Identity
Identity, as defined by Jonathan Friedman, is positional and can be determined by one’s place in a larger network of relations (36). Live and Become depicts the life of a young, Ethiopian boy who travels across countries in search of his identity. After losing most of his family to famine and disease, Schlomo, his assigned Jewish name, moves to Israel as a replacement child of a mother who had lost her son. As his mother sent him away, she told him to “Go. Live. Become.” But become what? Completely unaware of what this meant, he is soon adopted by a beautiful family. This marks the beginning of his journey to finding his identity. In this essay I will explore the process that Schlomo undergoes to find his identity in a world completely different than what he is accustomed to. Through Schlomo and other examples of lost identity, I will dissect the process of finding an identity through culture, language and education, and religion.
One’s surroundings, environment, and people all play a role in one’s culture. Many immigrants, refugees, and in Schlomo’s case, adopted kids find that they need to assimilate to their new environment. Others find the need to remain loyal to their previous culture, and oftentimes run into problems with this (“Caught between two worlds”). Up until the age of nine, Schlomo knew nothing except a world of famine, disease, violence, and death. The transition to life in a developed nation was quite troublesome for Schlomo. Even after months with his new family, Schlomo still would not eat the dinner that was prepared for him. It took quite some time, and also few adjustments of the family, for Schlomo to feel comfortable enough to speak, eat, and play freely in his own home. Schlomo had dark skin, ...
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...t be as simple as finding my identity was. Through Schlomo’s turmoil and strife, I think we can learn many lessons. He never gave up on his true beliefs. When he left his mother he had no idea what “Go. Live. Become” meant, but he figured it out. He became a doctor, a soldier, a father, and a man. Although I feel I have found my identity within the confines of college life, I am still trying to find an identity in my complete life. This I do not intend to find anytime soon.
Works Cited
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Live and Become. Dir. Radu Mihaileanu. Perf. Sirak M. Sabahat and Yitzhak Edgar. Menemsha Films, 2005. Online.
Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri, an Indian by descent, was born in London in August 1967, to a Bengali immigrant Indian parents. “Jhumpa” is the nickname easier for the teachers remember his name. The Lahiri family moved from England to Rhode Island when Jhumpa was two years old. Her father was a librarian at Rhode Island University and her mother was a school teacher. At age of seven, Lahiri started to embrace writing about what she saw and felt. While growing up, Lahiri lived two lives: An Indian at home and An American outside of the home. Despite of living most of their life in the western world, Lahiri’s parents called “Calcutta” their home unlike Lahiri who thought Rhode Island as her hometown. Lahiri always felt her family had a different li...
In introducing someone most people use a format of giving the person’s name and some correlation of how they know them. In Italian culture; and more so, organized families, people are introduced as a friend of mine or a friend of ours. This is to establish the relationship to “The Family” and how they might be trusted. This does not allow for one’s own identity, but only for their association to, or not to, an affiliation. A person’s autonomy is then lost and only their social identity is known. Personal growth is a constant, although many would love to say they are developed at a certain age, this is not so because development of self and identity is ongoing and ever changing. In formal tradition, I now introduce to you a friend of ours; Mister Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and we will look at his life and personal development in relation with the philosophical format of identity. Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote a book called Ethics of Identity and in this he looks at many philosophers but mainly John Stuart Mill and his lifelong work to define identity and how one is to acquire it.
There are many factors that lead to the development of an individual’s identity. Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” illustrates an extreme change in Gregor Samsa’s external identity and the overall outward effect it has on the development of his family. While James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” illustrates a young man struggling to find his identity while being pushed around by what society and his family wants him to be. Both of these characters exhibit an underlying struggle of alienation but both also demonstrate a craving for belongingness. This conflict of trying to belong to something as well as satisfying the needs of society, has directly impacted their own individuality and the lives of the people around them.
Palmer, Tom G. "Globalization, Cosmopolitanism, and Personal Identity." Ethics & Politics 2 (2003): 1-15. Web.
Gardner, Robert, and Wayne Lavold. "Chapter 9-12." Exploring Globalization. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2007. N. pag. Print.
Lahiri, a second-generation immigrant, endures the difficulty of living in the middle of her hyphenated label “Indian-American”, whereas she will never fully feel Indian nor fully American, her identity is the combination of her attributes, everything in between.
John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens (2011) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
One of the biggest fears in today's world is the idea of not fitting into society. Evan Hunter's story “On the Sidewalk Bleeding,” explores the theme of the importance of personal identity. This will be shown through an analysis of how external reality plays a critical role in defining who people are, how personal identity is a crucial aspect of how individuals grow and the fact that no matter how hard you try, you can never erase the troubles of your past. One aspect of identity that is evident in Hunter's story is how external reality plays a critical role in defining who people are. While individuals may wish to be many things, the world plays a role in who people are and how people perceive others.
Fulcher, James. "Globalisation, the Nation-state and Global Society." The Sociological Review 48.4 (2000): 522-43. Print.
As Josselson (2012) argues, it is simpler for the people to fix multicultural or multiracial individuals into a single cultural or racial identity, although realistically, most people find it difficult to categorize oneself in a single-margin. This is apparent in the reading White Teeth and Tar Baby, where the character’s identity is influenced by a socially embedded habitus of values, expectations and self-understanding, or lack there-of. In order to understand the challenges of racial and cultural identity in these novels, I will first look at characters Son and Jadine from Tar Baby and Samad and his twin sons, Millat and Magid from White Teeth.
As the Diaspora experience is presented as a distinct identity trait of the Jewish people, there is ...
This personal narrative is attained only because of the important role History plays in tying these factors together. In order for one to relate identity to difference using the dialogical method, he/she must “position [themselves] somewhere in order to say anything at all.” This position is attained through an understanding of history; a history which...
The author of the story was born in 1967 in London, and soon after she moved to Rhode Island in the United States. Although Lahiri was born in England and raised in the United States and her parent’s still carried an Indian cultural background and held their believes, as her father and mother were a librarian and teacher. Author’s Indian heritage is a strong basis of her stories, stories where she questions the identity and the plot of the different cultural displaced. Lahiri always interactive with her parents in Bengali every time which shows she respected her parents and culture. As the author was growing up she never felt that she was a full American, as her parents deep ties with India as they often visited the country.
Throughout life, a person can expect to endure many challenges, trials, experiences, accomplishments and disappointments. How one recovers, from those challenges, and can set the lifespan is a lifelong process from birth to death and includes the formation of identity (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). I will cover in the paper six life events that influence my identity development from childhood to middle adulthood. Each life event will be explained based on the significance of the event as well as the impact the event had on my development. Also, theories will be discussed as they relate to my development.
The Globalization Reader. 2011. Fourth Edition. Frank J. Lechner and John Boli, eds. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.