The Importance Of Personal Identity

Khaliuna Bayasgalan

Throughout my whole life, I was taught the idea that it is bad to be different and to avoid being unique. As a teenager, conforming to society might be the best road to take since you’re still figuring out who you are but it can lead to powerful internal conflicts if you completely lose your self identity. Some would argue that being yourself will make you happier by not pretending to be someone you’re not. Others insist that being yourself will separate you from everyone and always feel lonely. On the other hand, I believe being true to ourselves will enable people to see our real identity without a disguise. People will see what we are really like on the inside and they can appreciate our real self.

In American Born Chinese, Gene Yang argues that staying true to yourself rather than conforming to society’s standards is beneficial since you don’t have to cover up your real identity to fit in. Specifically, Yang reveals how fitting in requires giving up who you are and being self-conscious of themselves. For example, the Monkey King comes back from the dinner party, and issues a law throughout all of flower-fruit mountain, “All monkeys must wear shoes” (55). The Monkey King wants to change his physical feature to fit in with the other gods. He believes he’ll fit in if he just wears shoes and looks like them but it’s inconvenient to change because you cause more problems with the new changes. The Monkeys couldn’t function as normal monkeys since they couldn’t climb trees and they had a hard time adapting to the new changes. They had to sacrifice the skill they’re born with to wear human values. Though some may say that conforming to society will help...

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...oid about what they were actually thinking and felt like I wasn’t as good as them. But now that I’ve become more mature, I realized how immature and dense I was. I became aware of the negative aspects of conforming and how wanting to change who you are to fit in would make you insecure all the time and if everyone had ordinary names then no one would be special and everyone would have the same name. Even though my name doesn’t have a special meaning, I decided to keep my name because

In American Born Chinese, Gene Lang insists that an individual should make an effort to understand others and be yourself. While in Black Boy, Richard Wright argues that conforming in a threatening environment is natural and cannot be prevented. I agree with ABC and believe that embracing yourself and who you are will benefit other generations and yourself.