An identity I’m proud of is being a part of my family. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have such supportive parents that encourage me to work towards what will make me happy instead of what will make me the most money. They’ve gone to show that too through their careers because they don’t work for the highest paying jobs, but the most rewarding. Something I struggle with is being Asian. While I am also very proud of being Asian, I’ve always struggled with being “too quiet” or “not smart enough”. In efforts to not seem like a stereotypical naive Chinese girl, I would push myself to become more extroverted.
Something I never really paid enough attention to was the lack of work opportunities for immigrants. Oftentimes their only options are schools jobs which usually pay very little, or odd jobs that aren’t a consistent source of income. I also never thought too much about the language barrier in school. For some reason, it never occurred to me how many people grew up learning 2 languages instead of just English.
The NBC video talks about different identities in being Latino-American and the struggles they face in not being “American enough” or “Latino enough”. Children would witness their parents I think that this is a really common identity crisis among immigrants, but such a large part of America’s identity is being a “melting pot” where nobody has to conform to one identity and we should pride ourselves in our diversity.
