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Personal Narrative: My Ethnic Identity

1371 Words6 Pages

The world is filled with people, and like snowflakes, each person is not the same as another. Each person identifies with different aspects of their lives to create their own personal identities. I personally identify with my Italian side of my family to help form who I am today. I have found myself connecting with this side more so than the other parts of my identity. It affects how I live my life by becoming the center to the culture surrounding me. However, my ethnic identity as an Italian American also influences how I live when it comes to my religion, and how my religion affects my life alongside my ethnicity. I will expand on this issue on how I express my ethnic and religious identity in regards to each other. My religion has often …show more content…

I share the stereotypes of loving to cook, as well as having giant family get-togethers, as well as some others, but I did share the volume that I notice most of my family had when discussing. I have been told that I am very soft spoken, quiet and shy, which makes me stand out sometimes when I am at these family parties. I am usually just the person who is listening instead of trying to talk over everyone, which is why everyone ends up with such a loud volume on a normal basis. I have also been told that I could not possible be a part of the family, because I do not have some of the same stereotypes that are stuck with my family. This makes Markus statement true about identity, that “a person’s identity depends on her own view of herself, but it also depends on others’ views of her” (Markus 180). I try to see myself as an Italian American, but since some people notice that I do not fit with the assumed stereotypes that come with Italian Americans, they tend to think that I connect more with my mother’s side more than my father’s side, who are the Italian Americans. I came to the realization that I am missing some of the stereotypes that are connected with the Italian ethnicity, but I do the ones that make me who I am. The ones I enjoy and am grateful to have, such as my love for family connections, a love for cooking and different types of cuisine, and my ability to be late to almost everything no matter how hard I try to make it on time, which is also a trait that is often associated with the Mormon church as well, which is why I realize that both my ethnicity and religion has formed my

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