Hsc 310 Personal Identity

Intergenerational Assignment

Our identity is shaped by different dimensions throughout our growth experience, even if it is a tiny thing that we can’t remember, it also leads to who we are today. After having a conversation with my aunt, we find something in common and something indifference for the key elements of identity between us.

One similarity between me and my aunt is that both of us think that culture is a key dimension that is important to us. Because Chinese traditional culture affects us in all aspects, such as our beliefs, behaviors, and education. We both mentioned that, In the traditional Chinese culture of filial piety, we must respect elderly people in our family and take the responsibility to take care of them when they need any help from us. Because this is what we were taught when we were young. Growing up in the Chinese traditional culture makes us who we are today, a person who has a sense of responsibility, caring, being honest and humble to people in the surrounding, and a person with a strong family concept, because we treat the family as the first place in our life

Another similarity between aunt and me is that we also think gender is another key dimension that influences who we are today. We do not doubt that to describe ourselves as female. A gender role influences how we are expected to speak, dress, and act in our society. As a female, we are used to thinking and solving problems in feminine ways and we know our social role when we were still a kid. For example, we knew we would be someone’s wife and someone’s mother instead of husband and son, therefore, we know how to socialize with peers and form relationships with someone.

However, We have disagreements about whether gender is fixed or not. My aunt said the gender identity is fixed when we are born while I have the opposite view. My aunt thinks there are only two gender identities, female or male which were settled down when we were kids. She doesn’t know there is another gender calls transgender and she felt hard to understand why a male can turn into a female.

Another difference between me and my aunt is that I think racial or ethnic is important to me while this element is less important to my aunt. Because my aunt lives in China now, she has not been living in another country so far. People she meets every day mostly are Chinese. However, I live in a multiracial country, Chinese or Asian are the minorities in the United States. Like most of Asian, When we encounter unfairness or discrimination, we are used to swallowing our breath. So I might feel cautious, suspicious, or distrusting of the dominant society in the country I live in.