American Identities Essay Sample

In the light of O'Hearn's considerations, the forefathers struggled with the manner in which incorporate of whiteness was made to their identities. They actively ignore as well as abject their respective whiteness to a point that it turns to be a noticeable anxiety site across their work. Whiteness becomes an invisible centre for racial politics which are aimed at basing ideology on multiple identities, hybridism, dementedness and fragmentation. In addition, whiteness is by itself often perceived to be problematically monolithic and uncontested. It also includes some of the hybridism theorists noting how it operates as this an invisible centre. Whiteness can be identified through being unnamed and unmarked; however, it is often imagined to be a unified, central and stable identity formation category for the non-whites and whites. O'Hearn effectively performs a hyper-whiteness form that is a misidentification type while the performance on both Chineseness and whiteness does not draw a visible line of difference. There is a general inability to identify O'Hearn wholly as part of either category. In turn, this disjuncture, or identification continues to reflect on identity’s complexities and impossibilities. The other reflection includes the whiteness bizarre paradox where whites have to appear "white enough" to embrace certain privileges. However, they are only in a position of maintaining such privilege through keeping whiteness in an invisible state.
On the other hand, Kesaya Noda addresses growing up in America in environments of cultural differences. In her view, Noda presents how to deal with definition and knowledge of her. She adds that there are two major mindsets within her. The first is inside, and she feels accepted and remains comfortable with, and the other is outside for which she perceives that subsequent people do not share an understanding or are ignorant with her. She encountered discrimination during her childhood days. Subsequent critics addressed her as “Unalterably alien” or “Other”. She depicts a fundamental distinction across the Japanese-Americans and Native Americans. She also emphasizes on the fact that the third generation German-Americans are American while the Japanese-Americans in the third generation are still Japanese-American. This is due to most people solely remembered that the Japanese state means that they are dangerous to the country. This is an illustration of the people’s ignorance. Noda affirms her identity. In her youthful days, she could not understand the reasons why parents did not complain about all the things they faced in order to prove certain levels of loyalty to America. This caused much anger to her. In the realization of the reasons, she depicts absolute empathy to her parents as well as fellow Japanese-Americans. The circumstances as well as the manner of thinking for the people continue to change across time. She feels that the community has allowed her as one of its own. This change developed a critical impact to her changing of ideas.
While approaching the 21st century, biculturalism and racialism are increasingly becoming common. The aspects of the place of birth and skin colour are not reliable signifiers of an individual’s origin or identity. There are various critical components for the culture to achieve aspects of values, beliefs, identity, and dialect. Such components can be influenced by families, social environment, friends, as well as the community one lives in. For this reason, the manner in which one should be addressed along individual beliefs about themselves has much to do with the past roots and personal involvement in the views.