Final Draft of CTA 2 (Identity) copy

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Savannah Gude Othandwayo Mgqoboka: Sec. 20 The markers of our identity stem from various sociocultural and environmental factors, leading to the development of who we are. Who we identify as is a complex topic, it cannot be answered by simply looking at culture. To truly understand someone’s identity we have to look at their markers of identity such as culture, race, ethnicity, nationalism, gender, and sexual orientation. Combining all these factors, can give the observer a more detailed conclusion as to who they are and why they think the way they do. I performed an interview of one of my classmates where I asked all the questions related to the markers of one’s identity and asked how her markers influenced her experiences with inflation. Analyzing the qualitative data from the interview as well as, comparing and contrasting my peers’ markers of identity with my own, will structuralize the importance of identity and how identity shapes our experiences. My peers culture greatly differs from my own, with my culture rooted in urban experiences and hers rooted in religion and belief systems. Even though our cultures are rooted in differing ways, we both identify ourselves with the same values and identifying labels. When I asked her who she identifies as or “who are you”, she said she is a college student, a daughter, and a sister. We both identified ourselves as college students, which highlights the impact our shared culture can have on identity. Even though she is from Palestinian culture, and I am from an American urban culture, we both share the culture of college and thus identify ourselves with the most recent and shared culture. This exemplifies enculturation, which is the process of learning and adopting the culture in which we are exposed to (Guest 2023, 35). We both learned the culture of college and understand it, which is why we both identify ourselves as such. My peer’s culture is rooted in Palestinian (Arab) culture. Her culture values family, hard work, and keeping a clean house. In my interview, my peer mentioned how reliant her culture is on the language they speak, which is Arabic. She went to an Islamic school for elementary and middle school, where she spoke Arabic to her teachers and classmates. From a young age, she was exposed to her culture’s language through her family, school, and community. This strengthened her cultures dependency on speech community. Growing up in a school and a

household that speaks a common language and shares norms attached to that language, exemplifies how speech community has played a role in her cultural identity (Guest 2023, 102). My peer and I have varying cultural differences, while her culture relies on her language and shared beliefs, my culture stems from education and social class. Our cultures may differ in relation to social norms and language, but we do share a commonality in social class. My urban culture comes from a town called Palos Verdes, which is in a higher social class than most cultures due to the wealth and income of its habitants. My peer lived in a town called upland which she describes as a wealthy and safe environment. My peer and I both lived in the same class bracket but overall, our families were middle class. When I asked my peer what the two most exciting aspects of her identity are, she highlighted her ambition for school and having a career. This exemplifies how habitus has impacted her identity and how she views her place in society. Habitus emerges from external influence, like social class, which shape the expectations and ambitions of an individual, becoming an instinctive sense of one’s potential (Guest 2023, 308). Growing up in a wealthy socioeconomic environment, influenced my peer to have ambitious goals like attending college and being academically successful. Environmental influences like social class can impact a person’s sense of self in relation to society but when a group of people share a common cultural history another powerful identity marker is formed. This identity marker is demonstrated through ethnicity. During the interview process with my peer, I asked her about her ethnic origins and shared cultural history. Her ethnic background comes from middle eastern countries that all share the same Arabic roots of culture. She describes the progression and strengthening of her culture through the places in which her grandparents and parents grew up. Her grandparents were born and raised in Palestine and then moved to Lebanon where her parents were eventually born. Her description of ethnicity demonstrates how people associate a particular territory with an ethnic group, also known as ethnic boundary markers (Guest 2023, 166). Even though my peer grew up in America she still retains and identifies with Palestinian culture, this demonstrates the impact multiculturalism had

on her identity. Her grandparents and parents immigrated to America but still held on to the beliefs and practices from Palestine / Lebanon and passed on those beliefs to their children. Another marker of identity is how someone describes their overall appearance or their phenotypical features. When I asked my peer how she would describe herself in relation to skin, hair and eye color, she correlated her appearance with that of a typical white person’s phenotype. She said if a person didn’t know she was of Palestinian descent, they would describe her as a white person. She assimilated her phenotypical features based on the classification of race. Instead of describing herself as a person with light skin, brown hair, and dark eyes, she simply said she has “white” phenotypical properties. During the interview process when I was asked the same question, I described myself with the same racial connotations of what a white person should look like. As race is reinforced throughout history, people begin to use race as a mental map of reality to describe, classify and label who we are. This stresses the importance of how mental maps of reality impact the classification of people and thus impacts the way we classify ourselves. Race is just one example of how the classification of people can impact one’s markers of identity. Another cultural distinction between people includes gender and sexual orientation. The cultural construction of gender refers to how a culture defines and distinguishes the difference between masculine and feminine behavioral patterns (Guest 2023, 192). When I asked my peer what her cultures viewpoint on gender was, she described the differing attributes of gender roles. She said her culture believes women should stay at home to take care of the kids and men should work to provide for their family. This shows how gender stereotypes have played a role in her culture by holding onto the notion that there are gender specific roles for men and women in society. Her cultures gender stereotypes impacted her identity by showing her that she does not want to live a gender role specific lifestyle. The cultural classification of gender can have an impact on how someone views sexuality in their own life and in the people around them. A person’s sexual orientation can be developed through biological instincts or how sexuality is portrayed in a culture (Guest 2023, 226). My

