Stuart Hall Project

Now, looking in an intersectional lens we would ask question like “ What are your aspirations? Where have you travelled? What really defines you?”. As a result, the answers represent multiple identities of a person, for example Bromley elaborates on this idea “For example, you might be living in Canada, in your first year of university, born in South Africa, a Buddhist, and struggling to pay for your living expenses, yet able-bodied and employed.” (Bromely. 47) What Bromley is trying to prove is that your ethnicity, sex, gender, class and able-ism does not define you, but it is where you have been, what you have done, and the experiences you have ventured through which truly shapes who we are. In other words, every individual is unique, and complex due to their multiple identities; Bromley goes into detail that these characteristics make us who we are “ Rather, our complexity lies in the ways in which our multiple identities simultaneously create our whole selves” (Bromely. 48) To understand it better I justified the characteristics which created my identity. Personally, when people look at me, they probably think of me as a white girl, who lives in Mississauga, but, I do not define as that, yes,

Caws, Peter. "Identity: Cultural, Transcultural and Multicultural." Multiculturalism. A Critical Reader. David Theo Goldberg,Ed. Malden, Massachusetts:Blackwell Publishers. 1994 371-386.

A person’s identity may be determined by him/her family background and this is proven evident in the essay “Private and Public Language” by Rodriguez. We live in a world in which identities are determined prematurely without hesitation. This means that even without getting to know an individuals personality the first thing that is done instead is determining identities based on your physical state, family, or family background. As a culture we live in a diverse environment in which the majority of people come from a different place, and as a result many are identified differently depending on where he/she and their family are from. Today’s culture is more diverse than ever, and more and more people are migrating to different countries and settling so I feel like it

The concept of Identity is complex through the exploration of relationships and a sense of belonging. This is explored within Tim Winton’s short stories, ‘ Neighbours’ and ‘Big World’, and in Robert Walker’s poem ‘Okay, Let’s be Honest’. Identity can change and evolve depending on belief, change, language and shifting influences.

Racial identification is harder than ethnic identification for most people to avoid. To explain this, in “Racial Identities” in the

Identity is something that is found within that you have to find when you cross cultural differences domestically and internationally. In Eboo Patel's book Acts of Faith he uses a quote that shows how identity evolves over time. “The tradition you were born into was your home, Brother Wayne told me, but as Gandhi once wrote, it should be a home with the windows open so that the winds of other traditions can blow through and bring their unique oxygen. “It’s good to have wings,” he would say, “but you have to have roots, too”(Acts of Faith). This quote really shows that identity is something that is found at what you call your home and you keep your roots there. Your roots are your upbringing when you are young and your wings are when you leave the safety of home. This quote is also showing that the winds of other traditions bring unique oxygen which would be a new experience that help you sculpt your identity in the way you want it. Tradition is something that you will always remember but in order to truly find who you are you must cross domestic and international boundaries. When you cross these boundaries you learn about your identity because your wings have been used and your roots have been deepened. Another book read over the course really demonstrates this concept of identity being found within. This book is Citizen in this book it really shows cultures being crossed not necessarily internationally but domestically. I found a quote that states, “Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the

In a world where seven billion people can communicate in fractions of a second across the globe, share thoughts and exchange cultures, the way we choose to identity ourselves can often ‘’mark’’ us. You can often tell a lot about someone who proclaims to be Quebecois before being Canadian. And theses thing are often present in areas that have a clash of cultures, such as Québec in the former example. But the author Thomas King dives deeper into the subject with his short story Borders. King’s characters do not attach themselves to the place they were born, instead they take pride in their parents’ legacy, their heritage. By writing through the eyes of a twelve year old boy and using opposition, King displays the importance of such things and how minorities are slowly losing them.

“’Identity has been increasingly used to refer to the social and historical make-up of a person, personality as a construct. Sometimes such identities are conceived narrowly psychological, individualist terms, as the cumulative result of personal experience and family history”

The identity of an individual is shaped by the experiences and interactions they face in their world. Peter Skrzynecki’s “Immigrant chronicle” highlights this with poems like 10 Mary Street and In the Folk Museum through how Peter interacted and connected to Australia's society while Tim Winton's “The Neighbours” establishes his sense of belonging when connections between him and his community form during their lifetime experience. From this, we learn that experiences and interactions shape our identity and from that, we form connections between communities and places.

For my ethnographic interview, I choose to interview a gentleman who I recently met at the church that I attend. For confidentiality reasons, I will refer to him as James Madison. The main focus of this ethnographic interview is to engage, explore and listen to the interviewee’s personal story. As defined in Culturally Competent Practice, by Doman Lum, cultural identity development theory is influenced at various stages of life. It is part of the growth of knowledge that a person is impacted. Although James Madison is proud that he is from Ghana, Africa, his cultural identity has changed drastically due to the knowledge that has made him grow into “a mature mindset that is like no other person in Ghana” as he describes.

As race continues to be an important factor across the United States, we increasingly become aware, of who we are and where we have come from, culturally and ethnically. Our ethnicity is what defines us, and is how we are defined by others. In their book, Diversity, Oppression, and Change, Flavio Francisco Marsiglia and Stephen Kulis, explain to us, the concept of Social Identity Theory. A theory that can very well give insight to our need to hold onto our past, and our ancestors’ history. Originally derived from Tajfel and Turner, they go on to further explain ‘Symbolic Interactionism’, a concept based on the identity that we developed about ourselves around our surroundings and how we believe others to

interviews of people who have or know people who have experienced historical events of the past. For this essay, I chose to take an oral history of the civil rights movement and the great migration. Preserving the memories of the individuals that lived during these historical events allows for many things in addressing the silence of African American experiences within U.S. History. First, memories and recollections taken from oral histories may differ from the perspectives of those who have appear on historical records or may be completely absent from any other documentations. Also, because cameras and video cameras were not as easily accessible as they are today, the majority of history is documented from peoples’ memories through letters, diaries, and oral history interviews. In addition, taking an oral history allows me to ask specific questions towards what I am are interested in documenting about the civil rights movement and the great migration. Lastly, oral histories are somewhat viewed as a “revisionist” to the study of both the civil rights movement and the great migration because it takes firsthand accounts of those participating on campaigns and protests and also of those were watching from afar and allows readers to understand each individual part of what made the movement as a whole.

Stuart Hall defines identity as an ‘already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent’. We should think instead of ‘identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’ (Hall 1994 p.392). An individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group, thinking, feelings and behaviour can also be referred to as identity. One’s cultural image can construct identity; such features as hair, skin tone and height. History shapes our identity.

The question of identity is always a difficult one for those living in a culture or group, yet belonging to another. This difficulty frequently remains in the mind of most immigrants, especially the second generations who were born in a country other than their parents. Younger generations feel as if they are forced to change to fit the social standards despite previous culture or group. Furthermore those who wish to adopt a new identity of a group or culture haven't yet been fully accepted by original members due to their former identity.

Hall tells us that he grew up in Jamaica, the "blackest son" (in his words) of a middle-class, conservative family; from an early age, Hall says, he rejected his father's attempt to assimilate into white, English-speaking society (his father worked his way up through the United Fruit Company). In 1951, he won a scholarship to Oxford (he was a Rhodes scholar)--and (as they say) the rest is history. As a student at Oxford, he sensed that his color as well as his economic