Scholars and teachers with PhDs in English are well-versed in identity studies, gender studies, ethnicity studies, and postcolonial studies. They are very good at talking and writing about these subjects in the abstract. However, when facing a classroom of students who come from cultural backgrounds considerably different from the hypothetical college student's, with identities, values, faiths, beliefs, and myths unlike those of mainstream America, they--we--are woefully ill-prepared.