final identity essay

Andreas Fell

9/19/14

Prof. Young

ENG 1100

The Complexity of an Identity

            An identity is like a fingerprint, everyone has one and everyone’s is different. These identities make us who we are. They cannot be changed or manipulated. Throughout the years certain social situations have come up where people attempt to change others identities to make them fit into the society that they want to see. The key word in that sentence is attempt because you cannot change what is already written in stone. An identity is strong, it is powerful and those who embrace it have a different out look on life because not only are they embracing who they are, but they are looking out at the world through they eyes of their culture.

            When identity is brought up it is always thought of the literal terms as who the person is physically. Even though that is a single definition of what an identity is, another look at what an identity is, is needed to truly understand what makes us who we are. To go into their personality and really look at their internal identity, what makes up who they really are as a person, their background, ethnicity, where they were raised, who they were raised by, is necessary for the connections that we make in the world around us. You could look at me, and my physical identity could be that I am big, a guy, have a beard, and that I am tall. But to really look at my internal identity would take a whole lot more than just looking at me.

            No two people have the same identity; there are a plethora of different factors that go into what an identity. By that I mean that in todays society with so many different culture overlap and different people from different culture marrying people with different cultures and backgrounds it makes it hard for two different people to have the same identity. You even have a different identity than your parents. In my own life I have experienced different events that have impacted me that my parents, when growing up, have not experienced. To go into detail even my own lifestyle is different that my parents, they were the type to not be adventurous with their experiences, however looking at my own life the things I have done and have experienced have made me a much more diverse person and have added to what I call and identify to as my personal identity.

            But not only the persons background can determine ones identity. Other factors such as culture raised in, and area where a person lived can also alter their identity. For example in “How to Tame A Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua she says “With Chicanas from Nuevo Mexico or Arizona I will speak Chicano Spanish a little but often they don’t understand what I’m saying. With most California Chicanas I speak entirely in English… Often it is only with another Chicana tejana that I can talk freely.” (248) What she is trying to say is that even though she is talking to other people with the same culture and ethnicity as her and who speak the same language as her, the dialects within those languages can make it a totally new language. Going to my own experiences, my background is Greek, and within the Greek language is different dialects, I can speak regular “text book” Greek, but where my family from Greece is located in we speak a dialect called vlahika its spoken by a small amount of people and it is only heard in the north of Greece. That being said, the different factors from that area of the world influence something so important as language just shows how influential these factors are.

            An identity is a melting pot of different factors that all combine to create an individual person. This combination of identification cannot be changed no matter how hard the person or some external factors tries. It is an individualized marker to help distinguish us in the world that contains so many different combinations of cultures, ethnicities, and other factors that at the end of it all even though there are 7 billion people here on this earth we are all individuals and are different from each other. Yes we may share some similarities between each other but even those don’t match up perfectly. The dark times in our history where we attempted to change who people were and change their identities was a sad and very stupid time. It was stupid because you cannot change something that is so individualized. If it’s a brick once its always a brick. That brick is never going to evolve to a computer or even anything remotely non-brick like. It will be like that forever.  That can be related back to identities. They can never be changed only added to. They are some of the most important things that we can call our own. Without identities we are just a blank face in the crowd.

The complexity of an Identity

Andreas Fell

9/12/14

Prof. Young

ENG 1100

The Complexity of an Identity

            Without our identities we are nothing. We are just another blank face in the crowd without certain defining characteristics that make us who we all are. All these characteristics combine to make our identity. The place that we were born in, our ethnicities, the people that helped raise us and mold us into the person that we are today. An identity is like a fingerprint; no two-finger prints are alike. The endless combinations of our identities gives us the individualisms that we can notice in todays society.

            When identity is brought up it is always thought of the literal terms as who the person is physically. But that is the literal term of identity. To go into their personality and really look at their internal identity, what makes up who they really are as a person, is necessary for the connections that we make in the world around us. You could look at me and my physical identity could be that I am big, a guy, have a beard, and that I am tall. But to really look at my internal identity would take a whole lot more than just looking at me.

            A person’s identity is like a fingerprint. By that I mean that in todays society with so many different culture overlap and different people from different culture marrying people with different cultures and backgrounds it makes it hard for two different people to have the same identity. This makes the concept of identities much more rich than it was previously.

            But not only the persons background can determine ones identity. Other factors such as culture raised in, and area where a person lived can also alter their identity. For example in “How to Tame A Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua she says “With Chicanas from Nuevo Mexico or Arizona I will speak Chicano Spanish a little but often they don’t understand what I’m saying. With most California Chicanas I speak entirely in English… Often it is only with another Chicana tejana that I can talk freely.” (248) What she is trying to say is that even though she is talking to other people with the same culture and ethnicity as her and who speak the same language as her, the dialects within those languages can make it a totally new language.

            To take and identity and to call it anything less than one of the most important things a person can have to help define them selves. Having an identity and being connected with that identity is what makes us not just another face in the crowd. But what it does is individualize each and every one of us allowing us to stand out and become our own person rather than just being another body. The complexity to each and everyone of our own identities is astounding to truly look at in all the different aspects that make up what an identity is. Each and everyone of us is an individual and to embrace our identity is an important step in being an individual.

My Identity

My identity is sacred to who I am. Without it I have nothing that defines me as a person. Even though I am a mix of nationalities the one that I identify with and the one that is who I am is Greek. Being Greek to me doesn’t just mean that I have a big family, which I do, or I go to big Greek weddings, it means a lot more to me than that. English wasn’t even my first language, Greek was. From a young age, every Saturday and Tuesday I would go to Greek school, four hours on Saturday for culture and language, and two hours on Tuesday for dance. In addition to this I would go to church every Sunday and participate in a variety of Greek events. But the main focus of this all was my language. Even to this day I can speak mostly fluent Greek, I can also read and write it as well. I take great pride in this because not many people that I run into can speak Greek, let alone write it. The alphabet is totally different, the pronunciations are completely different, along with a multitude of dialects that are contained within the general language. This defines who I am, the culture that I was raised up in.  I cannot tell you how many times I have been to a Greek festival, wedding, even the Greek parade that they hold in NYC every year. The stories that my elders have about going through World War 2, having their entire villages destroyed, planes bombing everything around them. There is one story that sticks out of all of them, my Theo (Uncle) and his family were captured by German troops and were about to be shot, until one German said something to the other one and they left. That moment is really scary for me because had they have not survived I wouldn’t have been here at all. Going along with WW2, the one holiday that is one of my favorites is oxi day, or literally translated as no day. Every single European country had let the axis powers come through the country, all expect for Greece, this date commemorates the day where the tiny country of Greece stood up to one of the greatest military powers. It is celebrated on October 28^th every year in Greece and Cyprus. The culture of the Greek people is rich and diverse. The amount of traditions makes our culture unlike any other culture. We have been through it all and because of that we are the way we are today. My heritage is very important to me as it defines who I am as a person, without it I am just another blank face in the crowd. The thing is that everyone’s heritage and background is very personal to them. It is like a fingerprint, no two peoples background is the same.