Identity and Schooling Experience - Essay Example

The United s of America has long been called a “melting pot”, referring of to the fact that it has, for centuries, been an attractive place for peoples from all over the world seeking freedom and liberties for the soul. To be called a “melting pot”, then, would suggest that many different cultures and identities are represented in the mix. The thought has often occurred to me that not only a nation could be such a fusion of elements, but a person could be as well. A person can be a melting pot in the sense that he or she receives pressure from two or more significantly different social groups, with different languages and customs. Identities are not completely a matter of one’s biological relations with other human beings; rather, identities are largely socially constructed. That is, the fact that a person belongs to a particular race means nothing in itself for determining how that person will see himself. For instance, if an African-American is raised, by adoption, in a thoroughly Asian-American or Hispanic-American environment, that individual will most likely exhibit the same characteristics that his peers do who are incidentally more biologically related to other members of the community. It is my belief that although our race and our biological makeup contribute to how we relate to others in society, it is ultimately the social aspect in the creation of our identities that matters most. And in this sense, we can speak of so-called “multiple” identities for one’s Self. These identities come from social construction and come from the populations of which we are members and contribute. My Self, and my personal identity, alters my self-perception and perception of others. They do this through language and convention: the former because by using a common set of idioms, phrases, and linguistic customs, I relate to others more thoroughly and I become more immersed in the social network of that community. And the latter is because convention helps bring together members of a community by giving them a shared identity. By sharing values, we are sharing parts of our Self, which is the seat of everything we value. Sometimes, like in my life, sharing these values and sharing the Self leads to what might be called multiple identities in the sense that I can relate and communicate with members of different linguistic communities equally well. A key factor for the formation of my own multiple identities came with the physical immersion in a community different from one that I had already been embedded into. When this happened, it became a matter of necessity and of adaption that I form a new identity to complement the one existing prior to it. Moving into a new school, one with many White people, made me focus initially on the physical, linguistic, and social differences between us. However, in the absence of a large community of Asian-Americans like me, which I had exclusively been a part of for so long, it would be impossible to carry on isolated from the total population. The day-to-day experiences of my new school created within me a gradual change toward understanding of the language and practices of my new peers. Although this acquaintance was gradual, I felt my identity changing quite quickly after I arrived. Sitting at lunch with new friends, trying to relate to their problems and delights was quite difficult. This, I believe, was a problem attributable to the lack of shared values between the two communities, where I was raised in an environment oblivious to the importance of some things thought of as very important in another. But throughout the year, various practices, like sitting at lunch, joining in on afterschool activities, and doing things that others enjoyed doing all brought me closer to a set of multiple identities. The contrast between my White-dominated school and my Asian-dominated home confused me at first and then concerned me, questioning whether I would lose one in favor of the other or perhaps even lose both trying too hard to be in both at once. However, it eventually occurred to me that this contrast was working in my favor: what better way to realize what made these two communities the same (in terms of their values) than by being constantly reminded of what makes them different? I took these experiences and crafted them in such a way to connect with my peers and develop my secondary identity. Today, these identities continue to change. I mention that I eventually developed what I called “my secondary identity”, for the reason that it would soon become not only secondary but equal to my original, deeply-rooted Asian-American identity, having been raised in a particular environment valuing such and such things as a cultural community. There have not been a great number of truly transformative, revolutionary events in my development that have brought me fully into either community. Rather, the change has been extremely gradual and one filled with embarrassment, mistakes, and faux pas. But one of the greatest factors in the transition was a school faculty that catered to my special needs, often going out of their way to make me feel welcome in an unwelcoming environment: either by pairing me up with caring, liberal individuals or giving me breaks on assignments that my peers could perhaps have taken for granted. By giving me a chance to integrate into a more hospitable sample of the population first, the faculty essentially facilitated my entry into the community where without them, it might not have been so easy or as lasting as it has been. However, I guess that this was the only privilege I received. Other than the niceties of being a new student, both to the school and to the culture operating throughout it, I found myself in a challenging learning environment that made little mention of any class, racial, or gender differences. Obviously, I did face an initial disadvantage being so culturally different from my peers, which I soon overcame by the creation of a second identity to complement the first. Another advantage, I suppose, is that I approached these situations with an open-mind, without the kinds of preconceived notions that members of the community would have. That is, I could form my own conclusions about events in and around the