Cultural Identity In Meeta Kaur's Journey By The Inner Light

In today’s world we are exposed to a number of cultures that sometimes we forget the importance of our own cultural identity. From the readings, we experience the troubles each author undergoes when it comes to acceptance, confusion about cultures, and the valuable meanings of one’s own cultural identity. In “Journey by the Inner Light” by Meeta Kaur, the author explains her journey in finding her “inner self “. Kaur starts her reading by discussing the importance of her long hair which symbolizes her family’s values. As Kaur gets older, she becomes more Americanized and her family values along with American culture start to contradict her daily lifestyle. This becomes a struggle for Kaur as she begins to question herself and her culture. Kaur …show more content…
As a young kid, my mother would stress the importance of praying, going to church and practicing religion. I saw how happy it made my mom when I attended church with her every Sunday morning but as I got older, I became less interested in attending church. I was constantly surrounded by kids at my school whose parents allowed them to stay home every Sunday. I decided to not attend church to feel accepted by my peers but when I did that, I felt unhappy and unsure of who I was. My own experiences can relate to that of Meeka in the reading “Journey by the Inner Light” when she struggles to understand the significance of her hair and how it gave her a sense of safety, strength and respect. In the reading Meeta mentions, “I lose my connection to a deeper sense of who I am. I do not realize that I had put that much faith into my kesh…” (48). As a kid, Meeta’s hair became her form of strength and faith but after she cut her hair she lost that strength and faith and that’s when she realized the true meaning of her kesh. Meeta was able to seek her faith in her hair just like I was able to seek my faith in church. As I cut off church and my religious beliefs from my life, I also felt lost and like part of me was missing. I can say, my religious beliefs gave me a sense of safety and my faith allowed me to understand the actual importance of my religion on …show more content…
I haven’t visited my native country in over ten years and not only were they extremely welcoming but they made me feel at home. They showed me the meaning of unity and it was about sharing the same culture, beliefs, values, and customs. I felt at home in my native country. All though the last time I saw people in my community, I was young and could barely remember a thing but everyone still treated me like they had just seen me yesterday. They were accepting of me and I felt like I didn’t need to conform to anything in order to feel accepted because I knew I belonged there. In the reading “Foreign Asians”, Pham had a much different experience. Although he was born in Vietnam, he was rejected from his community because they didn’t believe he was from Vietnam since he lacked the accent. In the reading, Pham quotes, ‘You’re all right! I was just joking. Sorry. I am Korean…” (322). Though the author was from Vietnam he had to lie to the crowd and agree he was Korean in order to avoid getting beaten. By the author agreeing to say he was Korean, he sort of conformed to what everyone kept saying about him as a way of him saving himself. Even though the author lied to the community about him being Korean, he himself knew he was Vietnamese although he was unable to develop the accent after migrating to America. Although the author was denied acceptance from the community he was