What makes up of my identity comes a lot from the Chinese culture of collectivism. The notion that everything we do is embedded into placing loyalty on family, workplace, and the community more than our own needs (Floyd, 2017, p.44). Growing up my parents have always taught us the importance of family so everything we learned was a reflection of that. Though they do encourage individualism, I see how much they have sacrificed for my brother and I to be where we are now. So I want to be able to do things in life that will benefit them in return as well as my own family down the road. Like fulfilling the gender role of being a woman. To be able to cook, do laundry, and taking care of kids so that I can support my own family. I have also learned the quality of being able to make sacrifices. As I mentioned before, my parents made sacrifices for my brother and I …show more content…
I think that is one of the biggest flaw in my life, not having social skills. I find it difficult for me to open up to someone and I have had experiences where people turned me away because I rubbed them the wrong way.They would think I do not like them because I do not say much about myself. I think this lowers my self esteem a lot because of my interpersonal need for inclusion.I do not have a sense of belongingness outside of my family and I often feel distress by it as discussed in the textbook, “Studies have shown that people can experience mental and physical distress when their need for inclusion is not met. For individuals with a high need for inclusion, then, the opportunities to form and maintain interpersonal relationships contribute to their self-esteem (Floyd, 2017, p.87).” I think the personality test did a great job reflecting some of my traits as I noticed that the lowest score I got was for extraversion and I know that this is something I can improve on through time by pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone to actually make
To me, I will never give up my beliefs in collectivism and Confucianism, but I do wants to blend some individualism into my identity, unlike some of the Chinese students in America. They came here due to hundreds of reasons, but once they arrived, they
When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the start that they are in a world far different than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often times acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditional and didactic China and the new world of mobile, young and prosperous America. They nostalgically look back at China longing for a simpler life but look at the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did not know in China. For this is why they came to America in the first place, to provide for their children and themselves what they could not in China. To do this, of course, they are faced with the challenge of assimilating. Learning the language, acquiring education, owning property, etc. are all ways to seize the American Dream. However this poses a problem for the Chinese immigrant for, in the process of assimilation, they lose some of their Chinese culture. This especially rings true for the children of Chinese immigrants: the second-generation Chinese Americans.
Your identity is shaped by your desire to be who you want to be. You choose who you surround yourself with. You decide who you want to become, but in the novel the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-mei’s mother already had her identity planned out whether she likes it or not. According to her mother, “you could be anything you wanted to be in America.” Her standards for her daughter were nothing short of the American dream. She wanted her daughter to be a prodigy, to excel in anything, and at first Jing-mei was just as excited as her mother was. She wasn't sure where her daughter's talents rooted, but she was sure that she reeked of potential. Mrs. Woo tried to push her daughter to become an actress, but she soon found out that will get her nowhere. Then
To build a house, we need a strong base. With a strong base, we would be able to have a better foundation for the house, so it depended on us to choose what kind of base we want to use to build our house. Just like a house, an identity for an individual, is about making a decision, and that decision will shape their identity. A couple years ago, it never crossed in my mind, that one day I would live someplace away from home, family, and friends. I thought I had everything in life, and it made me never grateful with what I had. But then, I made a decision to move to United States, and since I moved to United States, I became a responsible and a grateful person.
One of the main things that shapes a person’s cultural identity is their parents. Culture is passed down from generation to generation. In the story Two Kinds Amy Tan tells about a mother and daughter that clash heads because the mother wants her daughter to be something she’s not. They are Chinese, and in Chinese culture children are pushed to excel in everything they do and be better than everybody. The mother tells her daughter “You can be best anything. Of course, you can be a prodigy too”. The mother is pushing the Chinese culture down on her, because that’s the way she was raised. People’s parents were raised one way, which in their mind is the “right” way, so they raise their children the same way implementing
Culture and identity are two very strange ideas. They are received at a very young age, yet they are very hard to give to someone else. They will affect you for the rest or your life, yet for the most part you are born into them. However, they soon become very important to us and we cannot, no matter what we do, live without them. They are a part of us, and a vital aspect of society. However, it took me a very long time to recognize that I had an identity and a little while after that before I knew what it was.
