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Submitted by raisorj on May 1, 2005
Category: American History
Words: 1095 | Pages: 5
Views: 252
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Forming Identities in the White Man's World
Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.
Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms sparks many of the social problems which I will show happening in all communities and cultures. The main issue we will discuss is how social environments effect the search for identity. The Mexicans in the U.S. module gives us examples how Mexicans try to keep their customs while living in a discriminated environment by the Whites. This module also gives us examples how people are searching for personal identity while struggling with cultural traditions. Finally, the African-American module gives us more examples to compare with the Mexicans in the U.S. module, because these readings deal with Blacks finding personal identity also through discrimination from the Whites. To properly understand the theme of identity, we must first look the factors influencing it.
The first influence we see in both modules is discrimination. The Whites as a whole did not give any acceptance towards both cultures. There were several barriers keeping the Blacks and Mexicans from breaking the lines between them and the Whites. First, the Whites saw both groups of people as minorities. They felt both subcultures were unequal from the beginning, therefore holding discriminating beliefs about the cultures from...
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