Identity Revised

IDENTITY: WHO AM I

All throughout life, we are asked the same questions over and over, “Who am I?” Sometimes we are able to figure out who we are, the person that we want to be, and are content with that person. Unfortunately, life isn’t always that easy and our identity is always being challenged.  There are obstacles we all face on the journey to figuring out our own personal identity.  We re-invent ourselves over and over trying to overcome those obstacles, always changing, always altering who we are.  One of the largest obstacles one faces on this journey to figuring out our true identity is the need to impress others, whether it is our peers, our parents and teachers, or even oneself. 

As early as pre-school, our identities begin to be challenged.  We worry about if we are good enough to impress the little girl next to us; we worry if she will like us enough to share her Barbies with us.  In her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua states, “In childhood we are told that our language is wrong.  Repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self” (81).  In this instance, Anzaldua is talking about her native tongue of Spanish.  When a young child in a group speaks in a different language than then the other children in that group speak, that child can be made fun of and mocked for speaking a different language.  This can happen because the young mockers don’t understand the different language, coming to the conclusion that it sounds funny.  Not only is the language we use one obstacle in impressing our peers to discover our identity, but there is also the way we talk, like having a lisp or a stutter.  After being teased over and over for these physical impairments, a child who used to love to talk and be outspoken, may become quiet and reserved for fear of receiving more ridicule.  They can completely change the identity they were forming into an identity of a child who is more reserved and quiet, just to get away from the taunting of others.

As we get older the more critical the challenge of discovering our identity becomes.  In junior high and high school, we begin to adapt a different identity all together, just to be accepted by the popular crowd.   In Emily White’s essay “High School’s Secret Life” she points out, “They all imitate one another because the imitation speaks of their power.  In this context conformity is not a cop-out but a way of broadcasting the fact that your aren’t a weirdo, that you are speaking in the signs of the chosen ones” (18).  We change who we are so that the “cool” kids will acknowledge us, talk to us; bring us into their special society so that we belong to that society, no longer being the outcasts.  Our true identity is forgotten and replaced by a fake identity that isn’t ours at all.

Another obstacle that many face in developing their own identity is the need to impress their authority figures, like their parents or teachers.  Young children look up to their parents as knowing everything and they want to do everything they can to make them proud of them.  As these children age, the fight for who they are and what their parents want them to be becomes harder and harder to fight.  In the essay “The Overachievers”, Alexandra Robbins tells that, “Never mind if the students don’t care about the prestige levels of their post-high school tracks; never mind if college is not for them.  Sometimes from as early as their toddler years, millions of students are raised to believe that there is nothing more than important success, and nothing that reflects that success more than admittance to a top-tier college”(250-51).  Students get this idea in their head that if they do not go to college, they won’t amount to anything important.  This will that student who wants to be a writer force herself to go to school and become a doctor, because her parents think it is the better and more successful choice.  They become someone they wouldn’t choose for themselves, just to fit the mold for success their parents and teachers have set up.  They sacrifice their dreams, their desires, and their own self-identity for someone else’s dreams and desires. 

While we struggle with these obstacles always challenging us to be someone we aren’t, someone’s own self can be an obstacle in the unfolding of their identity. Discovering who they are and not letting the different fears and influences change who exists is an internal battle that we all struggle with as years go by.  During Halloween one year, Lucy Grealy, author of the essay “Masks”, talked about when she wore a Halloween mask to hide her scar on her face. "I breathed in the plastic tainted air behind the mask and thought that I was breathing in normalcy, that this freedom and ease were what the world consisted of, that other people felt it all the time"(71).  Her desire to feel normal kept her wearing a mask of what she really was.  She hid from the world what she really looked like, because she didn’t feel normal on the outside.  Even though on the inside someone can have the same fears, same thoughts, same everyday likes and dislikes as everyone else around them, their outside appearance can hinder them from bringing out what their true identity inside is.

From the time we are born, we are in charge of discovering what our identity is.  Even though society tells us to stand above the crowd and walk to the beat of our own drums, society also creates stereotypes and ideals of who the perfect person is.  Sometimes we succumb to those stereotypes and turn our identity into a model that will fit societies’ mold.  However, if we cling to the person we know we are, we can build on the ambition of who we are, fight against the stereotypes, all while preserving who our identity is.