Culture and Identity

Culture refers to society or group in which many or all people live and think in the same ways. Culture distinguishes one human group from others. Culture is our roots, where you came from and heredity. In The Encarta reference Library, it explains the characteristics of culture is based on symbols and signs referring to understanding of ideas, objects, feelings, or behaviors and the ability to communicate with them using language.

Culture is usually shared over times. People in the same society share common behaviors and ways of thinking through culture. Culture is learned. While people biologically inherit many physical traits and behavioral instincts, culture is socially inherited. A person must learn culture from other people in a society. Culture is adaptive. People use culture to flexibly and quickly adjust to changes in the world around us.

Identity is who you are within a culture. Each person possesses different characteristics that give them identity. For one to be different than another, it is associated with his or her identity. The word identity is dealing with the self and not a group although culture also has certain identities. For instance, one can be identified with a group because of certain characteristics such as Chinese people having slanted eyes. If one Chinese migrated to a western region and live in that western culture for a good period of time, he or she will adapt to the culture but you will be able to distinguish that person to be a Chinese. One also can be identified with a race, language, feature, etc. In fact, identity does not change but culture can.

After reading the poem, Mexican Begin Jogging, by Gary Soto, one can assume cultural traits and identities (Meyer 719). One can almost stereotype that Mexicans works in factories, and at times, will flee their country to the United States. When the Mexican shouted that he was American, by his accent one can tell his identity that he wasn’t. As the Mexican wanted to live in the United States and he placed one dollar in the attendant’s hand trying to bribe, which kind of stereotype Mexicans as bribers.

The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature (Meyer 338), in the short story Revelation by Flannery O’Connor, the characters in the story are identified by their physical characteristics, and some are even identified with racial terms. Mrs. Turpin, the main character in the story is actually prejudiced and makes many statements using racial jargons. Mr. Turpin refers herself as the higher class woman as “well-dress and pleasant”. She also labels the teenage girl as “ugly” and the poor woman as “white trashy”. When Mrs. Turpin converses with her black workers, she often uses the word “nigger” in her thoughts. She doesn’t want to take the time to get to know anyone because of their culture. Mrs. Turpin is very close-minded.