Reflective Essay: My Personal Racial Identity

Since my freshmen year in college I have been aware of my personal racial identity, but every year I become more aware and confident of my true racial identity. One of the first things that I learned while exploring my racial identity was the inequality of job opportunities between white people and people of color. During my high school years but especially my freshman year I learned that people like me do not receive equal job opportunities. Therefore, it is interesting to hear Moule state that “personal-identity formation, results from the integration of personal experiences each individual has as an African American or Native American or European American as well as the messages that have been communicated and internalized about ethnicity by family members, significant others, and the community” (p. 150). This is interesting because as a child, I learned that my parents struggle a lot to find a job and when they did they were exploited. Later I learned that this is part of what creates my racial identity because people can identify me as a person of color that will not succeed in life or I can identify myself in same way in the sense that I will go on the same route as my parents.

This topic really helps me understand how capitalism works. Capitalist want profit and they want insane amounts of profits yet they want to pay a ridiculous salary to their employers. And who are the best people to employ? People of color because of their limited choices. This fact really frustrates me because it is still happening now and because that is part of my racial identity. However, this treatment will not continue because I plan to succeed in life with my education. I plan to embrace my racial identity now as a college student and later in my future