but I do not think about what that means nor what means for my other identities nearly as much as I probably should. While the captured Africans, repressed Native Americans, and the European settlers that fragmented them are all parts of my ancestry and have led to my current identity, my identity now is so vastly different from their modern counterparts. Let me begin with the dominate culture that makes up the bulk of my identity, African
The United States is known as the place to achieve the American Dream and one of the attributes that make the U.S. distinctive is variety of races and ethnicities from people all across the country. According to Romesh Ratnesar in his essay “Beating the Wrap”; he believes that people of mixed-race ancestry should not identify themselves as belonging to one race or another, but as “multiracial.” On the other hand, I do not agree with this statement. I believe that how people choose to define their race is their personal decision. If they want to consider themselves multiracial, that is acceptable or if they want to consider themselves another race that is acceptable as well.
The Question of Identity According to Shahram Heshmat, author of “Basics of Identity”, “Identity is concerned largely with the question: “Who are you?” What does it mean to be who you are? Identity relates to our basic values that dictate the choices we make…”. But sometime within every human being’s life, a situation arises where someone is not able to identify themselves, and because of this they can act strangely and sometimes hostile.
In the past I have struggled with my biracial identity. As a child I was confused about which community I belonged in because I am a mix of Navajo and Caucasian. As I got older, I began to question myself and who I was. I felt like I did not belong to either the Native or Caucasian community because in both groups I felt like someone else. I felt as if I had to live two lives that were completely separated.
Throughout the semester, the course has taught me a lot about myself and those around me. I have learned that based on Cross’ racial identity model I am in stage 5. It was new to me to find out there was model based on racial identity. Stage 5 means that I able to talk to anyone in and outside of my racial group. Which would mean that I would not have to seek counseling to correct an issue because there isn't one.
One’s ethnicity can classify your identity. American colonists also identified themselves by fighting with different sides in the American
The Racial/Cultural Identity Development Model by Sue & Sue (2012), is an active example to understand clients’ attitudes and behaviors toward themselves and their culture as well as the culture of others. According to West-Olatunji, Frazier, Guy, Smith, Clay & Breaux (2007), “This model poses the following questions (Sue & Sue, 2003): (a) With whom do you identify and why? (b) What culturally diverse attitudes and beliefs do you accept or reject and why? (c) What dominant cultural attitudes and beliefs do you accept or reject and why? and (d) How do your current attitudes and beliefs affect your interaction with other culturally diverse clients and people of the dominant culture?
Racial identity plays a role in the physical and psychological features of humans. Physically, humans in different parts of the globe endure different conditions and environments. Humans adapt to their environments and obtain different physical traits, henceforth, these physical traits have become adjacent to race. Psychologically, ancestral prejudices and influences throughout history have lingered through the generations and have impacted modern racial identities and tensions. Ethnic conflicts of the past such as the Social Darwinist theory of a "superior race" are morally refuted in current times, but that assumption had a brunt impact in which the world is still repairing today.
Introduction The concept of identity has been a notion of significant interest not just to sociologists and psychologists, but also to individuals found in a social context of perpetually trying to define themselves. Often times, identities are given to individuals based on their social status within a certain community, after the assessment of predominant characteristics that said individual has. However, within the context of an ethnicity, the concept identity is most probably applied to all members of the ethnical group, and not just one individual. When there is one identity designated for the entire group, often times the factor of “individuality” loses its significance, especially when referring to the relationship between the ethnic
Identity The message Latterell tried to communicate in this text is that identity is not defined by one thing but by many things. In her text she says that three things can influence identity: what we are born with, the culture we are born within and the choices we make for ourselves. I can relate her idea that identity can be influenced too by the culture you are born in; when she says, “identity is shaped trough acculturation. Acculturation is the process by which we absorb the practices, attitudes, and beliefs of particular social groups.”
Each individual has their own different social identity. One’s social identity is constructed based on the different influences around them. The development of social identity is influenced by various factors such as the historical, cultural and religious beliefs of the society, community or family where one is brought up. It is influenced by the behaviours and attitudes of authority figures such as parents, teachers and community leaders around them, it is also influenced by external factors such as the media, one’s peers and the overall exposure one has (Carrim, 2006, p56).
Throughout my experiences in this course so far, I have had many opportunities to reflect on my own past and have begun to better understand my own cultural identity. It has been much more difficult to wrap my head around than I would have predicted it to be because so many things play into the construction of an identity that it can be hard to look at all of those separate pieces together. My cultural identity, like all others, is more complicated than it first appears. I identify as a white person, a woman, an American, a gay person, and a feminist, just to name a few. While all of these labels carry with them stereotypes and expectations, they also interplay with the cultural influences I was subject to throughout my childhood.
This chapter explains the difference between race and ethnicity and how they came about. It also explains the advantages and disadvantages some have due to the creation of race. Race and ethnicity have strong foundations not only within countries, but between them. Globalization has increased the individual’s ethnic identities, but has also put some at disadvantages. Having different races and ethnicities is not an issue, but ranking the different races and putting others at disadvantages creates issues.
While identity focuses on uniqueness such as how an individual is different from and similar to others, diversity focuses on the range of the difference and uniqueness such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, among others. Diversity should be seen as source of strength. However, it can also be a source of violence, oftentimes by those who fear or dislike difference. In the best light diversity is foundation for peacebuilding – since it enables us to draw strength and be respectful of difference. Identity and diversity are linked.
Cultural identity plays a very vital role in cross cultural communication, people from a particular culture communicate with partners and employees from many different cultures and in this situation every individual strives to keep their cultural and individual identity. According to Gardiner and Kosmitzki, identity is defined as “a person 's self-definition as a separate and distinct individual, including behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes” (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2008, p. 154). Also, Ting-Toomey defines identity as a "reflective self-conception or self-image that we each derive from our family, gender, cultural, ethnic, and individual socialization process"( Ting-Toomey, 2005). Both definitions bring out the generalisation of cultural identity
