Researchers at ASU are trying to get a sense of how 18- to 30-year-olds in this country perceive their status and identity as Americans. The Arizona Youth Identity Project is asking questions in separate waves. And, it has found some interesting things, especially when it comes to how this population thinks about the American flag.
Kris Vera-Phillips, a Ph.D. candidate and faculty associate at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, joined The Show to talk about what she was hoping to find out with these questions.

Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: And Kris, what were you hoping to find out first off with these questions?
KRIS VERA-PHILLIPS: Ultimately, our big research group, we were interested in the ways that Arizona youth, how they identify and their perspectives on, you know, general generally life, especially in the face of like changing economic conditions, political conditions and just just everything tends to be very fluid for them.
So, with that perspective, that's how we went into this idea of doing multiple waves of interviews with our participants. And then eventually getting to the mixed methods part where we did surveys as well as photo voice methods.
BRODIE: So how did you go about trying to sort of gauge these things with them? Like, what kinds of things did you ask them? And you know, how did you try to draw some of the stuff out?
VERA-PHILLIPS: We did have a you know, just an interview guide and basically, we were asking them questions like, what does it mean to be American to you? What does it mean to feel American? And also what does it mean to act American?
And especially since they were answering, not just in these interview conversations that we have, but also through the folks who agreed to do the photo voice part, they were also responding with images of photos that they've taken as well as images and graphics they found online to be able to respond.
BRODIE: And it sounds like a lot of those images that you got back included in some capacity the American flag.
VERA-PHILLIPS: Yes. Yes. And that was actually really exciting for us because we didn't mention American flag anywhere in the questions. This all came really organically out of our participants. So when you know the idea of like, what does it mean to be American and feel American, they submitted pictures, more than 140-some pictures of the flag. And then also there were iterations of flag.
Especially since I think people are really used to, really tech savvy sometimes when it comes to finding images, they can find an image that exactly means OK, that's what I mean about the flag, modifications of the flag, you know, the flag in different contexts and what have you. And so that's, that's what we found.
BRODIE: How many different contexts were there, was, there, were there different kinds of contexts in which people were using the flags that were maybe at odds with each other.
VERA-PHILLIPS: Potentially at odds, I think odds is the right word. I would say differing opinions, you know, to be just a little, little more accepting. And what it comes down to I think when people presented the flag as something that what, what it means to be American. And I think that's within the context of who they are and where they come from and also what's happening in society.
So for, for some people, there's the traditional idea of the flag, whether it's a flag and their family member who has served our country in war and in the military service. There might be some folks who see the flag as a unifying symbol. Again, coming back to that idea of American citizenship and patriotism, but there's also something that also emerged, especially again, going back to the flag being used as a symbol that you see a lot at Trump rallies, for example, MAGA rallies and what have you.
So what we also uncovered from our data was that there was this idea of a symbolic appropriation of the flag that wasn't necessarily unifying but also othering. And we did this isn't the first time we've seen it before. If you go back to the 911 attacks, right, especially people who don't outwardly look American, they use the flag as a, as a sign of defense saying that I'm on your team too.
But then eventually, when we went through our wave of interviews, it happened, we did a round of interviews just after President Biden's 100 days in office. And within that, within that time frame, when we were asking people about the flag, folks who felt the flag was othering and also being a divisive symbol came to see that, you know what, maybe it's not so much that, that way anymore.
BRODIE: Did you find anything about flags other than the American flag? Because there's been so much discussion about other flags, either throughout history or, or newer flags that have, you know, become popular over the years, having either very specific meetings or maybe meetings that are a little bit different than what their original ones were.
VERA-PHILLIPS: Sure, sure. What we did, just looking up some of our flags not necessarily official flags per se but because we do have a high sample again, where white participants, Latino, Latinx, participants of indigenous communities. We did have modifications of the flag that would also involve, say, for example, the Mexican flag, I think that's just a way of people being able to say that not only are we a part of this country that we live here that we work here, we live here, we may die here. But at the same time, there's other parts of your identity that is not just red, white and blue.
BRODIE: What were some of the other non flag images that you got? I'm curious what other sort of symbols or images people thought said American or made them feel American?
VERA-PHILLIPS: Definitely the colors. Some people went with them colors and symbols. So like one, this Native American woman from Flagstaff, wore red, white and blue on their shirt. Plus they're a little scrunchy and in their rings. And then she said in her caption today, we want to ask you what it means to be American, so that was the prompt. And then she wrote Celebrating Fourth of July because I'm showing it externally.
So there's this idea where we come from, you know, the way we show our identity, whether it's in colors or the flag, it comes back to this, the theoretical grounding and collective of essence. And so again, you see that a lot in religious symbols, for example, whether it's the cross or what have you, or sporting events wearing those colors and it brings people together, whether they're you know, strangers or they have some, their shared common ground could be expressed in these symbols.
BRODIE: So what do you, is the takeaway from this? Like, what do you, what do you think it all means?
VERA-PHILLIPS: I think for, for me, what, what is really exciting about this is that we have a way to be able to articulate what we consider as identity, representation, and what we consider as normal. And again, the really cool thing is like there's no like one definition that's going to unite us or one definition of what it means to be American or one definition of what it means to be a decent human being.
And also just, you know how we move in this space, whether it's, you know, Arizona Phoenix or, or the United States, our place in the in this society shouldn't be based on like whether or not you belong. It should really just be based on who you are, what you believe, and having confidence that that is enough to be a, you know, someone who contributes to society and maybe even make it a better place.