My Identity

Need a hook In this essay I will be talking about 3 major aspects that make up me. The 3 key aspects of my identity are running and art which are my abilities and reading which is one of my values.

Every year I look back on the previous and I see how much I have changed. I see the friends I have gained and lost. The heartbreak and the happiness. Despite how rough times have gotten, it has truly made me stronger. Everything has shaped who I am today, it has shaped my identity. Identity is a complex topic because it consists of changeable and unchangeable traits and outside internal influences; my own identity has been shaped by going from private to public school, young life camp, and my current friends.

Who I’m I? that’s the question I would always ask myself. My whole life my parents would say your Hispanic an when people ask me what are you? I would say I’m Hispanic whom my parents told me I’m.

Have you ever thought about what you believe in or where your belief comes from? Your beliefs come from your family, what you see on TV or what you here on the radio, and even yourself. Your beliefs reflect who you are and what type of person you are going to be.

Now, almost a decade later I have learnt what is really important to me. It is important to step back and listen to yourself instead of looking at others. Today, with a bigger distance to my highschool years I can see what was happening to me and why I acted the way I did. I was fantasising about who I could become to be loved and acknowledged by the people around me. I thought defining myself would make me feel more secure about myself. Looking around me I can see the phenomenon of the search for identity almost everywhere.

Outside influences have a strong capability to influence and alter our personal identity. Both directly and indirectly, the social contexts in which we live can change the way we think and feel, and by extension how we interact with other people and places. Immediate family, friendship groups and the physical environment are all factors which contribute to our ever changing perceptions of ourselves. Sometimes personal identity can be subtly reshaped over a gradual time frame, as our sense of who we are is modified without personal recognition that we are changing. At other times we may be able to notice our personal identity changing, through important life decisions.

Unlocking the doors of the past, gives way to a deeper reflection of one's inner self. We begin our journey to find my identity and to perhaps find a better understanding of how I came to be. A heritage originating from the Caucasus Mountains to my new found origin, beginning in New Jersey. My parents migrated to NJ and brought much of their tradition and culture, which to them was a foreign land. Hard-working individuals who were always concerned about their children's well-being and happiness. The strict traditional make-up of our family home consisted of a mother and father routinely working on set hours. My mother mostly did the cooking and household chores while my father did repairs, took out the garbage and keep up with the landscaping. Once school started, English became the first language spoken in the house. Aside from the English language, a second and third language was developed through indirect exposure which is an added plus, yet in a sense decreases the writing skills, due to the lack of vocabulary words which are the creative elements which forms an eloquent style of delivery. I recall memories of the times they would sit down at the kitchen table discussing the finances of the family making sure there was money saved, for a rainy day. They were definitely law abiding citizens that took pride in their home as well as the

One’s entire health is codependent upon various aspects of a stable mental and emotional health; these all rely on who they are, how they think of themself, and how they express what they feel. Furthermore, the state of one’s mental and emotional health can further impact their physical and social health. Good mental and emotional health is built upon several prime subcategories of this form of health, these consisting of one’s personal identity, their self-esteem, and their understanding and expression of emotions.

Many pieces of my personal identity make me who I am. I am a twenty year old, Caucasian female, who is currently striving toward a higher education. I am proud of the person that I have become and am aware that because of who I am, I fall in the line of simultaneously being privileged and oppressed. Being so that I am primarily privileged the factor of me being a female is enough to make me oppressed in certain aspects. I do not have to fight for things as much as other women do given their race, but I still feel females as a whole struggle as well as they have privileges that we do not even make note of because they are almost normal in our everyday lives.

An individual’s identity is molded by various aspects. Family, culture, personal interests, and outlaying environment all of them are factors tending to shape the personality of individuals. Personally, I tend to question myself whom I am and always think of what it takes to be a person. Out of these thoughts, I do get some of my personal identities. The most salient identity I get is my religion.

Society can not tell you who you are, or who you should be; it can only help guide you to look yourself. I had problems trying to find my place on the social scale. It had been a long time since I had to start fresh in a new environment with new people, I had always been with the same clique of people from pre-k to the eighth grade. I did not know what to do when I was placed into a public high school so before I could shut down and fall into a downward spiral I turned to the one place I once neglected; education. Education became my main objective to keep myself focused instead of worrying about being a loner and trying to make friends. The transition from a private school to a public one was not easy, but it was the learning experience I needed push me to find a self-identity and develop an appreciation for education.

Throughout the world everyone was an identity’s ether by culture or by other aspects that influence who you are. Amy Tan refers to her mother’s English as “broken” or “limited” because of people’s perceptions of limited English. I agree with her opinion, because of people’s judgment of English learners. There are several aspects that identifies me such as, culture, tradition, language, and specially religion.

To understand others, one must first understand themselves. We are influenced by the ones around us and it shapes us into who we are today. We learn from one another to expand our horizons, to be knowledge and well rounded. Things like our race to our age play major roles in who we are. The three crucial things that have played a significant role in my life have been my family background, my religious views and my personal identity.

If we really don’t know how to define ourselves well, then it reaches some point that we feel we don’t have a purpose in life. Finding out who we really are just takes time and thinking about our importance in life. My identity or how I define myself is something that requires elaboration. Generally, I can define myself in terms of religion, education, gender, political, beliefs, sexuality, physical or learning challenges. In terms of religion, I can say am Muslim who believes the God. My level of education is up to college level, a place where I am until today, politically, I am not affiliated to any party, but I believe in service delivery, and therefore, for me to vote in a leader for a political seat will fully depend on his / her leadership

My identity crisis started when I was about 9 years old. The realization that I was different from friends, family, and my classmates were scary and hard to bare. As a young child, we are taught and framed to be a certain way, think a certain way, and live a certain way according to the family structure. Like most young girls I often fantasized about my wedding. What type of dress I was going to wear, what colors I would pick and what type of dress my wife would choose. My fantasies were often disrupted by the sound of my mother’s voice instructing me to complete a task, or letting me know she was home. At that very moment internal shame, and denial would set in. This is not normal, a wife, why was I thinking about a wife? I don’t like girls! I like Josh. That’s who I will marry, Josh.