Personal Narrative: My Identity

Culture and identity are inextricably linked concepts. Identity is formed by your culture and in turn your identity shapes the respective cultures of the groups you identify with. I belong to many different cultural groups, and my identity is a complex web of competing and conflicting beliefs, experiences, and characteristics. My identity is not only complex, but also dynamic, as the experiences I have change who I am.

Identifying my identity is a not a very easy thing for me because a few of my strong beliefs have flaws and loopholes. If someone’s reasoning for doing something I believe to be wrong my strong opinion on my belief is questioned. My identity is a work in process like many other and more times than not I do not even know who I am. I have always believed in the practice of accountability for your words and actions as well the act of showing people the respect they should be given.

“Someone forgot to take a shower.” Two pairs of eyes immediately looked over at me. My first day of sixth grade was full of many microaggressions and passive aggressive chuckles. “No, but actually, who smells like that?” Attending a predominantly white school in the suburbs of Minnesota attenuates you to that kind of stuff. “Is it true Ethiopians eat food with their hands like monkeys?” Little did I know that these microscopic insignificant interactions had a greater impact on my awareness of my own identity than anyone else. I stood five feet tall, with my dark brown skin, and wore my hair into two puff balls, one on each side. I already stood out. The strong smell that surrounded my entire body is what made me stand out even more. Middle

I always knew my identity was one that speaks that I am very compassionate towards others and have great patience, but it wasn’t until the impact of one little girl that made me realize I hold the interest in wanting to give back to the community by helping others who are incapable of helping themselves.

There is a time where you have a problem. A problem with your own identity. The way you look and act around people. Where you come from is what makes you look different from other people. How you act around people makes people think about you and wants to befriend you.

Early experiences are important because they can change a person’s future. Depending on the child’s family and the people around him/her, their teachings, language, and behavior around the child are very important. My identity was established as a child when my parents gave birth to me and raised me, taught me, and became a role model for me. They helped me create my beliefs, and shape my identity to become a good person in society. My parents taught me what is right and wrong, and helped show me the right path to take in life. For example, they taught me how to tie my shoes, how to clean up after myself, some home remedies for illnesses and injuries, etc… During my childhood when I was young, my parents read to me stories every night, sang, talked to me about Buddhism, and taught me morals and all the good things I should do. My mom kept talking to me in Vietnamese and English so when I was 2 years old, I could talk in Vietnamese and understand English pretty well. My parents had not talked to me about Buddha and spoke to me in Vietnamese and English, I might have not been the bilingual teenager that I am today.

I like to think that my journey to finding my identity has been a complicated one. As in my case identity was something no one really focused on finding but at the age of fourteen my complicated identity would come to accept a new part of it, Cancer. But it is not what I identify myself as, it makes up my identity but I don’t let that define it.

From the moment I was born me and my twin sister were always seen as a pair. We did everything together; we had the same friends, we ate the same food, we drove the same car, we were on the same athletic teams. We did everything together for fifteen years. However, one day I decided that I wanted to create my own identity. After playing soccer for ten years on the same team with my twin, I finally decided I was going to do something by myself. I decided to switch over and conquer the game of golf without my sister by my side.

My identities are complicated and hard to explain so the best way I can do at this point is do kind of a free form of the two and then explain them the best way I possibly can. My first identity would be the blue collar professional one (Mr. Coverdale). he is well-spoken, poised, well-mannered, and knowledgeable. The second identity (Henry). He would be the short tempered, disrespectful, and just do not care about anyone or anything but himself and takes no bull from anyone. They get along more than they disagree with each other helping each other out in a way that things get done in the right way, but they do bump head from time to time. The situation in which that happens has to be the most challenging and conflicting. sometimes one is entirely

As a young girl in elementary school I would get the question “what are you?” As a junior in high school, whether in school or in the grocery store, I am still frequently asked that same question. I used to feel embarrassed of my identity when they asked what I was. My usual response was to slightly laugh and tell them I was “mixed.”

Even my close friends say that they don't know me well. I don’t feel sorry about this because it is the product of my efforts to hide my identity. Born half Japanese and half Korean, I have been secretive as to my identity since I have never been welcomed in Korea and in Japan. The Koreans have shunned me for being a descendant of the people who colonized them brutally, while the Japanese distanced themselves from me, saying that I am one of those who keep demanding apologies that they had already done.

Being able to find identity for myself seemed like a walk of solitude through my silence and confusion. Growing up biracial I observed others as they look me up and down to figure out what I am because to them, I am something different, something almost oriental, something to put a label on because they cannot perceive the in between. With polite smiles people would ask the “what are you?” question. By never being able to escape others apprehension, I strayed away, I drew the lines for myself.

My identity and purpose was shaped in my second year of high school, the best and yet the most trying time of my life. The winter of 2015 was the time I was taken out of my bubble in the north and was placed in a frying pan in the south. Moving into a foreign place is always hard and many people have similar stories about the adversity they faced but for me it wasn’t just the hard times that shaped me, the hard times that everyone goes through while moving allowed me to be malleable but the lessons taught to me by my family helped me reach a different outlook on myself and life in general. I remember that during the worst times I would look to the few people left around me that I felt I could trust; this was best evidenced in a day when I

One of the things that always bothered me about the idea of immortality is, as you can guess by the title, persistence of self. Identity. Whether I'd still be ME, in any way that matters, after a large period of time.

Who am I? Who am I? A question that I have constantly asked myself . A question that I haven’t found a complete and accurate solution for. Before this mystery is solved, I have already discovered a few personalities of my own. I, Richard Shum, welcome the opportunity to tell you more about myself.