Sem1

Jennine Pono

English - Period 8

1/12/20

Who Are You

    Our most essential thing in our lives is something that is with us everyday and yet, we never think about it and at the same time we are always thinking about it. It’s the first thing we try to figure out about the people we meet and what we are constantly trying to improve. Everything you have done, from the first breath you took to your last spoken words is what composes this. As this isn’t a concept that we regularly fret around, it took me one whole semester of junior year english to realize the gravity it embodies. Throughout each piece of American literature we have dissected, there is one crucial theme that ties each book with a red string. Identity, “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual, the relation established by psychological identification” (Merriam-Webster). All our literature readings have emphasised the influence and power that identity manipulated in our lives through suppression, control, or recognition of identity.

No matter how successful you are, or how fulfilled you are in your life, your identity is crucial to your existence . In The Color Of Water by James McBride, he tells his autobiography of his biracial life of being white and black in 1960s America. Due to such circumstances, his single mother decided to raise her children by disregarding those parts of themselves. Even as she had done it with the best intentions, her children manifested this crisis that flourished even when their lives were set out. It corrupts the peace in their lives and in their house, “The question of race was like the power of the moon in my house” (94, McBride). Their existence orbited around it although it was shunned. It was a subject that tugged on their hearts and lured their bodies uncontrollably. With this gaping hole in their beings, James and his siblings couldn't help but feel a loss even being outstanding children, “I was on the ‘most likely to succeed’ list. Yet I myself had no idea who I was” (91, McBride). James had virtues providing him with fulfillment, and he still ached with the question to know who he was. James’s brother, Dennis, was the most praised child in his family for outstanding academic work, “the heights he has attained was trumpeted and crowded by Mommy” (71, McBride). Dennis puts on his best efforts to attain goals his mother would be proud of him for. However, he still yearned for a sense of connection to his race, “[Dennis] was one of the most active civil rights students” (71, McBride). This was an act that his mother wouldn’t approve of, “Had Mommy known what Dennis was really doing in school, she might have had a different opinion of him” (71, McBride). Dennis values his mother so much, he strived to reach such heights, yet he engaged in a movement that he knew his mother would detest. His desire to understand and associate with his background outweighed his love for his mother.  Through all their wins and triumphs, James and his siblings’ concealed race led them to an eagerness that outbattled their priorities. Who they are was the question that ultimately controlled their lives. Its significance is how it stayed prevalent even after having a direction. Despite their race being brought up, identity reigned their lives and pulled them to understand themselves before they could continue with their lives. 

The power of one’s possession over others has been determined by our appearance. Ta-Nehisi Coates delivers the truth of black lives in America to the readers in his book, Between The World and Me. America has determined the place and fate of lives by an individual's race. Coates reveals to us that the judgement people place amongst other is a natural thing as, “American believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world”, and that, “race is the child of racism” (7, Coates). Race is the child of racism and race is instinctive so the, “need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and humiliate, reduce, and destroy them” (7, Coates) is an organic judgement to this world. Such hurtful things are acted upon those who have been hunted down for their physicality, a part of individuality. Coates says that as a black person, it is their will in this country to be beaten down on, “destruction is merely the superlative from a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All this is common to black people” (9, Coates). How the world treats black people is built off of the history of white people claiming their bodies as tools for prosperity. Because they are black, they are mistreated and put at the bottom of our society’s hierarchy. Certain identities denounce one’s privilege in their life as who we are determines how the world treats us. 

In my own life, I have seen myself revolve around the influence identity has, especially because of my environment. Living in an area with little to no diversity, I found myself suffocated by the pristine, cookie cutter village. I came from Niles, where each house spilled with scents of home cooked dishes and kids ran around the neighborhood playing tag in their languages. Our local church was a mosaic of  different colors all gathered from different backgrounds, but sitting in comfort and harmony. My grandparents and parents spoke in their mother tongue, humming sincere prayers or full blown fast paced arguments, shooting words so harsh, there is no direct translation for it in english. My everyday life was filled with color and brilliancy. Slowly, I began to pick up on our history, the language my ancestors have spoken in hushed tones to soother their crying child. Each word spoken was a bond I sewed to my parents and to the soil from which they came. I was six-years-old and one day, it stopped. Clinging to my grandma’s dishwasher stained and garlic jeweled house dress I cried, “Why won't you speak anymore? Why won't you teach me?” She was quick to answer, “You’re an American going to an American school.” Snip. Gone were the vibrant days of crawling closer to the womb our family tree was birthed from. Knowing her experiences first coming to America and not being able to communicate properly, she was scared and didn’t want me to share the same experience. A fear had been developed from this neighbourhood, that when I go to learn in school, I’d be bashed on for sounding alien. Through growing up, I was still always and constantly exposed to our traditions and customs, I lost my ability to speak our history. The terror of my heritage being exposed has ripped me away from the heartbeat of our country. My identity was a hindrance to the education and social system of America in which I had to conform to hiding it.  

In one of my favorite projects this year, I took a poem I felt a strong connection to and performed it. Our Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, wrote this beautifully earth bound poem that reminds me of my grandma's teachings. The whole message is to know who you are, everything from what dirt you walked upon to your mothers breath that she gave to you, “Remember your birth, how your mother struggled/to give you form and breath.” (Line 7, Harjo). She emphasizes the significance acknowledgement of everything that creates you by the repetition, “Remember…” The elements in life that construct you are indicative of how you will breathe on this earth. Your whole being depends on the understanding of yourself and how others view you. 

As we go on with our days, each action modify who we become. Your outcome is the way that others will view you and ultimately decide how to treat you. These books have demonstrated how the world treats us when our identities are in jeopardy and the suffrering burned into our bodies along with it. In our lives, our identity creates us but can also destroy or improve us depending on how we treat it and how the world looks at it.