Defining Culture and Identities

There are two different dimensions of our identities: ethnicity and race. Ethnicity refers to one’s belonging to a specific cultural, or racial group that makes up culture, race language, and/or place of origin. For example, one can be African-American but have different ethnicities, one African-American and the other African-Caribbean decent. Race is a social construct that can be changed over time. Historically, referring to its specific characteristics one possesses based on: ethnicity, religion, or language; today's its classified solely based upon the color of one’s skin. Nevertheless, ethnic and racial identities are important and instill a sense of belonging and identifying with that specific group through attitude, behaviors. Moreover,

Identity is a group of characteristics, data or information that belongs exactly to one person or a group of people and that make it possible to establish differences between them. The consciousness that people have about themselves is part of their identity as well as what makes them unique. According to psychologists, identity is a consistent definition of one’s self as a unique individual, in terms of role, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Identity tries to define who people are, what they are, where they go or what they want to be or to do. Identity could depend on self-knowledge, self-esteem, or the ability of individuals to achieve their goals. Through self-analysis people can define who they are and who the people around them

Though it does not come up in everyday thought, cultural identity is an idea that all humans possess. Abridged, cultural identity can be simply explained as the sharing of a similar culture by people of various ethnicities. However, cultural identity is more complex than that, defined by an individual’s values, beliefs, and ideas of moral behavior influenced by their culture. Furthermore, cultural identity is ever changing from individual to individual. This means that although two individuals may be of the same ethnicity, differences in circumstances may cause variations between the individuals’ personal beliefs. As a result of interracial interactions, multiculturalism has grown during the twenty-first century.

There is a Mexican man that enters with the rest of his family. They eat beans, rice, flour tortillas and etc. The family does there every day routine, the dad wakes up at six- thirty to go to work in his truck. The children go to school and the mother stays at home. The things a person does in their all has a reason which goes all back to culture. Culture is what makes up everyone different from one another. Texts such as “What is Cultural Identity?”, “Where Worlds Collide” and “Two ways to Belong” supports that depending on one’s culture it effects one perspective on the world and others.

According to Josh Sides, author of “L.A. City Limits,” there are three reasons why the demography of Southern California shifted so much in the 20th century. Sides states that diverse racial composition, dynamic economic growth, and dispersive spatial arrangement are what makes Southern California what it is today. He believes people migrated to the Los Angeles area looking for a better opportunity for work and living conditions. In the book, Sides makes it clear that Los Angeles is the city where African Americans chose to reside in order to seek better living conditions. People, especially minorities, wanted to be treated fairly and they wanted to be looked at as equals. Sides gets this point across clearly when he says “…they wanted to be treated with respect, dignity, and equality in public…” It is because of these reasons that minorities began changing the face of not only Los Angeles, but the entire state of California.

The world has become modern and global. Identification of the self is a complicated, though, an important problem of every individual. Self- identity is based on inner values and reflections on culture, politics and social interactions. The main point is that people label themselves to any particular group in the society (Worchel etc., 1998). According to Ferguson: “Identity commonly refers to which it makes, or is thought to make

This shows how people are afraid of the people around them simply because they do not know what is out there. They choose not to accept who is in it. And because of that they believe that they live in a terrifying world where they can trust no one. Likely, people shut themselves and everybody out of their lives. “Their findings underscored the cost of diversity: when people have little in common, they tend to avoid each other and to keep to themselves” (40). People don’t put themselves out there to meet new people because they automatically assume that they do not have anything in common. When people accept diversity, they will learn that color does not matter. The town they live in will just keep fading over time making trouble for the

Does someone's cultural identity affect how they look at the world an other people? Cultural identity affects how someone looks at the world and how they look at others. The culture that someone creates for themselves determines how they look at the world and someone. Your childhood, lessons you learn throughout your life, and your cultural heritage all effect your culture and how you look at people and the world. There is also some people that are not affected by their culture only affected by their childhood and lessons that they grew up with in other words there not affected by their parent's culture heritage their affected by their culture they made for themselves. Culture affects everyone and the extent of the effect determines how

A person’s identity may be determined by him/her family background and this is proven evident in the essay “Private and Public Language” by Rodriguez. We live in a world in which identities are determined prematurely without hesitation. This means that even without getting to know an individuals personality the first thing that is done instead is determining identities based on your physical state, family, or family background. As a culture we live in a diverse environment in which the majority of people come from a different place, and as a result many are identified differently depending on where he/she and their family are from. Today’s culture is more diverse than ever, and more and more people are migrating to different countries and settling so I feel like it

Our identity can sometimes be shaped by the way others see us. As we have seen, the way in which others view us can have some sort of impact on how we see ourselves. There are also other contributing factors such as our years of adolescence, the basic human need of wanting to belong and maturing; all play an equally important part in the forming of our character and who we are. On balance it appears that there is not only one influence in the shaping of our identity, but there are many.

Many years of exploration on identity has revealed five wide measurements of identity. These supposed Big Five measurements are called:

“Children begin to develop a sense of identity as individuals and as members of groups from their earliest interactions with others (McAdoo, 1993; Sheets, 1999a)”(Trumbull and Pacheco 9). The very idea of being able to understand your own culture can better you as a person and give you an even deeper understanding of life. Such cultural things you should understand is your beliefs, the types of food you eat, what types of ethnicity they belong to, and even where you live. These four things can give you a deeper understanding of your own culture. Now a day cultures are mixed it is said that “Not all of these aspects need to be shared, however, for people to psychologically identify with a particular ethnic

There are various kinds of identity (individualized or shared) that people are expected to possess. (Hollinger, 2004) namely; personal identity which is known as a

Identity in a sociological sense is more than individual genetics or individuality. Self identity is made up by many characteristics including; our personal experiences, beliefs, socio-economic status and other factors. Society plays a huge role in determining identity, although true identity generally isn’t a true reflection of an individual’s self identity. Over the generations there have been

In most case, identity is shaped by culture. Since culture is a set of ideals life practices, routines and attitudes set up by a certain community hence culture plays a major role in shaping the identity of an individual. An individual’s character and attributes can be because of their background. This is due to the set up that one has grown up (Dumas 19). People tend to learn more about their culture, and as they grow up it becomes part of them. They embrace the culture’s beliefs and tend to do things following the set routines. The aspect of following the set routine and beliefs play a significant part in shaping the identity of an individual.