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Benefits and challenges associated with expressions of cultural identity.
Benefits and challenges associated with expressions of cultural identity.
role of culture in identity formation
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On that viscerally vibrant Friday morning, in that urbanized oasis, a group of primarily Black and Hispanic students united at El Cerrito High School to discuss their parents and peers very real struggle to achieve the American dream. The stories of racism, oppression, gentrification, and deportation filled the classroom with the voices of varied languages and vernaculars, a majority of which felt caught between cultures and pulled away at the seams by opposing orientations. These fourteen and fifteen year olds spoke of parents requiring them to speak the language of a place they’ve never been, of teachers demanding a “Standard English” they’ve never been taught, of friends questioning their “Americaness” because they didn’t know the difference between Disneyland and Disney World. This youthful minority-majority population is faced with cultural double identity; a term that reflects the cognitive dissonance an individual feels when their identity is fragmented along cultural, racial, linguistic or ethnic lines. This conflict of self is not isolated in this classroom in San Francisco’s East Bay area. It brims over into every classroom within California, where “no race or ethnic group constitutes a majority of the state’s population” (Johnson). It must be said then, that the culturally and linguistically diverse California classrooms must integrate texts that examine the psychological state of double identity. Turning to Luis Valdez’ play “Zoot Suit”, Chester Himes’s protest novel If He Hollers Let Him Go, and Al Young’s prose poem “Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons”, we encounter literature and characters with double identities that assist in navigating marginalized adolescents with their own struggles in understanding their mu...
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...an Studies 7.3 (2003): 59-79. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Du Bois, W.E.B. "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Gramercy, 1994. 1-15. Print.
Himes, Chester B. If He Hollers Let Him Go: A Novel. Ed. Hilton Als. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2002. Print.
Johnson, Hans. "California's Population (PPIC Publication)." Public Policy Institute of California, May 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Padilla, A. M. "Bicultural Social Development." Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 28.4 (2006): 467-97. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. Sage Journals, 9 Oct. 2006. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Valdez, Luis. "Zoot Suit." Zoot Suit and Other Plays. Houston, TX: Arte Publico, 1992. 21-94. Print.
Young, Al. “Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons”. California Ethnic Literature from 1900. Ed. Anthony Rizzuto. Sonoma State University: Spring 2014. 12.
Alridge, Derrick P. The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History. New York: Teachers College, 2008. Print.
...uls of Black Folk, the readers in the Twentieth-Century America can draw direct parallels to events, stories, and the morays of those in the past to today. The chapter "Of the Coming Of John" helps us interpret the present inequities in educational opportunities. There is also resentment for affirmative action that has been spoken by the dominant white male that reflects the court decision on affirmative action of modern time. The reader can contemplate the passage of Du Bois' essay to substitute the words "colored" and "Negro" with African-America, Nigger, illegal alien, Mexican, inner-city dwellers, and other meanings that articulate people that are not listed as a majority. Du Bois' essay is considered a classic because its' words can easily reflect to the modern day.
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
The Souls of Black Folks by W. E. B. Du Bois is a text published to explain a series of events to inform many people about the many unexplainable ways of African Americans. This story is of the coming of the strong African American race . This story is the explanation of many not easily described discrepancies between African Americans and White Americans. It conveys the meaning of many black ways and reasoning. African Americans were obviously always a race of sophistication but in its own ways. They were stomped down by the struggles of slavery and their identity being taken away to create what many other races would label as ignorance. The irrelevance of African culture in the Americas took away majority of the strong cultures sense of life. It was lost in years of slavery. In this informative text he explains further how they are on route to regain all that was lost but in a new land.
Clutter, Ann W., and Ruben D. Nieto. "Understanding the Hispanic Culture." Osu.edu. Ohio State University. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. .
