Life 's Third Psychosocial Crisis Identity And Role Confusion

The peer reviewed article “Ethnic and Racial Identity During Adolescence into Young Adulthood: An Integrated Conceptualization” is a well written article on the struggle that people of color face when coming face to face with their identity in social situations. Umana-Taylor, Quintana, Lee, Cross, Rivas-Drake, Schwartz and Seaton (2014) analyzed ethnic and racial identity or ERI and how it relates to important developments and issues from early childhood well on into young adulthood. They worked to find the most important milestones during the development or ERI as well (Umana-Taylor et. al 2014). This paper will consist of the information given from the article and how I’ve dealt with my own ERI.

Each and every person on this Earth today has an identity. Over the years, each individual creates their identity through past experiences, family, race, and many other factors. Race, which continues to cause problems in today’s world, places individuals into certain categories. Based on their race, people are designated to be part of a larger, or group identity instead of being viewed as a person with a unique identity. Throughout Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard is on a search for his true identity. Throughout Black Boy, one can see that Richard’s racial background assigns him with a certain identity or a certain way in which some

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

Race and ethnicity have always been a difficult topic to talk about, but not because I am embarrassed, but because to this date I’m still confused. Most of the time I find myself confused and asking questions such as, who am I? Where do I belong?

The growth of identity is a practice molded by a person’s family history, environmental experiences, and societal attachments. Identity endures ordeals to make the person secure and attentive so that it’s easier for the person to know what to expect out of their life. Although changes in our surroundings can be accepted, adjustments to one’s identity can often be challenging. Particularly in African American identity, there is difficulty in accepting who one is and knowing one’s place in society. There is an even greater difficulty if one is a biracial African American.

As a teenage minority, it was a slight struggle in the beginning in trying to identify myself. Miller (2010) argues that this struggle started early as a child due to the fact that minority children are often told how they should identify themselves in a politically correct manner which alters the child’s “racial identity development” (39). For the longest time, I wasn’t quite sure how to identify myself in a racial manner; should I refer to myself as being Black, or should I say African American? Society created difficulties for me to be able to identify myself, especially since both labels can have different connotations. To be Black in a Black community meant that you had pride and confidence, whereas in society, it meant that you were

This book discusses how minorities deal with contrasting identities. The author’s main claim is that young Asian American are able to follow the mainstream consciously while keeping other identities, constructing a “lived hybridity”. One of the author’s claims is that Asian American claim different identity expressions according to different contexts, such as in the home, in workplaces and in civil society. In addition, the author argues that because of these Asian Americans’ ability to blur the group boundaries, they could both resist and support conventional social notions. The author made his study by interviewing seventy second-generation professionals, including both Korean American and Indian American who are college-educated and full-time

This client’s name is Tyler Harker. (He is a fourteen-year-old male student who has type 1 diabetes mellitus. Tyler’s primary caregiver is himself and his mother. He is in the psychosocial stage of identity versus role confusion. The cognitive stage of this client is formal operational. Tyler is the learner. He speaks English and does not have any disabilities related to learning, has no other pre-existing health conditions, and no sociocultural factors that may impede learning. The client identifies his strengths as being able to take care of himself and being independent. His motivation to learn seems to be strong as evidenced by behaviors of listening, nodding, and sitting straight up in a chair with arms open. The client has good reading and comprehension at his age level as indicated by him reading out of his school history book. Indications that suggest the client has the ability to problem solve include him being able to come up with concepts and alternatives. The home environment is very clean, uncluttered and organized and requires no modifications. If the client cannot carry out his care, his mom and dad are both available and in-tune with how to give Tyler’s care. Other support available for Tyler include his peers, church group, and diabetes camp he attends yearly. Tyler is ready to deal with his own self-care and motivated to learn [Hunt, 2009].)