How your culture had shaped who I am today? I was born and raised in China for at least 8 year, and my parents’ culture have once deeply influence my choice of the future and limit my vision. As everyone know, China is once a communist country, similar to old Russia (USSR). People are not allow to be wealthier and education are limited. In Chinese culture, it is necessary to subject one’s own desire for a greater value to the family. If I don’t follow my parents order, it will brings shame to the family. There were moment in my life where I would follow the tradition and culture as a nice son, but I am tired of following the tradition. Sometimes, we have no clue that we live under the internalized oppression from culture and elder. Internalized
A person 's beginnings do not completely define a person, but it does serve as a permanent foundation from which their identity is built around. As children, we absorb every sight and experience like porous sponges. Family, religion, environment, culture -- all of these aspects slowly form the background of one 's identity. As an Asian American, this identity is very different from that of a native Chinese woman 's, for I have parts of both cultures within me. It is a unique identity which I believes acts as a double edged sword. Being born into two cultures is a wonderful in that one can be a part of two cultures, but it is also a very confusing to be "divided" between two very different cultures.
People who emigrated over from China to America faced and dealt with many discrimination issues. It is clear that from research as well as from the short story by Amy Tan, that Chinese Americans had a hard time accepting themselves, and also being ok with their culture. From this it is also clear that the most important thing in life is to be ok with yourself, and who you are, that’s all that
All my life my parents have told me how fortunate I am to be growing up in San Francisco. My immediate reply would always be, “Yes, I know. You have told me a million times”. I used to think that I understood the extent of my privileged life, but I was sorely mistaken. The school trip to Yunnan allowed to experience first hand the drastically different lifestyles people lead in rural China.
...bowen/314fall/novels/lit.html) Each in their own way has learned a lot from their mothers and can see over the gap that divides them. In the Hsu family especially there is a strong sense of loyalty that is based on through each generation. “You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.” (Tan41) It is most important in Chinese culture to remember who you are and where you came from.
Then Kirkpatrick and Ellis (2003), explained that self-esteem has separate functions and domain to monitor the various types of social interactions. It showed that human has more than one internal sociometer that acts to ensure individual’s acceptance from their social group. A research by Athony et al., (2007), adopted Sociometer Theory had found that individual with low self-esteem tends to show less confident in relation to be accepted with novel social group. In contrast, a person with high self-esteem does not fear being rejected by the social
Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand but yet very interesting if understood. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki are two remarkable books that depict the identity theme. They both have to deal with people that have an identity that they've tried to alter in order to become more at ease in the society they belong to. The families in these books are from a certain country from which they're forced to immigrate into the United States due to certain circumstances. This causes young people in the family trauma and they must try to sometimes change in order to maintain a comfortable life. Both authors: Alvarez and Houston have written their novels Is such an exemplifying matter that identity can be clearly depicted within characters as a way in adjusting to their new lives.
You spend a great time of your life with family who then influences your identity from the beginning of your life. From the beginning, we are given a set of expectations and values, which are learned from our guardians. We learn not only through these guardians guiding us, but we also learn by life’s examples and observing. As we grow older and mature we more easily understand the importance of values and know what is expected from us. And because we spend a lot of our lives around our family they are the primary influences to social identity, religion, confidence and many more. For example manners are usually taught in households at a young age by guardians, which influences identity positively. Family also influences good things like professionalism and confidence which will come in hand later on in
As a young child I was a non social person, and did not like to participate in anything. I liked to be an individual person, and do things on my own. I was shy and not outgoing like all my other friends were. When I enter a situation for the first time, I have a hard time speaking up until I feel comfortable. As being as shy as I was, my school work was affected a lot because I would not raise my hand to ask questions if I did not understand something, or go to the teacher for help. It was hard to transition from that stage to being more outgoing and talk more with my peers. It was difficult to communicate with others becuase of this as well, i was not able to be the perosn that i really am.