Jimmy And Memo: The Creation Of Social Identity

Throughout our duration and evolvement of each of our lives, our identities are molded to the experiences we choose to live and hand of circumstances that were dealt to us. Our social identity is created in three distinct steps, social categorization, social comparison, and psychological work. These three defining steps shed light on the why in many of the happenings that transpire to us on a daily basis. The creation of social identities is depicted in the Gregory Nava film, “Mi Familia”, more specifically through two characters, Jimmy and Memo. Both characters share similarities as they go along their journey towards their social identities, but differ in the way they choose to go about reversing the stigma associated with their identities. Nonetheless, through the film, “Mi Familia” they share with us their path toward the creation of their social identity through their own unique fashion. …show more content…
First and foremost, in order to form a social identity, you must first under go the process of social categorization. Social categorization is the process of placing people into social categories upon meeting them, based on nationality, language, race, ethnicity, skin color, and or any other social or physical characteristic. In simpler terms, when we meet people we are unknowingly placing people into distinct boxes based on nationality, language, race, ethnicity, skin color, and or any other social or physical attribute they posses. For example, when we meet someone and we identify them as Latino because of their brown skin, brown eyes, and Mexican accent, we are socially categorizing them as Latino because of their physical and social characteristics, essentially placing them into the “Latino box”. The process of social categorization is unknowingly done,