What Does Ethnicity Affect A Person 's Identity?

Multicultural education is the key to incorporating ethnic and racial identities in the classroom. I believe implementing a culturally responsive curriculum would work best for the students. I would like to be a future educator who acknowledges and welcome my students’ diversity in the classroom. It is important to bring cultural awareness to the classroom and school environment. I want my students to know that I respect, acknowledge and care about their differences. I would model this behavior because I want the students to do the same for each other. The steps I would take incorporate a positive, trusting and healthy learning environment are:

Identity is defined as “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” (Oxford University Press). Personal identity deals with questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our being people. Some of these questions are familiar that happen to all of us every once in a while: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die? There are many different categories that define us as people (Olson). Our Race, Class, and Culture define who we are so much that it affects how we should live our life.

There was a time when America was segregated; Caucasians and African Americans were forced to attend different restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains. However, the era of segregation has been terminated; now America embraces and appreciates the various cultures and ethnicities that create this melting pot several people call home. Likewise, it is this melting pot, or mosaic, of races that multitudes of individuals have identified themselves with. Thus, race and ethnicity does matter for it portrays vital and crucial roles in the contemporary American society. Furthermore, ethnicity and race brings communities together in unity, determines which traditions and ideals individuals may choose to value, and imposes an impediment for it categorizes humans unjustly.

In this essay, I attempted to lay bare the issues of being an Asian-American and being labeled as an ethnic “other” in modern America. This label of “other” causes them to become marginalized and lose their sense of identity, belonging neither to Western culture nor Eastern culture. In order help stop this loss of identity in Asian-Americans, we must tear down the social construct of the “other” and integrate the different cultures into the melting pot of popular culture. Once we have stopped alienating different cultures, we can then have a moral society that upholds diversity and identity.

Aguirre, Adalberto, and Jonathan Turner. American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.

In Asian American studies, identity is “a set of characteristics or a description that distinguishes a person or thing from others” (Ho 125). One would have to truly perceive his or her culture, language, beliefs, customs and values in order to be viewed as a distinct person in terms of identity. However, many Asian Americans are often faced with personal struggles when they are finding their own identity. These included the issues of assimilation, and contradictions of race and identity within their family and school life. They may sometimes feel insecure with their identity as Asian Americans due to their position as racial minorities in the Unites States. As a consequence, some would unconsciously reject their identity when their emotions are severely damaged in confronting with unequal treatment or being labeled with the Asian stereotypes. In his article “Distilling My Korean American Identity,” Patrick S.

The Asian American immigrants are part of the ethnic and racial groups in the United States who lives in the continent of Asia. Asian have lived in the United States for a long time. Throughout the history, Asian Americans have encountered segragation and discrimination during the periods of changes in demographics, economic recession, and war. They have been discriminated by school policies and practices due to beign different. Paul Spickard (2007) has said that Asian Americans was an idea invented in the 1960s to bring together Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans for political purposes. Later, other

Throughout history, Asian Americans have been perceived as outsiders in the United States. They have been denied basic privileges in this country and have been treated very unfairly. However, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Asian Americans gained success through their businesses and cultural background leading them to have a manageable life. This labeled them as the “Model Minority;” it can be defined as an image in which a minority group are seen to be successful than the average population. This image led Asian Americans to be the nation’s stereotypical image of a model minority all the while shifting the blames of the countries to the other minority groups.

Asian Americans have been significantly affected today because of the “model minority” ideology. The idea of Asian Americans being the model minority encouraged and pushed Caucasian Americans that if you have the right cultural values, you can make it. This causes an erasure of the economic disparities and social issues that the poor working Asian Americans have today.

11. Explain the myth of the model minority and why it has persisted. Highlight two negative consequences of the model minority label. How does Sonia Shah’s articulation of Asian American identity challenge the model minority perspective?

This paper will identify the ethnic identifications within individuals. Ethnicity is part of everyone’s identity development. Individuals may have one ethnicity or multiple, depending on their current location, homelands, generations, religion, environment, language/dialect, physical appearance, and more. A cultural individual is considered ethnic either by being first, second, or third generation. According to Phinney (1989), there are four stages of ethnic identity development: diffuse, foreclosed, moratorium, and achieved. They describe when an individual explores or does not explore their own ethnicity, and accepting clarification and understanding of ethnicity. An individual can be placed within these stages throughout their developing lives. It is important to recognize these stages within an individual to better apprehend their identity and where they perceive their own identity in their position.

“Model minority” is a term first used by sociologist William Petersen in a 1966 New York Times article that applauded Asian-Americans as an example that other minorities should follow based on their academic and economic success. 8 Although there are numerous Asians that achieve great success in the United States, the term and concept of “model minority” is a myth because as mentioned before, there are many Asian immigrants that live under poverty line, especially lowest success rate in Southeast Asians. 1 The stereotype of model minority has a detrimental effect on health of the Asian immigrant children because it encourages Asian American students to be silent and discrete about their mental problems. This is because they are afraid to be seen as failures to the society and disappoint their parents. Asian American children are known to succeed academically but parents and health providers must attend to and properly assess them for their mental health needs,

As mentioned above, the federal government liberalized immigration policies in 1965 and further allowed refugees from several Southeastern Asian countries to enter the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, which dramatically increased the size of the “Asian” racial group. In addition, the state established the census category of “Asians” as a racial group, which was adopted by other federal, state, and local agencies, firmly establishing “Asian Americans” as how we as a society understand and perceive in contemporary society. Furthermore, Asian Americans themselves became acutely aware of their “racialized Other” status in the eyes of native whites when anti-Asian violence against several ethnic Asians occurred throughout the 1980s (Okamoto 2014; Espritiu 1992). This propelled different Asian ethnic groups, who previously thought of themselves as inherently different from one another, to mobilize together against anti-Asian sentiments and

The following paper will discuss two of the major dimensions of my cultural identity, and analyze the way in which my identity holds privileges, or has exposed me to oppression. Being that I am white, I have lived a life of privilege simply because of the color of my skin. I have been afforded opportunities, and lived a life free from persecution due to my skin color. I have also lived a life that has been impacted by oppression because of my female identity. This unique position between privilege and oppression is where I live my life.

Culture is one of the major influences on our lives and social interactions; culture is associated with our characteristics of religion, societal norms of behavior; moreover, culture is always changing and the influence increases. With every religion there are traditions and cultures that are a form of art as it involves many characteristics’ of individuals and their beliefs, values, and perspective, for this reason, there are various dynamics in terms of how culture is involved and the influence of our actions, such as media, peers, family, and socializations. Culture is a factor of social environment and what is modeled to us in our early years of development.