in high school. I mean, I think that it is unfortunately overlooked. and, you know, chemistry has, I think, lessons for all of us. And I think that for me, being able to write about chemistry, this thing that I love, that is what ultimately gave me the strength and the courage to ask the questions about myself that I think that I'd spend a long time being really afraid to ask.

Ari Remy Remy Remy, chemist and science writer. You can find a link to their essay in Caterpult Magazine in today's episode, notes. This episode was produced by Britt Hansen, fact-checked by Indy Kara, and edited by Beatle. I'm Maddie Safaya. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR. Legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle has spent eight decades exploring underwater, and she has good news. Areas that are protected, you can see recovery. How We Save the Ocean, part two of our series on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.