My Identities Essay

The identities I think about the most would be my race, ethnicity, national origin and socio-economic class. The 1st two I have thought about more and more in the last few countries especially in light of the publication of more and more African-Americans. As I see the media every day I feel like I am always reminded of it and how I have to always make sure that I act in a way that others cannot use to discredit my race or try to undermine my achievements to “oh you only got that scholarship/job/position/etc.” because of the colour of my skin. The colour of my skin as well as my given 1st name ties into the fact that I think about my national origin a lot. I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. However so many times both in high school and during …show more content…
I think that the reason I don’t think about either of those so much is because they are so ingrained in me and I have never had a reason to think about my age or 1st language. For my age at least for now I am young I still have my life in front of me so it’s something I don’t worry about. As for my 1st language, by living in a country where a large majority of people also speak the same language as me also allows me to not think about it. With that being said I can understand how and why non English speakers would use this as an identity. Both of my parents were born in Nigeria and although English is the official of the country both of them learned their native language primarily and then were taught English on the side, and to this day they are proud of the fact that they still remember it and speak it with each other and other Nigerians whenever they get the chance. To them Yoruba ( their native language ) is more than a means of communication, it’s one of the last ties they have to a culture that is not predominate here in the …show more content…
Now it might seem weird for me to mention religious affiliation since I never talked about it until now in this reflection but my religious belief is what moulded me into the person I am on a fundamental level going into college. I was raised very religious ( Christian) but as I got college I become less religious and stopped going to church because I wanted to learn more about myself and if I truly believed what I was taught or if I just believed what I was taught because of my parents. Those beliefs I would say are the foundation of who I am as a person and have even to this day been the driving factor of most of decisions subconsciously. Since coming to college and this goes back to the media and the growing amount of injustice in the country I’ve moved away from the religious aspect of my life and started looking more at my race and ethnicity and trying to figure out what it means to me and understand how it has shaped me as a