Race And Culture Makes Up One's Identity

What role does society and scientific findings play in the process of developing your identity? Race and culture are the foundation for building one’s identity. There is a plethora of characteristics, religions, music, and other things that shape one’s identity and aid them in defining themselves. There has been controversy in the old age and recently about what makes up your identity. Race, culture, language, and DNA markup have all been mentioned to answer the question of what makes up one’s identity. Americans have been brainwashed with the idea that their cultural construct and DNA markup develops their ongoing identity. In America your race, culture, and language contributes to your identity. They all contribute equally to the makeup of

Dorrine Kondo in "On being a Conceptual Anomaly" visited Japan, where she disguised a image of being Japanese, but acted American. She discuss how race, language and culture are intertwined in the development of a personal identity. While being in Japan, Kondo was forced into being in an environment that attempted to recreate her. Kondo states “ Identity can imply unity or fusion, but for me what occurred was a fragmentation of the self. This fragmentation was encouraged by my own participation in japanese life and by the actions of my friends and acquaintances. At its most extreme point, I became “the other“ in my own mind, where the identity I had known in another context simply collapsed. Kondo was a visitor who live with a japanese family who did things a certain way, which was culturally different from her American doings. While being placed their, Kondo knew she would be judged as she states “ Errors, Linguistic or cultural, were dealt with impatiently or with a startled look that seemed to ay “ oh, yes you are American after all.” ( Kondo 521). This quote meant that they would chew her up if they realized that she was American by the behavior she was deciding to present if other. The society and community she placed herself in while being in Japan practically created a new forced identity upon her since the American identity she once presented was no longer available. She was

Lazada goes to discuss in depth the story of many Hispanics who are prescribed an identity because their origin is in South America or they speak english and spanish, and or they have a common background and language. One of Lozada participants states “ It’s not evident what being hispanic truly means, and most Hispanics, it turns out, don’t even identify with the term…. Is being Hispanic a matter of geography, as simple as where you or your ancestors came from? Is the language you speak or how well you speak it? Is it some common culture? Or is it just vaguely brown complexion and a last name ending in “a,””o” or “z”? (Lozada 526). The participant who is discussing and questioning what makes you Hispanic or part of a specific identity is in an hex. She is upset because of how they identify, not only Hispanics but everyone who comes from a “ latino” origin. Society plays a major role in categorizing these individuals in one identity or even placing them in an identity that does not make up any of their characteristics, cultures, if multiple, languages, and DNA markups. Society racially stereotype you from being from El Salvador or the Dominican Republic, when not all Hispanics identify with those locations. There is a plethora of individuals, not just Hispanics who originate from the America’s. The identity