My Personal Identity

Coming into Trinity I was scared and nervous about the prospect of meeting new people, making new friends, and doing well in my major. I believe this quote by Marilynne Robinson describes my emotions before coming to college, “I would say, for the moment, that community, at least community larger than the immediate family, consists very largely of imaginative love for people we do not know or whom we know very slightly.” As I entered college I knew meeting people would be hard, because I am not outgoing. Instead, I thought to myself I will know the girls on the soccer team and that will be nice. This imaginative love I had for my team grounded me and made me a little less afraid of what was to come.

My purpose is to show my individuality and to express myself. This is for others including myself, to see and to remind us that our identity is very complex.

Everybody has an identity, it makes them individual and unique, and it defines who you are as a person. This project about my identity showed me what makes me unique. I would have never known how much my friends mean to me or how my identities connect with each other. I have three identities that make me who I am, cultural, personal, and social. A specific quality that covers my cultural identity is being Czechoslovakian. Both sides of my family have at least a part of Czech in them. My great-grandparents are from Czech Republic and my grandpa was the first generation in America, he was born in Ohio. This is very important because I have always identified as Czech and it is a big part of me, as I am so interested in ancestry. For my personal identity, the biggest part is my personality, being loud and outgoing, has always been important to me. The reason being, it is how people view me. A lot of people know me as the loud person or the person who talks a lot. That is meaningful to me considering I like people to view me in a certain way The last identity, social, is one of the most important to me because it involves my friends, and through this project, I learned how vital they really are to my social identity. I realized that I have a good amount of friends in this project. It is nice to have people as a support system and to relate with. These qualities show that I value being loud and outgoing. It also says that I value my family and they are a big part of life. The last one, social, ties in with the first one because it shows I am outgoing and friendly.

I believe we all like to think of ourselves as free-thinkers; that is to say, we are all set in our beliefs in one way or another and feel as though our opinions-especially as they pertain to religion and politics- and even our mannerisms are a product of our own individuality and personal world view. However, it is more likely that our identity is shaped less by our own natural inclinations and more by events we have experienced and people we have encountered at various points in our lives. I myself am no exception. As a child, my home life was neither very abusive nor exceptionally loving, but was one that I suppose, for the most, was normal. The political climate of my home was conservative by and large, and naturally my family (my mother epecially) was deeply rooted in evangelical Christianity (Pentecostalism, to be precise). It was through the latter that the things we were and were not ultimately exposed to were filtered. By the time I was ten years old, the religious environment of my home became very strict- the only televiosion programs we watched at home were those broadcsted by evangelical stations, and the same appied to radio stations we listened to and books we read. If any sort of material-be it books, movies, or music- that even bore semblance or anything secular or simply non-religious in nature, my mother saw that it was swiftly and surely eradicted, so as not to corrupt our young and fragile minds. Not surprisingly, my mother who enforced this rigourous

I have allowed my appearance to be shaped by my culture and society but also try to adapt and add to the accepted fashion in order to make it my own. I have outgrown old tendencies while still keeping several specific elements of them. Generally what I am is a web that has been weaved with trates of my past self and new influences. Changing who I am visually takes time to fully adapt, the transition is made easier by the adaptation of my old traits.

am a student, with a meaningful background and identity. If I did not explain and share my story you would not understand who I am as a person, a student, an athlete, a friend, sibling, or a daughter. Just like any other student I have qualified for many titles, but my titles are affected by my identity and background. I am a student diagnosed with a severe mental illness.

Some school lunches I am not Emily, but a large, furry feline with a row of canines for teeth. Fans rush over to snap a picture, and I happily acquiesce. In these short 30 minutes, I become everyone’s best friend. I am the school’s mascot, the beloved bearcat.

Sunday mornings my mother in the kitchen singing in Spanish cooking breakfast for everyone afterward we would head to church, a Latino congregation. My parents would be talking in Spanish, I would always understand what they were saying when they would talk with me speaking English or Spanish interchangeably back to them. It never occurred to me that other kids’ parents do not speak another language because I was so used to both. As I grew up I was always called the gringa (white girl) of the family. From neighbors to classmates, co-workers, and people I interacted with in general did not think I was Latina because I have fair skin and naturally blonde hair but light brown eyes, my brother, and, father have green eyes and blonde hair too. It never really bothered me until I realized later as I grew up and started to navigate the world more on my own that I saw it as an issue. Being confronted by people who challenge me on my own identity has given me another identity in which I must defend and prove that the labels I put on myself are mine and I do not need to meet your requirements for you to accept that I am who I say I am.

