Reflection & Response

Reflection:

It is always interesting to see how people define identity, but I agree that it is something that is constantly changing. I believe that any little experience can affect our identity. I'd like to broaden Murray's argument of "we become what we write" (WAW 62) to "we become what we experience." Small events in our lives can suddenly impact our decisions and our ideas. While I was growing up, I had issues with negotiating my identity to fit that with the other children. As the only Vietnamese child, I felt a small part of exclusion. This feeling faded as I started calling myself, "American" and denied any form of affiliation with Vietnam other than my appearance. My primary education had such a patriotic influence on me that when I visited Vietnam, I felt a feeling of superiority towards other Vietnamese just because I was "American." My bigotry ended when I met a Bulgarian-Vietnamese man who pointed out my arrogance. Here was a man who was only a quarter-Vietnamese but showed more appreciation to Vietnam than I ever had by ten fold. I was pure Vietnamese. I could speak the language and I had been exposed to Buddhism. However, the Bulgarian-Vietnamese could not speak Vietnamese (although he was learning) and only have been to the country twice--and yet he considered his identity to be more Vietnamese than Bulgarian. My experience with him forced me to have a reflection over my identity, and after self-evaluation, I gradually accepted my Vietnamese identity. It is not just the environment you grew up in that makes the identity, but also the events outside of the environment. Some events may not affect the identity at all, but all events still have the potential.

Response:

Social networks give people the power to expose themselves in a certain way. I'd like to think that people's virtual identities can differ from the offline identities. The three social networks I use are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I use Twitter in order to communicate with an online singing community that covers various music made by amateur producers who are also part of the community. It is also a place for ranting internal thoughts that might not be appropriate for Facebook. To me, I use Facebook as a site to save pictures and share with others. This is the only social network site where I have more details saved such as date of birth, school I go to, where I work, etc. Facebook is more convenient than Instagram in the way that one can upload multiple pictures at the same time. It is more time-efficient in that manner, so pictures of trips and events are often posted there. I also use it to collect information about school events since the clubs often use Facebook in order to update and discuss. I usually never post any status updates since I don't believe it's necessary. Instagram is something I have just started to use. It's mainly just to make specific pictures look nicer. As a result, my identity on Facebook is mainly based on the info page, my identity on Twitter is that of a sarcastic, ranting high school boy, and my identity on instagram is based on the pictures I post and my choices of filter.