While my dad is African American with black, thick, hair and strong bold features. Growing up as a biracial girl I’ve always loved my thick curly hair, light brown skin, and full facial features, and I have been unquestionably comfortable in my skin as a young girl. However, when I went to middle school I started questioning my identity. When I started to make friends they would constantly ask me. “ Do you act black or white?” At first I was too confused to answer, the question would replay in my head for the rest of the day. Do I act black or white? What does that mean? What qualifies as black or white? How do you act a skin color? Those were some of the few questions I would ask myself as their question haunted me. As school continued, I learned what acting “black” or “white” meant. To act black meant you knew all the hip-hop songs and dances, to want the newest pair of Jordan’s dropping, and to live in a one parent home. To act white meant you talked “proper”, listened to Top 40 music, and cared about the way you behaved in school, or being a “goodie two shoes”. After understanding what acting like a race meant, I was excited to know I fit some things in both descriptions. having characteristics in both, I thought I would have a better chance of making friends. Unfortunately, I was wrong. People thought that I was acting fake, or that I was “trying too hard”. My peers constantly told me that I was

The identity crisis occurs when individuals are facing the dilemma of either of the culture to make some fundamental decisions. From certain angle it is more severe on second generation Asian Americans than the first generation Asian Americans. According to Justin Chan, a second-generation Chinese American, she states that to build a bicultural identity is actually a balancing act for her. In order to feel more comfortable in both cultural groups, second-generation Asian Americans choose to identify differently when facing different people. They need to punctuate their “American side” when dealing with non-Asian peers and also punctuate their “Asian side” at home when facing their families. This kind of balancing act is widely applied to second-generation Asian Americans.

The steady increase of biracial children has raised questions about the possible unique phases of identity development for these individuals. Since the social acknowledgement of biracial people, numerous researchers have posed questions about whether or not the experience of identity development for biracial persons is unique. Because biracial people do not fit into any one racial category, their racial identity and racial status differs from other minority or non-White groups. There are many factors that influence the process of forming a biracial identity including race, culture, ethnicity, family, and the social and historical contexts biracial people are born and raised within. According to Stone’s article (2009), race, culture, and ethnicity may sometimes be difficult to negotiate for mixed race individuals and their

A person’s owns racial and ethnic identity is impacted due to youthful familiarities. This is brought out through adolescence and remains throughout their life. However, a person’s growth development varies from person to person is contingent based on their race and ethnicity, and there are five stages that contains evolving racial and ethnic identity. The five stages are the Conformity Stage, the Dissonance and Appreciating Stage, the Resistance and Immersions Stage, the Introspection Stage, and the Integrative Awareness Stage. During each phase, Atkinson et al., (1998; Sue & Sue, 2008) emphasizes the client’s outlooks for self, others of the similar minority group, others of a diverse minority group and outlooks concerning the lead group.

My mother is Polish and Italian but my father is African American so growing up as a biracial person was always somewhat of a challenge. My relatives my my mothers side always saw my siblings and I as somewhat outsiders because we bared many physical differences from many of them, whereas when I encountered my fathers side of the family it always started out that I was more similar to them but I ended up not being like them enough to be fully accepted as one of them either. It is interesting because some see me as belonging more to a “white” culture and some see me more associated with “black” culture making me feel as though I never really belonged to either. It impacts my identity because at times it can make me feel as though there is not

In today’s society the high influx of interracial marriages between Black and White individuals has resulted in the biracial population increasing significantly over the past 30 years (Roth, 2005). According to the 2010 census, the number of American children that categorize themselves as biracial has increased to 4.2 million, making it the quickest emergent youth group in the United States (Census, 2010). This has led to interest in the biracial population; recent literature has shown that amongst many studies, “individuals perceive the relationship between their mixed parentage and their self identity differently” (Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002). This is significant in the area of child development and family studies because self-identity

All throughout our lives, we wrestle with the question of who am I and what do I want in life? However, it is usually during the adolescent years that this issue really comes to a head and we begin a more earnest search into finding ourselves and deciding the direction we want to take with our lives. One of the theorists who studied this idea of identity formation was James Marcia. Marcia proposed that there were four different stages or statuses in the development of identity which he labeled Identity Diffusion, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium, and Identity Achievement. In this essay, we will briefly summarize his four different stages and then apply his theory to my own identity development during the adolescent years.