According to Yep (1998, p. 99, as cited in Guo, 2016) identity describes who we are as an individual in the world and a person’s conception of self; within a particular social, geographical, cultural, and political background. Furthermore, in a social context, …show more content…
In addition, enculturation is a part of my life and this started from when I was born to today’s society and I learnt this through being raised and born into the culture I was raised into (DeVito, O’Rourke, O’Neill, 2000, p. 99). When I was born my parents sent me to a Kōhanga (Kindergarten) and I was taught to only speak Māori. Once I turned five, I attended a bilingual Māori primary school and was encouraged to continue speaking Māori and learn by Māori values these of which include: the importance of unity, hospitality and caring for others. Furthermore, in high school I discontinued learning my Māori language and culture due to the beginning of deconstruction of my personal identity. For this reason, my personal identity was stereotyped heavily throughout high school and I choose to discontinue my cultural values; stereotypes shown by Samovar, Porter and McDaniel (2010, p. 41-42) are a collection of unfounded norms that in all cultures make about the individualities of various groups. Although Māori people are stereotyped, I was hurt by this and decided I no longer wanted to be stereotyped to be lazy, incompetent and untrustworthy so I decided to continue learning and expand my knowledge on Māori culture at the University of