The Limits of Identification

Each and every person on this Earth today has an identity. Over the years, each individual creates their identity through past experiences, family, race, and many other factors. Race, which continues to cause problems in today’s world, places individuals into certain categories. Based on their race, people are designated to be part of a larger, or group identity instead of being viewed as a person with a unique identity. Throughout Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard is on a search for his true identity. Throughout Black Boy, one can see that Richard’s racial background assigns him with a certain identity or a certain way in which some

In the closely connected society, the differences among societies and families are becoming more and more prominent, even impacting one’s identity. At the individual level, identity formation involves the development of both personal identity and group identity (Phinney, 2000). In Looking for Alibrandi, the title of the novel clearly presenting the theme of the work, which is the exploration of Alibrandi’s identity, since identity is about the question “who am I?”. It is impossible to realize one’s true identity without an understanding of one’s family and culture. Therefore, it is important to explore the coexistence and integration of different cultural differences and identity. Looking for Alibrandi presents both the life and soul trip of a rebellious teenager who is exploring her own identity under the complicated self-identity and other family and social differences. The role of family and culture plays an important role in forming individual identity. I think oneself ,family and culture is a three ways to make a true identity.

Identity is an essential necessity for humans to demonstrate the distinct individual. A person’s identity may take time to develope as the person acquires new interests, influences, and comprehension of the surrounding people. Authors such as Adrienne Rich and Gloria Anzaldua write about the struggles persistent in identity. Rich is identified by her gender and race by other people, while Anzaldua is defined as to what a Mexican American women should be. As a Mexican American, Amelia Mendoza, my best friend, encounters the strains of identity.

Our identities are key to our understanding of the world. Mental models through which information is processed are built off of life experience, taught ethics and morals, and upbringing. Identity is discussed in the following texts - The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence” by Suzy Hansen, and “Letter to America” by Aida Hozic - through various themes of American culture. Dauphinee, in particular, examines the depth of personal identity and its ability to change. All three works consider the many components of personal identity and its formation as well as its undoing.

Identity can mean different things to different people, but for most people, it’s about one’s personality and experiences. The 21st century has seen young people in various parts of the globe have a preference for some desired identity, which they deem superior, rather than accept their own identities. For example, in Goin Gangsta, Choosin Cholista: Claiming Identity, Neil Bernstein makes a case on how a number of people have claimed ethnic individualities other than their own and this is not an evil obsession (Bernstein, 1995). In this essay, a girl named April and her friends (and by extension most young people) believe that “identity is not a matter of where you come from, what you were born into, or what colour your skin is, but it’s everything

The theme of identity is related to the dystopian society which forces the individuals to conform the radical social

     Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms

Despite being a very diverse literature genre in terms of influence and inspiration, North American literature encompasses many works that share some very common thematic elements. Though there are several themes shared, one in particular can be found in most any work – the importance of identity. Particularly in some selected pieces yet to be named, identity is a very important element, not only because it is a necessity for a main character in any work of literature, but because these works express ideas about identity as being very individualistic – as opposed to being a mere result of cultural surroundings. Zora Neal Hurtson’s Their

The idea of identity is one that is extremely difficult to master. In novel by Denise Chávez, Loving Pedro Infante, protagonist, Teresina, is once divorced, thirty-years old, living in the border town of Cabritoville, New Mexico, and struggling to attain a life of fulfillment. Unfortunately, she is defined by her obsession concerning Pedro Infante, a dead Mexican movie star. Teresina yearns to have a life with a man as worthy as Pedro as a means of life fulfillment. Teresina does not truly understand what it means to be who she thinks she is as as she places men at the center of her life, allowing men to exert total control over her life.

Within dystopian literature, identity is something that can be seen as an individual’s most core and precious element. Exposed against a scarcity of freedom in self-expression, we can begin to fully appreciate and understand the importance in the role of identity as well as its robustness. The role of identity and its manipulation is often explored within dystopian literature to exemplify weaknesses in human psychology as well as to destroy false images of strength and superiority that we apply to ourselves. In both The Road and

People should be entitled to their own identity since everybody if unique in so many ways. In the literature we have read during this course people and women specifically are defined. These can be metaphors used to describe the women or ho others view these women. Sometimes they do not define themselves and are defined by the people around them; based on their looks or stereotypes that may not represent who they are. Women are defined by others and themselves in many ways such as seen in, “Borders” by Thomas King, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Lysistrata by Aristophanes. These metaphors are not directly defining these women, but defining them by their power, identity, and intelligence.

A person's identity defines what a person looks like, however not for who they are as an individual. In Darwish, “Identity Card”, through the use of sarcastic tone and point of view as a subjugate Palestinian man, Darwish depicts the event as conformity due to the fact that society tries to change people.

Fabricating an identity is a task that all humans encounter, which requires a significant amount of time. Because it takes a while to establish, numerous factors, such as the environment and the group dynamic an individual is surrounded by, can effect the creation of the identity. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime,” he explains human behavior in his analysis when presenting a theory to explain the time period when New York City was crime ridden. Gladwell argues that the physical environment of an individual plays a significant role in an individual’s behaviors and actions, which shape an individual’s identity. While Gladwell argues that an individual’s identity is a product of his or her surroundings and environment, Susan Faludi explains how choosing to take part in a group dynamic can significantly alter one’s identity in her “The Naked Citadel.” Faludi describes how the cadets come to The Citadel so they can escape the traditional roles of masculinity in the outside world, and arrive at a place where they are sometimes given the opportunity to live a vulnerable lifestyle. However, when the cadets arrive they are integrated into a group dynamic, which alters their own personal identities. The effects of the environment and group dynamic on one’s identity is portrayed in Azar Nafisi’s “Selections From Reading Lolita in Tehran.” Nafisi describes the time frame when her students secretly came to her

In Amin Maalouf’s book “In the Name of Identity” Maalouf emphasizes that we should not judge people on one singular identity. He argues that, “Identity can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven’t got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in mixture that is unique to me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals.” The essence of Maalouf’s argument is that one should not define another based solely on a singular component of their identity but rather their identity as a whole.

This paper explores a Bayesian spatial spike-and-slab Lasso modelling approach to understand the association between self-report drought and environmental variables. The spike-and-slab Lasso (Ročková & George, 2016) is a variable selection method used to identify the key climatic variables that has influence on the individual drought response obtained from the survey. The method is further extended in this paper through adaptive mechanism (Zou, 2006). In addition to the variable selection, it is often important to include spatial process in the model (Bakar & Sahu, 2015). This is done to adjust the inherent spatial correlation that occurs due to the position of the postcodes and spatial grids. Hence, the novelty of the model lies by