Identity Lost in Culture

Identity is defined as being oneself and not acting or being something else. The identity that one forms throughout their life time is a slow and tedious process, each and every event in one’s life whether it’s larger or small scale has an effect on developing ones overall identity. In the play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth by Drew Hayden Taylor, Janice it caught between two identities and struggles to find a happy medium. Being adopted into a white family at a young age, Janice has become accustom to many of the white traditions and ways. Janice’s native family has recently gotten in touch with her and has put a great deal of pressure on her to regain some of the native culture she was born into. With pressure building Janice begins to question her identity and begins to show signs that she wants nothing to do with her native roots. Drew Hayden Taylor does an excellent job in this play showing how stereotypes and pre-conceived notions affect ones identity and their relationships within society. Each character within the play shows how their identity has been shaped through the relationships they have acquired throughout their lives; Tonto’s identity is heavily influenced by his father and best friend Rodney, Barb is influenced by the customs and traditional ways of her mother, and Janice after being adopted at a young age has formed an identity revolving around that of her adopted parents but she faces a great deal of pressure from her native birth family.

Janice was stripped from her mother, Anne, at a very young age as part of the sixties scoop and was given to a white family shortly after. The event occurred at such a young age that Janice does not remember anything about what happened that day. Like many other chi...

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... struggled to find out who they really were. A majority of adoption records were kept sealed and made it next to impossible for these now native adults to uncover who there true families were. This left many native children and adults feeling as if they did not belong. These children were not able to form their own true identity but rather they were forced to live the lives they were adopted into and create identities based on what there new parents wanted. Identity is defined as being oneself, and in the end these native men and women were not allowed to be themselves, therefore they were never given the right to a true identity.

Works Cited

Philp, Margaret. "The Land of Lost Children." The Land of Lost Children. The Globe and Mail, 21 Dec. 2002. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

Taylor, Drew Hayden. Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth. Burnaby, B.C.: Talon, 1998. Print.