Personal Narrative: My Personal Identity

My identity can be defined by moments in my life. Moving to Canada, learning English and going to high school are three major moments in my life. Going through these experiences have changed the person in me and made me more confident, stronger, better in everything.

What is identity? The definition as a person’s own sense of whom they are, which their past define them. Identity is very important in our society, no matter your social status. I can attach identity to belonging to something or place. As human race, we feel the need to belong to a group or place. Because belonging to a group or place, give us the sense of identity.

Naturally, my small hometown wasn’t diverse. Being the only Indian in school made me hesitant to embrace my identity. Facing racial microaggressions on a regular basis was uncomfortable and burdensome, but I realized there was going to be no change for me unless I learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Although I knew that I was fortunate to be more than financially comfortable, it was still a struggle to be comfortable being the darkest person in school. A positive aspect of living in such rural area is that I learned to value simplicity, hard work, and generosity.

One aspect of my identity that has shaped my life experience and the way I see the world is my race. I am an African- American who has Nigerian descent from both parents. Growing up African American is hard for many of us, but we always come together to help each other out. We get judged for our skin color, religion, sexuality, and economic status. When I was younger, I always thought about what other people would say about me and how I looked. Even though it was hard seeing how other races portrayed my race, I have learned to embrace my skin color and not let anybody judge me. The society believes that African Americans are lazy, uneducated, and violent. Things people say about me and my race only make me want to prove myself to them that I am proud of my race and would never change myself for anybody.

When I pondered all of the character traits that I retain, a prominent attribute that recurred to me was that of independence. I have been called

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.

Identity. Who we are. How we define ourselves. Imagine taking away something that defines you. You’re left feeling “who am I?”

The majority of people find it natural to separate what they believe from who they are as an individual. They are able to draw conclusions from what they believe to be true about the world and have separate experiences that they allow to define them. However, I am very intentional about not allowing experiences to define what I believe to be true or allow it to carry much weight in defining me as an individual. In a perfect world, I would rather allow my experiences to be an expression of what I believe.

Identity is a very in depth topic that explores someone’s inner self, simply putting it; identity is what makes you the way that you are. I have honestly never pondered this question in such depth. So receiving this essay, it was bittersweet, I have never pondered this question before, but on the other hand, being the age that I am it is important to understand my identity so this is a good opportunity to do so. While pondering this question, I have found that my identity consists of different elements that contribute to who I am. These elements include my religion, my character traits, talents, environment, and my aspirations and my passions. These elements influence the choices I make that strengthen and broaden my identity.

One of the things that I struggle with in life is Identity. I have been questing God about seminary school, family, friends, work, marriage, kids and even the color of my skin. I come from a place where if you are a black man wearing a pair of jeans with a white tee shirt you are considered a thug, or if you have twist, dreadlock you are a thug. I come from a place where your father is not in your life and over 70% of he black man are raised in a fatherless home. Where most of uses are raised in the street because, them are the only man in our life that will pay use some attention. But in my case I was blessed to go home to a dad ever night even though I can’t tell you anything about my father for the simple fact that he never gave me a hung, kiss, tell me he loves me, spend any time with me, say anything positive, always talking to me and my mom like we are noting, even beat my mom and when you try to tell family about it they just look at me like am crazy.

The word identity is normally associated with race, religious beliefs and looks, however, I believe identity is much deeper than that and can only be seen by its beholder. It is a person's inner passions or interests, who they are inside.The topic of identity made me think deeply about who I am and what I value; how others may perceive me as.One hard thing about this exercise was deciding wheater or not to include religion as a part of my identity, and in the end my religion did not define me enough to include it in my identity. At about eight o’clock at night when I was stuck on the topic of identity and who I was, I realised that it was not my race, religion, or looks that shaped me personally

Since being adopted, I have continued to try to find more about who I am and what I am supposed to do. Although I have been asked many times when I found out and how it makes me feel, it is still a taboo topic to talk about because of the little information I know. I was admitted to the orphanage after being found at the bottom of a staircase in the middle of a village square. After ten months of being admitted, I was adopted, but I almost did not make it because of a high fever and infection. As a baby, I did not want to hold any medicine that was given to me and because of this, a close family friend had to fly in some Western medicine so that I could have a chance at life. Since then it has been a challenge to find my place in this world

A majority of people I have spoken to despise running; the activity inducing a great deal of pain and wasting time are common reasons I hear. For me however, running has always been a part of my identity and it shaped me as the person I am today. Whether it comes to intense races or exciting games of tag, I feel a part of me glistens with joy whenever I put on my running shoes and get my feet moving. My interest from running goes all the way back from elementary school.

My individual identity is formatted to show what I do and what makes me different because everyone has different opinions about their identity, but that just shows how we're all unique in some ways. I placed my specific sports and activities like baseball on because they make up who I am. The music albums I listen to that make me a part of a collective identity of other that share the same interests in music style as do I. Sports also tie into a major part of my collective identity because they play a tremendous part in my life that I can talk about and share my opinion with friends and family. To represent my national identity, the pictures I had shown are famous parks and museums that I had visited a to because these landmarks represent a