Essay On Cultural Identity

Who you are? A crucial question that will be raised in every person’s life by the social world and himself in a particular phase of their life. An identity can be defined in two ways, in how a person describes himself/herself and how the society categorizes a person based on his /her interactions and evaluation of their abilities. Personal identity is drawn based on different viewpoints such as by birth, culture, nationality, race, ethnicity, environment, life experiences to name a few, however; the viewpoints varies with every individual in context. Moreover, a true identity shouldn’t be recognized by external and physical appearance, instead it should be based on the persons talents and his vision towards things.

A person’s first identity

Nationality reveals the part of the world a person belongs to, their educational system and the way they envision the world. For example, I identify myself as an Indian. Being an immigrant in the United States pursuing my higher studies, I introduce myself with an Indian identification label. Likewise, culture describes the environment where a person has been brought up and composed of behavioral patterns they exhibit. In his article, “Blaxicans” And Other Reinvented Americans, Richard Rodriguez asserts that Culture cannot be Separated from a person’s life, it remains throughout their entire life and can be visualized by the characteristics they display. Cultural identity categorizes a person to a specific group by qualities they share among them and their association within the society. Specifically, for an asian Indian, ethnicity is the prime component which governs the development of their cultural identity. Ancestors pass on their ethnic identity to form a family tree using the means of ethnic socialization by directly or indirectly demonstrating the traditions, beliefs, and values associated with their respective cultural background. As a result, culture has become one of the pertinent foundations of the behavior of the individual that establishes a pre-described constraint to inherit the same

Every human has the capability to amend their identity based on the events they have faced in their life. An American Musician, Keith Urban in an interview, says “You go through life experiences. Each record captures a different turning Point in life”(online). His words clearly speaks that every single incident a person’s goes through, leaves a significant effect on their life. Therefore, an individual is shaped accordingly, based on the life experiences they encounter. Of course, None of us is same as that we existed at birth, or preferences has changed accordingly with different life experiences. It is well known fact that, human learns from their mistakes, which infer that the past actions can change present