ABSTRACT
Th e fi rst time I read Ellison’s words I felt I could have written them myself I related so much to what he was saying: up until that time I largely felt invisible. For you see, I am a black woman who grew up in Wyoming, oft en being the only black person in a place nearly 100 percent white. One might question how anyone in my position could ever feel invisible, or could ever be invisible. But when those around one do not speak of one’s history, when one’s reality and experiences are constantly discounted and ignored, when
the contributions of one’s ancestors are left out of the annals of great works, it becomes quite easy to become invisible or at the very least to question the legitimacy of one’s existence. Of one’s way of being. Of one’s way of knowing.
