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.

There are many ways One’s identity can be defined. Only you can truly define who you are. You control what your experiences and influences make of you. When asked who am I, there could be millions of different answers depending on what you base your identity off of. To me, the question who am I, can only truly be answered in one way. So, who am I? For me, it’s an easy question. I’ve always known that I was the quiet girl In the back of the classroom by herself.

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.

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.

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

Personal Identity is something I have never sat down and specifically thought about. Lucky for me, I have seldom had an instance where I was disadvantaged because of my identity. I assume that everyone has parts of themselves that they dislike-it is human nature, but we are who we are and I believe that everyone needs to be proud of that. The person I identify with is diverse from anyone else but that what makes humans so incredible. The person I classify with is someone who I am satisfied with in both my personal and professional self.

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.

How many different “hats” do we each wear on a daily bases. From our careers, to our family and friends we all have different identities that we claim and live out day to day. These identities help us define who we are. “When we identify ourselves, we draw on a host of different characteristics associated with various social groups to which we belong” (King 2012, pg. 429). My ornament is explaining the social identity through a snow-women and her many hats.

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

To help me identify with “who” I was, my parents encouraged me to partake in various opportunities so that I could have a more holistic view on life. However, throughout grade school, the constant harassment of individuals about my weight created a dent in my identity. “You’re so skinny for a black girl.” For a black girl? That one remark from the 1st grade resonated with me. From that moment, I was determined to force everyone who I had interactions with to realize that I would not be defined by skin color or my weight. Through the foundation set by my parents 18 years ago, the precedent was set. I took it upon myself to develop a strong core, and work on myself from the inside out. Losing my identity was not a loss but an actual gain. I realized how strong I was, how strong my family was, and put in perspective that everything won’t be a smooth ride. There will be bumps in the road, but in the end, I discovered that nobody can truly be me. Although, you never truly understand the true value of something until you no longer have access to it, I came to the understanding, that not only did my documents have value, but I have immense value as well and that is something that I will always take into account with everything that I