My Italian Culture Shapes Who I Am

Our identity has a great influence on how we are perceived and classified by others in society. Some ways we are usually identified are gender, race, and ethnicity. I am a white, male, of Italian decent. I was born in Arezzo, Italy and moved here when I was seven. I am now nineteen years old. Often times in society based on our social location people believe they know who we are and how we should behave.
Growing up in Italy, everyone was predominately white and of Italian ethnic background. They had the same religious, and cultural views as I did for the most part. As in any society of course there was poverty due to the high rates of unemployment. In Italy speech was a social boundary marker, although everyone spoke Italian there are different dialects. Your dialect was part of your social location it determined what part of Italy you came from or how educated you are. A more educated person was able to speak the pure Italian language without a dialect. Sicilians were discriminated against often times because their dialect differed, and they didn’t have the typical features of an Italian person. Sicilians were considered dark skinned as oppose to the fair skin Italians and were linked to being apart of the mafia. The Roman Catholic religion was the most common one practiced in Italy. However, where I currently live it is more diverse, there are people of different races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Neighborhoods consist of long time city residents and immigrant newcomers who have developed an understanding of a new culture and being apart of a community. Where I live now I would say diversity is appreciated; people are able to have close relationships with one another despite their differences of class, race, relig...

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... to privilege or oppression. If my social location were different there is possibility that others would treat me differently in society. Members of a dominant race or group usually have privilege, and it has a great affect on how they are able to live their lives. Minorities for example face oppression sometimes because of their social location. I am aware that some aspects of my social location make me privileged to certain things and oppressed to others. People of certain cultures are oppressed in the airport because of how they dress or their religious beliefs, they are security monitored more then other individuals. Women are at times oppressed or not hired for job because they considered incapable of executing it as well as a man. Although we may not always notice, our social location affects us everyday; it affects how people feel about us or act toward us.