Sankofa Identity Essay

The movie Sankofa, directed by Haile Germina, is a movie the follows the story of Mona, who's a model on a photo shoot for a white photographer, in a castle in Ghana, where apparently she doesn't know the sad historic weigh the place carries of her ancestors. While in her photo shoot she is told by a mysterious musician, to go back to her roots, something that seemed to had confused her. Later on while in the castle ruins she is transported to the past where she lives the life of a slave named Shola, who was abused by her owner and later on fights and rebels against her masters together with Shango, her love interest, and other slaves, like Nunu, who's son was of mixed race and converted to Christianity, raised by one of the white men and turned against his own people. After the rebellion Mona returns to the present and with a better understanding of her roots and the suffering of her descendants.

Most people, unless they choose to be an outsider, want to be considered “cool.” Whether it’s to fit in with a peer group, or clique, or to impress someone in particular, like a member of the opposite sex, or a potential mate. Or possibly to gain something from an individual for financial or social gain (see “Scamming”).

The film is the story of Mona, who is an African-American woman who is brought back to Africa and finds herself as a slave on the Lafayette sugarcane plantation (Gerima, 1993). In a previous life, she was born on the sugar farm and named Shola. She was caught and sold and transported as a slave in North America. This brings the interplay between the African American identity on one side and the other African identity. The film achieves this through reconstructing the past and history and also through the conception of blackness and race.

Identity is what defines us as a person. Everyone one on earth has their own unique identity. To showcase my identity, I created a collage of images and descriptive words, called an identi-kit. This identi-kit shows what I feel like is my identity to myself and the others. My identi-kit identifies me as a mixed martial artist. The identi-kit has images of a deadly shark with mixed martial arts gloves on that say mixed martial arts on the front and fight shorts with the words competitor and warrior on them. It also has descriptive words like “killer instinct” and “fight” which describe my spirit. There are three assumptions that come to question when asking about one’s identity. The first is if you were born with this

To find one's identity can be a struggle for many; however author Rudolfo Anaya takes on that struggle to explain what it means to find yourself in his Mexican-American literature, Bless Me, Ultima. Rudolfo Anaya uses the theme of Identity and enlightenment and many other themes through the young protagonist Antonio Marez. Anaya is able to illustrate the journey and hardships of finding out who you are through the eyes of a child. Using the personal development of character and plot, he is able to build connection with the reader and story of the main character's coming of age. The novel is also based on the Anaya's actual childhood. At the same time, the novel shows many elements of fantasy and magic, with the myth of the Golden Carp, the

Sankofa was a great a film analyzing African culture by reliving events in the past to gain a greater understanding of self-identity. The film has several depictions of African culture through its characters as they each portrayed a different stage of acceptance. Millione’s black conscious scale assists with understanding the acceptance of African culture and

The drama-comedy film Mississippi Masala (1991) directed by Mira Nair explores an interracial love story between Meena, an Indian woman, and Demetrius, an African-American, portrayed by Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington, respectively. This is one of those movies that I had high hopes for and anticipated that by the end I would feel so empowered and moved that it would be impossible to not constantly hype up the motion picture to friends and strangers. To my relief, those expectations were met. I truly and deeply was so encapsulated and emotionally committed to this feature because it was massively progressive and transcended the norm of the time by depicting with such grace and tact, the power dynamics, racial hierarchy, colorism, and social contexts between the two racial groups in Uganda and the American south.

How much do people base their lives off of survival rather than living in the moment? In the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, many characters lives revolve around this. In the novel, many characters often mention that survival is insufficient, so much that they do not find a point in life. The author uses memories of Kirsten to signify hope and resilience. Kirsten’s memories are not just a symbol of hope and comfort; as Kirsten moves from being an afraid person to a woman who is strong and seeks hope, the author uses Kirsten’s symbolic memories to demonstrate how experiences from one’s past can define one’s identity.

Another film with a similar message is one named ‘Gattaca’. An old theory based film that wraps itself around the concept of the expected future, contains relevance to identity in majority of its scenes. Vincent, the leading character for this film as he is the only, in ‘Gattaca’ terms, faith-birth that is introduced. As stated in the film introduction, Vincent, unlike many others, knows “there is no gene for fate”. Knowing this, he never once doubts his capabilities of making it all the way no matter what it takes, to get what he wants.

Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand

My identity is something that that no one can take away from me. As I am still growing and learning, I can say that I have found many things that appeal to me. My interests will help define my personality and express myself in ways that I can’t express through words. I enjoy finding new things to do and doing my best in aiming towards my goals. I have many goals, but I know that I can only accomplish them through patience and perseverance.

Who I am? Personally, I believe that a person’s identity can take only one of two routes. One, a person’s identity can change within that person’s life. Who I am now, is not necessarily who I was when I was younger. Experience can and will likely modify our identities. Therefore, experience can solidify our personal identification or it can weaken our personal identification. And as such, individuals and their perspectives are always evolving, or at the very least, they should evolve over time. Although there are some identities that evolve throughout one’s lifetime; there are some identities that remain consistent. Two, some identities cannot and will not change. So identities are socially and/or politically forces upon you, some identities are genetically assigned to you, and some you choose to keep. No matter the reason or reasons, these identities have been and will be consist within your lifespan. But, how you deal with them is up to you as an individual.

With the tools of expression that comes with filmmaking, I believe that I can help capture and analyze the sensation of watching yourself on screen. Everyone taking part in this film, is like you and I, regular people who wake up every morning, brush their teeth, and generally follow their usual routine, but they don’t experience everything the same as everyone else. Being racialized means that every day you must walk with the acceptance that every interaction throughout the day will involve an awareness of your race. Living with a series of constant microagression brought by non-racialized individuals that adds up into years upon years of self-loathing, appeasing to westernized values and in worse cases, abandonment of culture and racial

Our perception of our identity is constantly changing, the groups we belong to, the people we talk to and the way we connect with others help to form our identity. There is one thing we all have in common despite our individual identities, is the need to belong. There’s no obligation to belong to only one group, you can belong to many. An individual can belong to many groups, which will then create multiple identities; hence our understanding of identity is never constant. Belonging to a loving family, group of caring friends that help us to develop our own sense of self. However, belonging can have a negative side. For example our families might have an expectation of us to do something that might alter our ambitions and interfere with

beliefs. Sober uses the example of lightning. He points out that according to the Greeks,