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peer’s culture has very strong viewpoints on what type of sexuality is correct due to her religion. Her cultures belief system depends heavily on the social construct of gender. Her culture believes that there are only two genders, men and women, and the opposing genders should be the only people in an intimate relationship. To the Arab culture, heterosexuality is the natural and only way sexuality can be expressed. My peer is heterosexual, with her viewpoints on gender and sexuality aligning with that of her culture. Although my peer and I are both heterosexual, I do not have the same restrictions associated with the types of genders that can be intimate, like same sex relationships. My cultures sexual morality is not dependent on religion or what god views as correct, rather it is dependent on the notion that everyone has a right to express themselves. My culture believes that everyone should be able to be who they are without the fear of discrimination. Although my peer and I share the same personal identity marker of sexuality, being heterosexual, our cultural differences have shaped contrasting viewpoints on the moral definition of sexuality. The markers of one’s identity, shapes how we experience the world around us and how we interpret the meaning of those experiences. When a country is faced with a problem that everyone must navigate or overcome, our markers of identity shape and affect how we deal with the problem. Inflation has affected the world on a global scale, causing the price of everyday things to skyrocket. The negative experiences I have with inflation results from the impact it’s had on my social norms. One of my cultures social norms is to attend college but as inflation increases, it has become harder to afford tuition as well as the materials needed to succeed in college. My peer and I share this experience with inflation, one of her cultures socials norms is to attend family gatherings with food or gifts to show respect. As inflation increases and with it the rising cost of food, it has become harder for her to stay in line with her culture’s social norms. My peer and I, both belong to a middle-class bracket which mean our experiences with inflation impact things that are important to us but overall, they do not impact our everyday lives. One of the biggest identity differences between my peer and I, is our ethnic background and with it the cultural traditions coming from our ethnicity. Her ethnicity depicted through

ethnic boundary markers exemplifies a key historical tradition stemming from Palestine. In her culture, the tradition of marriage requires both parties to agree upon a dowry of gold or riches. The commitment of marriage becomes harder to do in her culture because of inflation. Her ethnic identity has impacted the way she views inflation because the rising cost of such important things is detrimental to what she believes in. This differs from my own experiences with inflation because my cultural identity doesn’t have sacred traditions associated with monetary values. Another key difference between our experiences with inflation stems from the country in which we identify with. My peer identifies with the country of Israel, specifically Palestine, because of her culture and the family she has there. She used to travel to Palestine to visit some of her family but as inflation increases, she can’t afford to go see them as often. This experience with inflation differs from my own because I identify with the country of America and all of my family live here, therefore it doesn’t cost much to go see them. The varying differences in ethnicity and culture between my peer and I, have shaped different obstacles caused by inflation. These obstacles influenced by our identities shape how we view and experience inflation. Our makers of identity are shaped by many cultural and environmental factors that strengthen our viewpoints on life and how we should live our lives. The description and analyses of identity markers denote why two people faced with the same problem experience things differently. Throughout the interview process with my peer, I analyzed key differences and similarities between our culture, class, race, ethnicity, and gender that lead to how we view and experience inflation. Simply asking how we both view inflation and describing our experiences with it does not answer a key question in anthropology, which is... why. Why are my experiences similar or different than my peers? Why does a person view inflation as horrible compared to someone who views it as mildly bothersome? All these questions can be answered by going deeper into a person’s identity, and understanding how their identity was formed. The markers that have shaped a person’s identity defines how life is experienced in their perspective.

Bibliography Guest, Kenneth J. Essentials of cultural anthropology: A toolkit for a global age . New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2023. https://ncia.wwnorton.com/ebook- essculturalanthro4-710772.

