Throughout this quarter we have learned the many different levels of concepts and how-to encirclement them in our personal life. Before I start in detail, this class was indeed a very learning experience for me, because I could learn the multiple diverse cultural and backgrounds levels I was around with. Listening to my classmate’s stories endeavor my perspective in seeing how my classmate relates to specific concepts. Roughly, a few concepts I could relate and utter about. Because, I can relate them to my personal life, other concepts had me quite skeptical and I did not know how to explain the true meaning. However, despite the differences I could define three concepts that I truly believe that defines me in every aspect of this term. I chose; Identification, Breaking Binary and Self-identification. My reason for choosing these three concepts is because, I learned throughout the course, these concepts really identify my personality and define my personality on who am I as a person. There was a variety of concepts that could have made it to the list of my personality but I strongly believe these three are my best selection.
The way how we embrace/perceive ourselves has a multiple explanation. Identity is a state of mind until you recognize your truth identification in your character traits and learn how to embrace it to your best abilities. For the most part, it’s an act of defining yourself as a human being. Identity is most often expressed in various ways, most common in literature,
It's useful in helping readers understand that People recognize different objects by their sense. In many cases, even though the physical traits of an object have changed, people still know the object. Therefore, these physical definitions of objects are not their identities. Our perception of our identity is constantly changing, the groups we belong to, the people we talk to and the way we connect with others help to form our identity. There is one thing we all have in common despite our individual identities, is the need to belong. There’s no obligation to belong to only one group, you can belong to many. An individual can belong to many groups, which will then create multiple identities; hence our understanding of identity is never constant. As part of my identification, I grew up questioning my identity. The famous line everyone uses and it’s still used today; “Who am I?” I am Latina, I am Mexican, I am Portuguese and born and raised in California. Coming from a mix ethnicity does play a toll on your identity. Your battling on which side are you most comfortable and which culture are you most accepted. Since I am mix, I grew up knowing by my school peers, I was never too Mexican to call myself a true Mexican and as a Portuguese I felt like I missed out a chunk of it, due to family reasons. There was no in between which culture will you part take. Belonging is what everyone desires, the media has a major influence in shaping our identity. It brain washes us by telling us what to do and because we are constantly surrounded by it, we allow it to create stereotypes, and change the way we act and think. As a Latin woman, there is strong capability that shuts down the woman’s ego. The stereotype of it, is first, you’re a woman and your Latina. You don’t see many Latina’s graduating and becoming successful, were known to be the housewife material. I like to use the term strong, willingly and powerful woman as part of my identification, because I strongly believe that describes my identity. There have been so many setbacks in my life and I always found a way to hurdle myself up and proceed. In my power point I used the Rosie the Riveret as a symbolism of woman power. That resembles everything about me in a picture icon, woman power “We can do it.” The pressure to fit in and to be perfect leaves a psychological effect on you, which influences and changes their original identity. Half of our identities today are completely based on what we see in the media. Although our names, cultures and religions determine otherwise, Mainstream media determines our dress, behavior, hobbies and interests.
Women all over the world are discovering the benefits of sports, it provides women with; strength, speed, endurance, skill, self-confidence and the thrill of competition. The discovery of the feeling of a healthy life-style, feeling strong has no better explanation than what a sport can do for you. For years, sports have always have been about men. Women were not allowed to participate in any sport whatsoever. That was the rule for many years. Throughout history, woman started changing that rule and made their appearance known, but not as much coverage has been given to women who excel in sports. I chose breaking binary because, I always been a sporty girl and still have a huge passion for sports. I grew up playing all sorts of sports and learned many different characteristics. Somewhere down the line, weight lifting grabbed my attention. This emphasized my way of looking at myself as a woman. For many years, I grew up knowing that weights are for men because they’ll give you muscles and woman should not have muscles. I disagree with that concepts, because what inspired me was a woman lifting weights and I feel in deep passion seeing how strong she is and the amount of weight she was also able to lift. It was something that I believed, only a man could lift that. It gave me a sense of craving I want to be just like her. I did receive plenty of criticism left to right, none of it was positive. Nonetheless, I brushed off the negative vibes and went for what I truly wanted to do which it was powerlifting. In the article, “Women in Sport” talks about why they made an issue about women in sports, for one; it’s not address as often and there’s not as much coverage that sports can improve women’s lives. In 1973, a woman named Billie Jean King won the battle of the sexes tennis match. Battle of the sexes is a game of the sexes of two opponents playing against each other. Knowing the history of some great women that challenge the norm and broke the binary with persistence and proving that sports is not just for men and woman can beat a man in their own sport. Another one that really impacted the world was Katherine Switzer. She was the first woman to run a marathon. When Katherine signed up for the Boston marathon in 1967. she knew women were not allowed but she signed up initialing her name and writing out her last name. Katherine could pull it off and run the marathon until her second mile in the race when spectators took notice and charged towards her to remove her from the race, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” Katherine managed to finish running the marathon with the help of her boyfriend running alongside of her, but her record was disqualified. Katherines received aggressive comments from journalist, “Real women don’t run.” Similarities that I would receive when I started my journey to powerlifting. It was intense training and my figure was staring to show definition in my arms and back. My shoulders were getting wider which people will criticize me that I was looking more of a man than a woman. Woman also criticize me, telling me that is not a way that a woman should look and you’re going to break/damage your ovaries. My theory to these negative comments was to prove that a woman can be as strong as a man and not always have to resemble the physic of a man because she has muscles.
