Complexities of Identity

Complexities of Identity

This weeks reading focused on identity and the role culture plays in determining one’s identity. The Power of Identity, written by Manuel Castells, and Beyond Multicultural Man: Complexities of Identity, written by Lise M. Sparrow, both illustrate the issues of identity. Castells constructs criteria of identity and provides various dynamics of it, while Sparrow provides specific details of various multicultural people’s experiences with identity, specifically their experience with identity in American society. Both readings exemplify the complexities of identity, and in this essay I will analyze these complexities while also focusing on self and gender identity.

Castells describes identity as “people’s source of meaning and experience” (Castells 6) and states that we construct our own identity from various building materials such as geography, collective memory, history, biology, etc. I think that, in a sense, we can construct our own identity, but we our sometimes constrained to the identity others construct for us. “Americans still think of me as a foreigner. You see even though I’m a citizen and I’ve been here some are still very surprised that I know English, use funny words and joke in English” (Sparrow 251.) This is an example from a Vietnamese woman, who has been in the U.S. for over 18 years, but is still viewed as being a foreigner, despite her efforts to adapt into the “American Identity.” Although, after being in the U.S. for quite some time, she identifies herself as an American citizen, she is still hindered by others view of her. I think that this exemplifies a complexity of identity, especially in American society because we are comprised of such a mixture of nationalities, and we say people can become American Citizens by passing the citizenship test, which consist of questions about our flag, congress, and Constitution, however, we still identify these people as foreigners. Does American culture subconsciously...