Blog Post 5 – Identity

For my final assignment I decided to work on the question about Black Diasporic Identity in Hija del Camino. When researching the theme of identity in the novel it allowed me to reflect on my own identity.

One key point I discovered when researching for my essay is that identity can be greatly impacted not only through how we see ourselves but how we are perceived by the people around us. I decided to take a step back and think about all the different roles I take on everyday and how this impacts who I am as a person.

Firstly, in terms of my family life. I am a daughter, an older sister, an auntie, a granddaughter and the list goes on. I believe that all these roles impact my identity in one way or another. For example as an older sister I feel that I need to be a role model for my younger siblings, therefore allowing me to take on various responsibilities. However family identity doesn’t just lie in the hands of each individual family member. As a collective group, a family has their own traditions and habits which differ from other families around the world. This changes the way in which we celebrate certain holidays or how we react to different events.

Although there are many roles and characteristics I could discuss when thinking about my identity I want to finish by thinking about friendships. It is undeniable that throughout your life you will lose touch with certain friends and meet new people. In my twenty years on this planet I would personally consider it wrong to think that my identity has not changed depending on the friends I have had during different periods of my childhood and now as a young adult. When we have friends, we want to fit in. Therefore we will change small things like the clothes we wear or the music we listen to in order to feel that we are part of a collective identity.

All the choices we make and the different things we do change who we are as individuals and how others around us view who we are.

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