Self-identification is defined as the attribution of certain characteristics or qualities to oneself. Self-Identity through roles, in our day-to-day lives we may define ourselves through the roles that we play. These roles may include being a mother or father, husband or wife, brother or sister, son or daughter. Self-identification may be defined through our profession or our work. However, if we define ourselves by what we do, our profession or work, then does this not oversimplify our complexity? Of course, it does. There are many individuals who become lawyers, but they are not all the same, however they may describe themselves as a lawyer and this may be the main way in which they establish their own identity. But something is lost by doing this. The problem, therefore, with these ways is the reduction in our identity to generalized groupings. There are two problems with this: the definitions are external to us and they are generalized. Our self-identity surely is more than the generalized identity of the groups we are part of and more that what we do, how we behave and the roles that we adopt. Our identity is who we ARE not what we DO. The way I define my self-identification is a tom boy. I knew since I was a little girl I love to dress comfortably and did not care so much for dresses. Because I couldn’t play and get dirty on them. I always had to maintain a clean and neat presentation image for my work and at parties. Which is fine, but overall, I was dying to dress comfortably. I would also like to address on my self-representation, I am heterosexual. My self-identifications are roles that I like to identify myself as; a tom-boy, sporty and love to dress up when needed and for the days I don’t I like to dress in gym attire.
We live in a country where race is a contradiction and people’s identity are literally separated into categories of your self-identification. Breaking binary was an option for me, because it was a form of releasement and feeling like I have my own identity. But human identities are not that simple. When speaking about your own identity or self-identity, it is impossible not to also talk about my ethnic identity. These two concepts go together. How one regards themselves ethnically and the cultural background that one has grown up with, will inevitably shape the way one sees themselves through a racial lens; it will also affect the way they are perceived from the outside. When talking about my own racial identity I cannot just speak about the color of my skin nor the box I check off on applications. Not only would that would be an injustice to myself, but it would also contradict the reality of the complexities and tones that arise when we try to essentialize and simplify people’s ethnological narratives.
My racial and ethnic identification have been majorly affected by the fact that I grew up in the United States, but have a Latin background that I’m not fully familiarized. Growing up I faced multiple challenges and a lot of comments from, “where are you from?” “what’s your nationality?” and “what are you?” are common questions to receive and to ask starting at a very young age. Even if the person’s nationality is American and they were born in the States, they automatically connect themselves to their parent’s or grandparent’s countries, since this is what is expected. I have never heard anyone say, “I am American” even if they technically were. These are my reasons why I chose the three concepts, because they really express how I truly feel inside and out.
"Women Sports." Ms., vol. 2, no. 12, 1974. Women's Studies Archive, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/67Zcp2. Accessed 11 Mar. 2018.
“First Woman to Officially Run Boston Marathon Makes Triumphant Return” by SARAH AMER and KRISTEN DAHLGREN. APR 18 2017. INSPIRING AMERICA. https://www.nbcnews.com/.../first-woman-officially-run-boston-marathon-makes-triump
Autobiographics: A feminist theory of women's self-representation
L Gilmore - 1994 - books.google.com
Identity in Latin American and Latina Literature: The Struggle to ...
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=073919271X
