Essay 1

Alan Marx

September 11, 2014

Professor Young

English 1100

Identity Essay

            Growing up I never knew what path I would fall to or what roads I would take. In my teen years I struggled to find the right group of people that I could sincerely call true friends. It took years of confusion, sitting at home alone on weekends wondering why I couldn’t maintain a successful friendship, and it made me wonder. Where would I fall by the end of high school? In the memoir “The Color of Water” by James McBride his life and his struggle with identity is what the story falls under, finding who he is and why. Identity can be a hard thing to understand and the question is, is identity important? And I for one can strongly say that it is. Because of my identity I have a clear understanding of who I am as a person, I am more confident, and outgoing with the things I do and the things I am going to do moving on.

            Many people do not have a clear understanding of what identity really means. It is not something that you can physically sense it is being who you are as a person. People tend to change their identity in certain situations, for example if you are with your family you would use words that are completely different to the ones you would use lets say around your friends. When you are with your friends more slang and curses tend to come out and when you are with your family it is all about respect and using polite words. You may not notice it but different characters come out of you when different situations are presented to you. Another example would be if you were in a place that was conducting business, like a job, a side of you would come out sounding more professional and your words would be more helpful and less slang would be used. And that is the definition and some examples of what identity is.

            The memoir “The Color of Water” by James McBride shows how identity is important in our every day life. The narrator of the novel James is very confused with his own identity as throughout his entire childhood his brothers and sisters taunted him and made him feel like he wasn’t part of the family. His mother was “Light Skinned” and James was black, and in his 8-year-old mind this was very confusing to him. “When I asked her if she was white she’d say, “No I’m light skinned”, and change the subject again” (McBride 21). James’s mother was a tough lady; throughout the reading you can see all of the hardships they encounter, yet his mother brushing it off as if nothing ever happened. Her focus was to get her kids through school and make sure they went to church. She did not want them to be taken back by what they saw going through this era. James notices how tough of a woman she is and realizes that he now needs to protect his identity which she has shown him.

            At the end of the memoir when James encounters with a “Black Panthers” child he punches him in the face. Even though his mother may be different than him he realizes he needs to protect the ones he loves. James realizes that in this world it is not about what race you are or what other people think about you, its about you, your family and nothing else has to matter. This is all again tied back to what he saw in his mother all of those times where she was stronger than the other. And that is why I feel identity is shown to be very important in this memoir.

            During the last few years my friends and family have had a huge impact in my life and have helped me find and understand my true identity. First my friends, the way we came together is a very long story but lets just say that two groups combined to make one very close group of twelve. The memories and stories could go on and on and we are such a close group that I am certain that there will be more to come. We all share a certain kind of humor so when we are together it makes it easy to talk to them and fun at the same time. We all call my basement home, whenever we are bored or tired we all seem to fall on my couch and just make each other laugh until we cannot laugh anymore. They have been there so many times that they call my parents “Mom and Dad”, and I have to say that over 90% of my summer consisted of being with them before college.

            Connecting James Mcbride and myself is very easy, Racial is what is on the outside of someone. But the true identity of a person is what is on their inside and that is what James sees and figures out when he watches his mother be stronger than the other person, and that’s what my friends saw in me. I wasn’t the most popular kid, or the best athlete in the school I was a normal kid with a good sense of humor and I am proud to say that.

            And then there is my family who has been there with me through the good times and bad. They have raised me to be kind and caring person that I am today, and I couldn’t thank them enough. On my 18^th birthday my mom and my sister created this book that was a memory log for me, everyone who was close to me including my friends wrote something in the book, whether it was funny stories or advice they all said something that touched me. When reading this book I realized one thing, my identity, who I really was, which is an intelligent, loved, caring human being who has barely any hair. So as you can see identity is very important to me, my friends and family who I love very much have shaped me to be the person I am today, I love who I have become and I wouldn’t sell it for the world.

            Identity cannot be seen by just looking at someone, you are the only one who knows who you truly are. In my life it is very important to me and as you can see in “The Colors of Water” it is important as well. James, after all he went through with his siblings, he stuck through it at a young age and paid attention to the woman that raised him since day one. And for me all of those weekends on the couch alone have paid off and now every weekend the couch is full of who id like to call my brothers.