My Influence On My Identity Essay

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Who am I? An American Muslim. What influences an individual’s identity and belonging? Is it the religion he or she practices? Or the country of birth? Or is it the environment the parents choose to raise their children in. According to the U.S. Census Bureau twenty percent of the 320 million (Language Use in the United States: 2011) residents speak a different language other than English at home and yet “multiculturalism is not clearly established in policy at the federal level. Instead, it has been addressed primarily through the school system with the rise of ethnic studies programs in higher education and attempts to make the grade school curricula more inclusive of the history and contributions of non-white peoples.” (A Multicultural Society,…show more content…
This gave me the opportunity to be exposed to the culture my parents were trying to program into me, at a very high cost indeed. It was hard to adjust to the drastic change in the environment, even though everyone was welcoming. All of a sudden it wasn’t the American way of living, nothing was similar, they played different sports, watched different TV, observed different holidays and the list continues. Well it turns out that the timeline associated with his illness was completely false, my father continues to live on for about another decade. In this period I get attached to my family, roots, culture, and my religion. Even though with the time spent I still never felt at home, it could have been the way locals looked at me differently, or maybe the way I spoke the native language Urdu differently or the way I dressed and carried myself. I had never figured it out. After dad passed away, I had already grown into a man, ready to attend college and become something, not the dreams I had envisioned as I wouldn’t want my mother to go through the experience of losing a loved one again. After many discussion and negotiations my mum and I mutually agreed for me to seek higher education in the
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