Social Identity and Privilege

I grew up wearing rose-colored glasses; I lived life with an air of optimism and faith in the world. I am blissfully unaware of who I am and intrinsically trust and believe in optimism because of the safety in which I have grown up. I have had the privilege of not having to experience true struggle and thus it has been easy to wear my rose-colored glasses. For me, my identity is difficult to define because it is fluid and constantly changing as I grow in response to my environment and experiences. However, I think that my race and privilege have been the most salient aspects of my identity that have shaped my lived experiences.

For me, growing up in a highly “Americanized” bi-racial family has sensitized me to what racial identity is. Internally, I never viewed race as a defining factor that differentiated me from someone else, I viewed it just as a fact and part of me that provided little information as to who I was as a person. However, I also grew up in a privileged, upper-middle class suburb and attended an all-girls private school. While my school put a lot of effort into encouraging acceptance and diversity I became exposed to the external pressures of what it meant to be associated with a race. In turn, how I viewed myself did not match now others viewed me and the aspects of my identity and personality that I felt were most salient did not match how others saw me. This aspect of my identity however, helped shape my value that it is my responsibility to make use of my make use of my skills to live up to my value and how others depict me. I believe that in the grand scheme of things it is solely you that will benefit from your value, so I strive to succeed for myself.

As I have grown up, I have come to learn that the world is not as black and white as it once seemed. I grew up very privileged and opportunity of living a life that has been good to me. Thus in some ways, I am naïve and blissfully unaware of what it is like to personally experience the struggles that I learn about in class. However, this does not mean that I am ignorant to the fact that these problems exist. This aspect of my identity has challenged me to reconcile what I learn and see with what I’ve inherited. I question how you maintain your inheritance and what you value but also reconcile what the world is telling you, what you are experiencing and the complexity of it all.

These aspects of my identity will definitely shape my experience in Zambia. I think that my awareness of my race will not only push me to work hard to shape the way I am viewed by others in a way that I wish to be depicted. I think it also makes me sensitized to the danger of assumptions and forming opinions and the value in letting someone show you who they are rather than defining who they are yourself. I think the value of these aspects of my identity is recognizing that they make me different from people I encounter but not letting them shape the way I interact with people. There is power and privilege that comes with being a privileged American citizen however, it is the way in which you use this power that is important. The thing I want to be most aware of is this power associated with being an American citizen, while this most likely will be my defining characteristic while in country I don’t want it to shape my identity and my experience interacting with people. While this goal is naive and unrealistic I think the most important thing is that I am aware of the power that this brings and limit its effect on my experience and not let it define who I am.