school, rather than have them made for me by my initial community or new peers. And although I learned to grow to understand and predict quite well my new peers’ thoughts and behaviors as they result from social conventions and socially-constructed identities, I still retained an independent Self, capable of identifying me as a unique individual in the population. Although I am certain that my race and personal identity were noticed throughout my schooling in this new environment, my race was never explicitly discussed. Everyone simply understood the fact that I was from a different cultural and linguistic community and that my transition into a new one would take time: that anyone transitioning to my culture would have the same problems I was having. Other than slight differences in race, my school was filled with individuals almost monolithic in their class backgrounds, and without real exception to the thought that gender does not matter in one’s education. The equality between the genders in terms of education that I noticed, in particular, was one value that I could not understand in the context of my primary, Asian-American identity, and conflicted with the prime set of values I was raised with in my community. It seemed that I belonged roughly to the same social class as most of my fellow students. But, if anything, I am sure that individuals belonging to lower social classes had amongst them the advantage in terms of attention from faculty in their attention toward the best interests of students. So although I was not among these groups, I am unaware of any disadvantage that I might have faced for not being so. Even though I have downplayed the amount of racial differences between the students at the school, which were primarily White, there were small communities in themselves within the class. Classrooms, in particular, would find a small clique of individuals from similar races brought together in a corner of the room. I chose to be a part, often, in one of these cliques of Asian-American students in classes in which I was unfamiliar with many of the other students, finding refuge in the commonalities I superficially shared with racially similar classmates. Seeking refuge in these cliques became less and less frequent for me as I became more and more immersed in the larger body of students that welcomed me further to create a secondary identity for myself. In big cities around the United States, peoples from similar cultural backgrounds tend to group together in neighborhoods that cater to their specific conventional and linguistic needs. Although I can understand the appeal of seeking segregated communities for the sake of convenience and kinship, I believe now from my experience that this desire is, at best, limiting for one’s Self. It, in part, alienates one’s Self from the practice and benefits of developing multiple identities for living in an increasingly globalized world. A lesson on race, class, and gender to extrapolate from my neighborhood, which is nearly monolithic with respect to both race and class, runs approximately along those lines of communities “clumping” together within the larger, largely unknown population. My neighborhood focuses a large Asian-American population in a small area, which makes the acquisition of goods and services not valued in the traditionally White-dominated market easier and cheaper. One lesson we can take is that although it is nice to deal exclusively with people you can easily get to know and love, it hinders one’s development of moral excellence and understanding: to be communitarian rather than cosmopolitan, in a world with the internet, globalization, and instant intercontinental communication. Although it was difficult for me, as well as probably countless others, to integrate and adapt to a new social and linguistic community, the benefits are immense. I now possess multiple identities as a single Self, rather than a single one. Having only one identity gives one the ability to identify only with a small segment of the population; but having multiple essentially multiplies the amount of people that one can identify with, communicate with, and share values with. The fact that one’s identity is socially constructed gives us reason to believe that developing multiple identities, though not easy, is not impossible, as I have demonstrated to myself. We should learn to understand and potentially adopt the values of other cultures, giving us the ability to communicate and adapt more effectively. It is my thought that just as a nation can be a melting pot of identities and cultures, so too can a person possess, with one Self, multiple identities from different social and linguistic communities. We learn to understand and share values other communities by interacting with them in subtle ways; therefore, the process is not always sudden and it not always easy, but it will be, almost always, beneficial for both parties to expand their perspectives on the world and themselves as persons living in an age of globalization. In my experience, no one received true advantage in the sense of receiving what he or she had not deserved. Although I received additional help in my transition toward building a secondary identity, this help came not in the context of what I was learning but in the context of how I was learning. Did I deserve breaks and second chances for my mistakes? The answer would of course be yes. The point of a community is that one can receive help from its members, and this forms yet another advantage of learning to respect those who might have strange customs or weird beliefs: that we might be able to find some common ground and some values that we both can share. Isolationist communitarianism cannot open up such doors to diversity, nor can it teach us what is truly valuable in life. Creating our own identities, in association with the customs and conventions of a different culture, gives us precisely that ability and I am glad that I chose to engage such an opportunity. Liberality and open-mindedness affect both how we externalize and internalize information, and how we perceive both ourselves and others. It gives us a context for moral evaluation, critical thinking, and provides an excellent life-lesson for those just beginning the journey. Read More