Indigenous Identity - Essay Example

Indigenous Identity The person I interviewed was Martha Jones born in Las Vegas. She is married. Jones has a nuclear family structure in which the roles of the husband and the wife, though defined, are often interchanging. Both husband and wife share equal power in all matters, and the two get along with each other like friends, rather than typical spouses one dominating the other. Nevertheless, if there is someone who takes the lead when a decision has to be made, it is Jones. Jones has three siblings; one brother and two sisters.

Jones is a Christian. For her family, religion is the source of knowledge and guidance regarding how the life should be spent. Religion offers guidance in every matter. People choose to do whatever they like, but refer to religion when they have to assess the legitimacy of their acts. The African American community believes in the power of religion. Although different African Americans have embraced different religions, with the majority of them being Christians or Muslims, yet their underlying belief in religion as the source of guidance is evident from them being the followers of one religion or another rather than being atheists.

A vast majority of African Americans are democratic. Issues that are important to them today include but are not limited to racial profiling, poverty, racial disparity, lesser opportunities of health care, and institutional racism. Irrespective of all these socio-economic and political issues, African Americans are just as concerned for the prosperity and well-being of the USA as the White Americans are. African Americans derive their social and cultural values from the religion, and with the majority of them being the followers of Abrahamic religions, African American communities are generally more conservative in their stance on homosexuality and thus condemn gay marriages.

According to Jones, the most significant changes in the traditional indigenous identity of the African Americans include gender roles in families, and oppression to racial segregation in the society. African American families have suffered from the torture of slavery resulting into a broken family system for a long time in history. With the end of slavery, men started dominating the women in the African families. But things started to change after the second half of the 20th century. Particularly, near the last three decades, more and more African American women have gained higher education and are contributing to their families financially.

This has not only helped alleviate poverty, but has also brought the African American women at par with men both within the home and in the outside world. Likewise, over the decades, African Americans have become more vocal and active about getting equal rights in the society that other communities have. Jones is not a member of any organization. I agree to Jones over the changes she has identified. Since I am about ten years younger than Jones, so I have specifically grown up in an age when women empowerment grew rapidly and more and more women got educated and became working women.

I also agree to the fact that African Americans today are more active and concerned about getting equal rights in the society.