Queens, New York is the most diverse area in the world. This was the fact that was placed in my fourth grade history book and given that sense of New York pride, I basked in the title. But a resident of Queens knows that most diverse does not necessarily mean melting pot; Queens is naturally separated into parts of distinct cultural backgrounds. This is not to say that there is any hostility among the neighborhoods, only to say that if there is a particular culture you would like to be most exposed to, you would know exactly where to go. I have grown up in a fairly mixed, predominately white neighborhood. It was not until college where I understood the ambiguity and range between the words race and ethnicity.
Scholars have suggested that one’s ethnic identity is formed intrinsically as well as by society, whereas one’s racial identity is formed extrinsically and is out of personal control (Martin & Nakayama, 2010, pp. 184-186). This being the case, my race would be Indian; although my ethnicity is Indian-American being that I was born in America and have assimilated to both cultures, customs, and traditions. Social science researchers have then taken all the multifaceted layers of an individual’s identity and that generalized them into developmental scales; those for the minority, majority, and biracial individual are who can categorize their experiences into stages of development.
The stages of a minority individual falls within four distinct stages; the unexamined identity, conformity, resistance and separatism, and finally the integration of the identity. The unexamined identity is when individuals lack the interest in their identity issue (Martin & Nakayama, 2010, p. 173). In examining my racial identity, focusing purely on being Indian, I believe that aspects of my unexamined identity was evident when I was younger, I was the only student in both grade school, and in high school, whose parents came from India. Thus I was surrounded by middle class,...