Research Paper Sample: How Do Individuals Define Their Own Identity?

Have you ever wondered if there was someone out there exactly like you? There are 7 billion people on this Earth so surely there has to be someone identical to you, right? Well, good luck finding someone because everyone is different. It’s a very common saying but that doesn’t make it untrue. No one lives the same life as you and no one experiences the same things as you. That’s what makes you unique. That uniqueness is your identity. It is the part of you that gives you individuality. So what makes your identity? It comes from 2 things: self perception and your experiences. Angie Thomas writes about identity and how self perception and experiences defines someone’s identity which makes each individual unique. 

One of the biggest factors that influence your identity is your self perception; self perception is influenced by your life and your experiences. First of all, to answer the question, what is self-perception? Self perception is how you view yourself. It’s your self-esteem, confidence, your thoughts about yourself, etc. Each person experiences different things and has their own thoughts and values. These factors determine your identity. You need a way to identify yourself; you need a name. Your name is the start of your self perception. It’s how you define something or someone. Your name should make you comfortable and happy. However, most, if not all, people with ethnic names often struggle with being comfortable with their names due to the unusuality of their name. Not “fitting in” makes them hide; they make nicknames and dislike introducing themselves. In his article “America, Say My Name,” Nguyen points out that he “was instantly ashamed of [himself]” after giving a Starbucks barista a nickname because “Publicly claiming a name is one small way to take what is private, what might be shameful or embarrassing, and change its meaning” (Viet Thanh Nguyen, “America, Say My Name”). Hiding such a large part of your identity feels like a betrayal, to yourself and to the history within that name. In fact, hiding any part of your identity feels wrong. Even if you’ve lived that way your whole life. Starr Maverick from Angie Thomas’ novel The Hate U Give shows this: “Being two different people is so exhausting. I’ve taught myself to speak with two different voices and only say certain things around certain people” (301). Living two different lives means Starrr has two different identities that contradict. She only shows one side at a time depending on who she is around. Both are examples of self-perception and how they are influenced by experiences the individual goes through. While most people with ethnic names feel the need to change or hide, Nguyen feels the opposite, he wants people to know his identity. On the other hand, Starr wants people to only know one side, the side that fits in. They present themselves to others based on how they feel about themselves. Each individual has different opinions that grow from their experiences. Those opinions help influence their identities and make them unique.

Everyone has unique experiences which makes each individual’s identity unique. Even if you were to go through the exact same things as someone else, your experience would not be the same as the other. You need to take into account that your point of view is different from theirs. But let’s be real, no one has ever lived the exact same life as someone else. The way society is set up so that certain people live in different environments. Hailey and Starr go to the same school but outside of that, they live in completely different worlds. Hailey lives in a privileged white world while Starr lives in the ghetto, black world. It is important to try to understand other perspectives, something that Hailey doesn’t do so well. When Williamson Prep protests Khalil’s death, both girls have different interpretations of it. Hailey sees it as “protesting a drug dealer’s death”  while Starr sees it as an excuse to get out of class.(Thomas 183). In Hailey’s experience, she doesn’t truly understand what is going on. She, along with many white people, lives in her bubble of privilege while Starr and the black community are fighting for justice. People go through different things. Those experiences are personal to the individual. Everything they go through creates their home. Frank T. McAndrew writes in his article “There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays” that home “...is a bridge between your past and your present, an enduring tether to your family and friends.” Home doesn’t have to be a place. It should be where the identity also is. It makes the individual feel safe and content because it's where they can truly be themselves.  The things that people experience are all different. This means home is also unique and fits the individual.

An individual’s relationship with others impacts how they identify themselves. Relationships help you learn about your social life. It shows you how to interact with others, how to overcome challenges and what type of environment you like. As you live, forming relationships is inevitable. It starts with your family as you grow with them. Then you make friends as you enter school, go about your neighborhood and join clubs and teams. Relationships bring people together to fight for each other and help each other. Starr and Maya have to form “a minority alliance” to stand up to Hailey and her racist attitude (Thomas 252). At that moment, the two girls realized that they needed to make a change. They helped each other understand what was going on. Relationships bring out something hidden inside that you didn’t know was there. While forming relationships are important, the ones you didn’t make are also important because they show what you are missing. David Brooks talks about unformed family relationships and unhappy children in his article “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” Families living in the nuclear era are traumatized and isolated from the rest of the world: “Eventually family inequality even undermines the economy the nuclear family was meant to serve: Children who grow up in chaos have trouble becoming skilled, stable, and socially mobile employees later on.” Nuclear families struggle to form normal relationships with each other and the rest of the world. The relationships they couldn’t form with regular members of society show that they lack the communication and knowledge that others have. Parts of you that you didn’t know are often revealed in relationships. People naturally want to fit in and form relationships with others. Somewhere along the way in that relationship, a new part of them is shown. It opens people up to other perspectives and new ideas. It helps the individual, and humanity, to grow and develop.

Experiences and relationships impact self-perception. It defines each individual with their values, beliefs, qualities, personality and everything else that is a part of them. Your identity leads to the things you go through. One thing will influence another, which influences another and so on. Self-perception, experiences, and relationships are three key factors that influence an individual's identity. Each of these factors are unique to each individual. In turn, that makes each person unique.

Bibliography:

Brooks, David. “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Mar. 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/.

McAndrew , Frank T. “There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays.” The Conversation, The Conversation, 16 Dec. 2020, https://theconversation.com/theres-no-place-like-home-for-the-holidays-and-thats-what-makes-the-pandemics-winter-surge-particularly-devastating-87575.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. “America, Say My Name.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Mar. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/opinion/sunday/immigrants-refugees-names-nguyen.html.

Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority, Library, 2021.