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Self-Evaluation Summary I believe I have created an error free essay. I utilized a lot of examples from the book and associated each example to the correct chapters in the book. I went over the page requirement because it was hard to clarify things when analyzing specific parts of the interview. For example, when I discussed sexual orientation, I had to describe why her culture has influenced her viewpoints on the subject and it made my essay longer than I would have liked. I did grade my essay based on the self-evaluation rubric by going over each paragraph and checking to make sure I answered each requirement of the prompt. After writing my essay and grading it based on the rubric, I felt as though my paragraphs on inflation could be written with more detail. In the first draft, I didn’t correlate any examples I had written about with my peer’s experiences with inflation, so I went back over my essay and added some examples to enhance the flow of the essay. Some aspects of my essay that I think I did really well was utilizing the examples from the textbook to analyze my notes in the interview. I used more than one example in some of my paragraphs so that it was easier to transition to the next topic in the essay. Some areas I think I could improve upon is the length of my essay. I think I added too much detail in my essay which made some paragraphs hard to understand. I found it hard to simplify my explanations but after going over my essay I was able to identify which paragraphs were too long and erase the details that didn’t help my essay. __ 3 __ Did I produce an error-free draft essay that hits all the main points in the prompt? __ 2 __ Did I grade my first draft essay using the self-evaluation rubric provided? __ 3 __ Did I assess and write a two paragraph, self-evaluation summary, reflecting on the strengths and areas of improvement of my first draft essay? __ 2 __ Did I revise and improve my first draft essay based on the self-assessment of my own work? Total Score: 10 /10

Peer Review Summary This essay was well written with clear descriptions of how you experienced inflation. There was an overall flow and a cohesive structure to the essay. There was a good introduction, and conclusion but the discussion paragraphs did not include key details from the prompt. After reviewing your interview notes, I noticed that most of the questions related to identity markers were not discussed in your interview or in your essay. I like how descriptive you were in your experiences with inflation, and how you transitioned into the topic. However, there was a huge focus on inflation with no relation to identity markers or concepts from the textbook. I think you have a really good framework for the essay, you just need to expand upon it. For example, you noted that you and your peer have cultural differences but didn’t discuss what those differences are. Some aspects of the essay I think you did really well was your incorporation of language and social class, especially when you related it to your experience with inflation. For me, the hardest part of my essay was describing my experiences with inflation, but you did it really well. I think some of the cultural concepts you used to relate or describe your experiences with inflation were hard to understand because you didn’t mention what those cultural traditions are. Overall, this essay had a good flow with informative descriptions of how inflation has impacted your life.

Interview Notes 1. Who are you / How do you identify yourself? a. (she/her) pronouns, college student, daughter, sister 2. What are the two most exciting aspects of your identity and how do you perform/live them? a. Honest person stands by her morals. It’s important to be kind to others for karma. b. Always tries her best (ambitious), tries her best in school and work. Maintains social life. 3. Tell me about markers of your identity that you are proud of in reference to: a. Language and Culture • Arab (Palestinian) culture (born and raised in California) ▪ Values family and hard work (dad works two jobs), keeping a clean house, education is very important! ▪ Identify with Arab culture over American culture (went to Islamic school) ▪ When she transferred to public school, her thinking changed due to cultural differences. • Speaks Arabic (grew up speaking Arabic) (learned English when started going to school) b. Class (hierarchy of social status based on income and wealth) • Born and raised in California, city called Upland (primarily consisted of old people). Safe environment, on the wealthier side • Middle class c. Race (defined in terms of phenotypical features such skin color) • White phenotypical features d. Ethnicity (defined in terms of shared culture, language, and history) • Arab culture with Muslim language, middle eastern countries all share the same Arabic roots of culture. • Both grandparents were born and raised in Palestine, moved to Lebanon, parents born in Lebanon. e. Gender (the cultural construction of masculinity and femininity) • She is female • Women should take care of house / family, men should work and pay bills. She thinks differently and thinks women can do both. She thinks women and men should be equal. • When she has a family, she wants to work while having kids. f. Sexual Orientation • Heterosexual (straight) g. Nationalism (country/nation that you belong to) • American / Palestine

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4. Tell me about your experience with the ongoing inflations and how these markers of your identity (mentioned in item “3” above) shaped/affected your experience with the inflations. • Inflation has impacted her food consumption because a lot of her dishes are made from beef (Halal beef), which is the way that the animal is slaughtered, but inflation has increased the prices of halal meat greatly which makes it harder to buy. • Due to inflation, it has become very expensive to go back to her home country and visit her family back home. She doesn’t see her family as much because of inflation. • Hospitality is very common in her culture, which includes many family gatherings and other events. Within which they never come empty-handed. if they are hosting the gathering, they must ensure that there is food, dessert, drinks, and everything else. As inflation increases it has become hard to stay in line with her norms and values. • In her culture, marriage consists of agreeing upon a dowry which usually depends on the value of gold, but as inflation increases getting married becomes more expensive and harder to do in her culture.

Final Draft of CTA 2 (Identity) copy

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