Borders of the Racial Identity - Essay Example

Running Head: Racial Identity Racial Identity [Institute’s Racial Identity For many centuries, humans have been taking care oftheir cultures and civilizations since they play a significant role in evolution of humans as a society. This is something that I studied for years in school, and I always argued over the need of taking care of one’s culture until I came back to USA at the age of fifteen. Briefly, I was born in Millbrae California in the USA. My family is Chinese mainlander from Haerbin. So although I was born in USA but when I was about two years old, my parents moved back to Haerbin and so I had to go back with them as I could not have survived alone at the age of two. As a result, I spent my childhood in the lanes of Haerbin in China living with my grandparents and received my primary education from there. I lived in China up until I turned fourteen, then I came back to the United States for good and for my better future. Since then, I have been living here in USA and receiving my education here. I have family and friends here, and I live my life almost in the same way like other Americans do but I feel little bit of change in the way people look at me or interact with me. This alteration in people’s perception often results in frustration and often makes me smile but surely, the society treats me differently. I believe in the past, there were less travelling and so people from different cultures used to meet less with each other causing no tension or confrontation. However, in this era of globalization, it has become almost impossible to avoid a person coming from a different cultural or social background, and as a result, the society has become multicultural. But at the same time, I have felt that while the society has changed from a single-culture to a multicultural society, a part of American society is still not ready to accept different ethnicities and cultures around them that often creates complexities and tensions in the society. The reason I am saying this is because although I was born here in USA and I am living here in USA; I am no less than a White American who was born here and living here. Still, society treats me differently not consciously but maybe subconsciously, which has given me a different identity, a racial identity due to my Chinese ethnicity. In other words, the American society has changed into a pool of different ethnicities trying to take care of their cultures and at the same time, trying to dominate each other with their identities that often become a reason of worry and stress in my life. Although there is no problem in taking care of one’s identity but it is very important for people to respect and appreciate each other with the way they are. For instance, since I am Asian American, people often take me granted or sometimes, treat me like a tourist and then I have to tell them that I was born here, which causes an element of surprise in their eyes and subsequently causes frustration. This does not happen back in China; whether you are born in United States or China or somewhere else, everyone treat each other as Chinese; and maybe it is because of facial similarities that one can easily observe in Chinese people. As a result, whether I am born in United States or China, I am always treated as pure Chinese. On the other hand, when I interact with people in USA, some people are called White American, some Asian American, some African American, some Hispanics, and so on. This complexity of racial identities has caused difficulty in my understanding of self-identity whether it is Chinese or American or a mixture of both or something else. While I was in China, I used to watch Chinese TV programs as well as American movies and shows and my parents never asked me to stop viewing either. Now when I am in USA, I usually watch American TV shows. I noticed that many American TV shows have actors that are of Chinese ethnic background and even though they were born in USA, my friends call them Chinese actors working in American TV shows. I have no issues in being called a Chinese and I am proud to have a family and ethnic background from China, as well as glad I was born in a dream-like country of USA. But, the issue is with people giving different identities to each other based on their ethnic background and then judging them accordingly. For instance, as I received my primary education from China, I do not have a pure American accent that many of my friends have due to their upbringing in USA from childhood. As a result, people often consider me less educated because of my Chinese accent, which is one of the very common effects of racial identities that I researched so far. This does not happen with British-Americans; individuals emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States. One of the major reasons of this discrimination is because Asian Americans are in minority, and at the same time, counted as part of developing countries even when China has now become a super economic power. Therefore, as an Asian American and as a minority, I often felt out as different from the mainstream society, which initially affected my academic performance but later on, with the support of my family and friends, I adjusted well in this beautiful American society. With this, I must say my parents played a very positive role in keeping a balance between both Chinese and American backgrounds. Discrimination from various people could have caused a negative impact on my personality but my parents’ broad mindedness helped me stay focused on my studies and at the same time, my friends also supported me whenever I felt lonely after a negative instance. I believe American society is more about individualism while my Chinese background is more about collectivism and doing things in ceremonies and in groups whereas American promotes individual achievements and progress, which was a difficult thing to understand and grasp in the early days but as the time passed by, I gradually started to learn how American society works. Lastly, although I was aware of the fact from the beginning that I am Chinese by ethnicity and American by birth. But I realized significance of this difference when I first stepped at the US airport and people began to smile at us as if we were tourists, which was quite funny and exciting because I had to yet explore the American world. But when these expressions continued even after months, this resulted in frustration and gradually I understood the effect of having a racial identity, especially that from a minority group. In response, during the early months, I retaliated and tried to protect my Chinese culture by getting into arguments with people discriminating me. However, later on, I realized that ignoring such people is the best solution because this is the way society is built. Finally, I put efforts to balance between both cultures and respect and appreciate both societies and cultures, which have now become an essential part of my life and my personality. Read More