Narrative Essay On Identity

Identity-“Ones personal qualities.”Identiy is something only he or she can fully define. My uncle says I am affectionate,cheerful, and calm. My grandmother sees me as slim, pretty and sweet. My dad described me as perky, cheerful and happy, my mom says beautiful, gentle, and self-conscious. These adjectives describe me accurately, yet they are only abstract versions of me. Adjectives cannot begin to describe me and I aknowlege these descriptions for what they are, a condensed translation from my outward self to the world. It is impossible for anyone to understand me completely because nobody has experienced the things I have. My mother has never cherished a raggedy doll named Katie and my father never

Before this course, I understood racism was out there and I do try to be respectful towards everyone that is around me, however I never really had to think about my own cultural being and upbringing in regards with racism. I do feel I have some resistance or negative feelings about my race from time to time. This is described as a phase in Helms (1995) White Identity Development (Sue & Sue, 2015). I know I am blessed to be a White middle class American and I am privileged because I can choose to not worry about racism, however I occasionally say things such as “ I wish I was not White” or “why do I have to be this White?”. Also, reflecting back I know I would speak with my friends (who were White) about wishing to be dark, tan, and not pale

The last memories we had with our families was when these men in black killed an outsider for trying to enter the island. We watched the men in black chase after the people in the streets forcing them to go into their houses and watch a man who I had seen before make a statement on television. The man was tense, stiff, and his stature looked forced.

There were several times when act of persuasion seriously affected and deeply changed my life. However, immigrating to United States is on the top of my list that affected not only my life, but also who I am. During my fifth grade year, my uncle’s family called and suggested about participating in a foreign exchange student program. At first, I was not sure if I would be able to take care of myself away from my parents and because of that, I continued to say “no” until in the middle of my sixth grade year. During those one and a half years of hesitation, my uncle had sent me pictures of his house, surroundings, school, etc. Those pictures gave me a whole new perspective about immigrating to United States and helped me build enough

She sits on the armrest of her wine-stained couch, then falls backward with a cushioned thud. Her thick, kinky hair lays splayed under her. Her large, veiny hands lift up to her tear-soaked face, covering her eyes. She sighs aloud summoning her roommates’ attention.

Any single human experience can only properly be judged by that human’s amount of dread or anticipation in it’s beginning or end.

Growing up in a primarily Mexican and Latino community, I never connected with my Korean heritage or adopted the Mexican culture. Between school and home, I was stuck in a clash of cultures. At school, I celebrated Cinco de Mayo and Day of the Dead and struggled to sing the Spanish lyrics that we were “expected to have learned from family”. But, that wasn’t the culture I knew at home where we celebrated Chuseok and ate kimchi with chopsticks. Even then, I felt isolated from my heritage when Korean elders rebucked me for not being “more Korean”. Rejected from my own people, I didn’t feel like I had an identity in either culture. I felt disconnected from my family, my friends, and my community.

I recognized I was “other” at the age of 4 and 17. I was tease about my accent entering into pre-school and mocked in college. I’m from a Jamaican Descent, we speak “patios” and it was a language spoken in my household growing up. I never forgot where my family came from and our family kept us cultural linked to our heritage. As a child, I never understood which made me feel uncomfortable about my accent. My surrounding grew cultural diverse and was economically embraced. Growing up, everybody wanted to be Jamaican. It was a cultural shock attending Alabama State University in the south. Though I was mocked, southern loved how I spoke and became memorized by my voice. I understood young that people are brought up differently, view life differently, reacts differently and respond differently.

Working on the Identity wheel let me know a lot about myself. Being from a different country my nationality and my culture was very important to me and keeping my heritage. Although I am not able to read or write in my language I am thankful that I can fully articulate in my language. The most relevant thing that makes me who I am today is my family, being a dad at a young age and my school because that is where I spend most of my time and that is where I have most of my friends that I associate with on a day to day basis.

Complete self-acceptance and the stylized ideal self are two antithesis states, both of which being unrealistic and unattainable. We all walk on the precipice separating the two, some leaning more towards one than the other. There are also many paradigms of our identity which go through a process of self-acceptance and fluctuate throughout our entire lives. There are mornings when I stand before the rigid yet ambiguous mirror in my bathroom, I stand nude preparing for a shower. I analyze myself and the contours of my body. I lift my arms to see what droops, I turn to my side to gage the profile width of my abdomen; I stare at my chest and its perceived imperfections. These are the same minutely changing features I carried

That being said, I don’t hate my ethnicity. I don’t hate my sex. I don’t hate my sexuality. I have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously by some people and for my voice to be heard, and I want to help other people be heard too. Being all of these things and feeling the feeling of otherness has helped me relate to and reach so many people that feel underrepresented, unsafe, and alone in their homes, places of work, places of worship, schools, and communities.

When we were asked to interview one of our peers I didn’t realized how much I can learn about a person in a short time. My selected partner was a beautiful, elegant young lady with flaxen blond straight hair, bright white teeth, wearing casual but at the same time stylish jersey draped top and pants which flattered her slightly tanned skin tone.

You do realize not everyone in this world can or is willing to go vegan? And that just because it's what you believe, it's not something everyone believes in? What good has it ever done when someone has showed their beliefs down other's throats? I want an example, 'cause I honesly don't know one.

A person’s identity can be portrayed as a composer and his musical compositions, as in that the types of pieces created throughout their life, come to represent them. Sometimes ideas for new music comes from existing or recent pieces of music, and could be opportunity for imitating it or changing it up in some way, such as a jazz improviser soloing over a tune or a composer using a borrowed musical theme. However, the beauty of this is that, no two improvised solos or themes will be exactly the same, even if they were influenced by the same source, because the composer will have added a personal touch or trait.

When I was first brought into this life I didn't know what everything was gonna be like. No one did. No one was born wanting to be know as “different” in society. Sadly, I am one of the lucky ones. It feels bad when I realize that my privileges and the way I get respect is still not nearly as bad as some people have it. Most of my life I thought it was nothing, I didn't exactly even know what race was but I heard about it in school. I remember specifically hearing one time that this race discrimination had been over since the 1970’s. When I first heard that I was sitting in a classroom full of whites. I think to myself now if it would have been different if other people of race were in that room with us. My teacher likely would have not said the same thing that I heard and still think about today. The fact that she wouldn't have said something in the same context to me and the class proves that racism is still alive today and it did not disappear in the 1970’s. I realized that people say different things when surrounded by people of race. I know this for a fact because of the world I live in and from what I see everyday. One morning a kid will say in a classroom that racism is bad and that a video about racism moves him emotionally and makes him sad. The next day this same kid is sitting at lunch telling kids that they’re acting like a “nigger”. It just shows that racism hasn't been gone since the 1970’s, It been here forever and doesn't show any sign of going away for a long time.