“How does it feel to be a problem?” (par. 1). Throughout “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” W.E.B. Du Bois explains the hardships experienced throughout his childhood and through the period of Africans living in America before the civil rights movement. Du Bois begins with his first experience of racism and goes all the way into the process of mentally freeing African Americans. Du Bois describes the struggle of being an African American in a world in which Whites are believed to dominate through the use of Listing, Imagery, and Rhetorical Questioning because these rhetorical devices stress the importance of the topic Du Bois is talking about.
Kanellos, Nicolás, Felix M- Padilla, and Claudio Esteva Fabregat, eds. Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1994. Print.
Steltzer, Ulli, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California.” Kiniry and Rose 346-347. Print.
Throughout his essay, Du Bois challenged Booker T. Washington’s policy of racial accommodation and gradualism. In this article Du Bois discusses many issues he believes he sees
From The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du bois is lauded in American history and sociology for its symbolic importance. Du Bois uses style, Tone, imagery, metaphors and similes as well as many other literary devices to discuss socially constructed and self-determined identities. Throughout this analysis I plan to discuss three chapters out of From The souls of Black Folk. Those chapters are chapter one of our spiritual striving, chapter three of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others and last chapter 14 of the sorrow songs. W.E.B Du Bois book anticipates many of the central questions of the twentieth century and makes the reader aware that current problems have their roots in the failed effort to bring equality and justice to African Americans
“How does it feel to be a problem? they say.” In the opening paragraph of Of Our Spiritual Strivings, Du Bois already poses
... collective consciousness of the Black community in the nineteen hundreds were seen throughout the veil a physical and psychological and division of race. The veil is not seen as a simple cloth to Du Bois but instead a prison which prevents the blacks from improving, or gain equality or education and makes them see themselves as the negative biases through the eyes of the whites which helps us see the sacred as evil. The veil is also seen as a blindfold and a trap on the many thousands which live with the veil hiding their true identity, segregated from the whites and confused themselves in biases of themselves. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folks had helped to life off the veil and show the true paid and sorry which the people of the South had witnessed. Du Bois inclines the people not to live behind the veil but to live above it to better themselves as well as others.
US Bureau of the Census; ?Estimates of the population of state by age, sex, race & Hispanic origin: 1990 to 1999;? published 12/29/99
Du Bois's book provides an insight into how African- Americans felt, and handled things during this controversial time. The main topics of The Souls of Black Folk include African- American worldviews, the policies of Booker T Washington, the impact of segregation and discrimination upon black folk, stereotypes, African- American history and spirituality, and generl feelings possesed by African- Americans of this time. Du Bois makes some very stron point and includes his own perspective in his writing. Du Bois even created his own ideals of how black folks could achieve complete freedom. In his opinion, the most important aspects of life that African-Americans should be granted with are, the right to an education, the right to vote, and the right to be treated justly and as an equal. This is an apperant opinion of his throughout the entir...
In the essay "It’s Hard Enough Being Me," Anna Lisa Raya relates her experiences as a multicultural American at Columbia University in New York and the confusion she felt about her identity. She grew up in L.A. and mostly identified with her Mexican background, but occasionally with her Puerto Rican background as well. Upon arriving to New York however, she discovered that to everyone else, she was considered "Latina." She points out that a typical "Latina" must salsa dance, know Mexican history, and most importantly, speak Spanish. Raya argues that she doesn’t know any of these things, so how could this label apply to her? She’s caught between being a "sell-out" to her heritage, and at the same time a "spic" to Americans. She adds that trying to cope with college life and the confusion of searching for an identity is a burden. Anna Raya closes her essay by presenting a piece of advice she was given on how to deal with her identity. She was told that she should try to satisfy herself and not worry about other people’s opinions. Anna Lisa Raya’s essay is an informative account of life for a multicultural American as well as an important insight into how people of multicultural backgrounds handle the labels that are placed upon them, and the confusion it leads to in the attempt to find an identity. Searching for an identity in a society that seeks to place a label on each individual is a difficult task, especially for people of multicultural ancestry.