I’ve lived my life according to the saying “why fit in when you were born to stand out;” therefore, I’ve made a point to differentiate myself from my peers and my family. In my community, I belonged to the 3.65% of people who identify as part of the Other category in my home town. As a white girl in a Hispanic town, I was an outlier from the rich Hispanic Culture. This defined my life from a young age and directed me to learn to thrive while standing out. At home, I was raised in a household where at the end of the day we would congregate around the TV to watch the latest football game. Although I adore spending time with my family, I would rather read than breathe; my family does not relate to that. These circumstances, albeit sometimes daunting due to their secluding side effects, have allowed me to embrace being unique and to capitalize on my individuality to achieve my goals, in a world where I may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

When I was younger my self-esteem was very low but it started to grow once I found myself the understanding of my self-concept. My physical characteristics I obviously knew I was tall, skinny, and had curly hair. However, I had to learn how to become confident in that, I used to always straighten my hair and slouched to seem shorter and even tried to gain weight because people said I was “too skinny”. I soon realized when I tried to change my physical characteristics of my social traits to get people to like me I became unhappy. My social traits are parallel with my beliefs. When I became Christian I started to embrace who I was. My basic structure of who I am is based off being kind and opened minded to everyone even if they are the complete opposite as me to be accepting of even them. My defining interests correlate with my talents as well, I love playing my ukulele even though I would count it as a lack of talent. I love running distance and Nordic skiing. I also on the side love any outdoor activity and reading, especially old books like my favorite is Jane eerie. I used to think to be unique you had to have interests and talents that no one else normally liked but I realized I can still be an individual with this. My role in society like my family role helped me realize how special I was even though my interests and talents might not be unique. My family role and role as a friend are the most important to me. I have another roles as well like a student and an employee

My brother blew his hand up with a firework and lost 3 fingers. That experience changed his identity by making him a better person because he started to appreciate everything more.

I am Claire Worsham. My family ancestry is mainly from Western Europe such as France, England, Wales, Germany, and Switzerland. I am the youngest of a nuclear family, where I live with my two parents and my older brother. The majority of my family on both my father and mother’s side are different denominations of Christian and practice the traditional Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. My family on my father’s side is spread out across the southwest mainly. While my mother’s side is centrally in Tennessee.

Being held to such high expectations by one's family can put a lot of pressure on an individual. For several years, both my parents and grandparents have worked immensely, to get their future children in the place that I am now: in a place with satisfactory education and opportunities. I hope that in the future with these opportunities, I will be able to be the first to go to college, and build my own career. My Mexican cultural background is very special to me, in the way that causes me to see things in a different perspective than others. It also empowers me because with it, comes many stereotypes and proving them wrong is something I am determined to do. I am still at a young age where I am still trying to figure my future out, and in order to do this, I must be able to figure out my identity and purpose. I am nothing but grateful that my family has been able to give me the opportunities and unique culture, because with this, I will be able to break many barriers within my family.

Religion, education, being made in God’s image, circumstances of birth, freedom, fear, and care for others form my identity and the identities of those in the Old Testament. I, like the patriarchs, identify myself by these standards and uphold them even during a challenge because these markers establish who I am as a person and the fundamental principle of my being. By staying true to these markers, I represent my passions while not breaking under the pressure of society.

Throughout my life, I’ve struggled with my identity as an individual, and I still continue to question who I really am as a person. Although I can certainly tell people of my opinions and what I believe in, such as being a liberal and an individualist. I can never tell others of what I really am, personally. I do think that my past experiences and family background has affected how I identity as a person, and how I express myself towards others. In the past, and perhaps even now, I have been alone for most of the time and remained closed up within my home, never coming out of my shell, since I had the Internet and I could fulfill my enjoyment there. However, I later realized I still lack the sense of personal contact that I see with my peers and other people, even to this day. My family was also relatively small and without much connections with the people in their families, since they immigrated from the Philippines, so all I had for most of my life was the ones closest to me like my Mom, Dad, Sister, and my Grandparents, so that contributed to me being alone for most of my life. However, there was a key event that allowed me to regain confidence within myself and discover who I was as a person, and its effects continue to influence me to this day.