Category: Cultural Identity

Introduction

Many people claim who they are but they are not in the way they act; behave and way of living speak and noticeably. There is a danger in this way of prevention, this will affect an individual’s way of thinking that is not really who he is but the reality is, he is borrowing, and many times not aware. Way of living is very salient evidence of how to define an individual’s cultural identity. It carries a connotation of who someone is. How a family lives in a particular tribe reflects the culture of the whole tribe as a whole. Family orientation, an individual’s engagement with other cultures may affect his own identified culture. Preserving cultural identity starts in the specific unit of a particular tribal community. When one knew and realized who he is, he will be aware of who he is in the presence of the Creator.

In proclaiming the good news of the love of God through Jesus Christ, “the church is called to engage the world, not to react to it,” and “are we willing to see the face of God in the faces of people, sensing God’s presence in their situation?” Ministers and missionaries in many ways are not aware that their thoughts were controlling and imposing on tribal communities and insist on the perfect way of living as their thoughts and imagination reach. Sensing God’s presence in the context of the people, specifically tribal communities, understanding their real situation in the way they live. The tendency if one is not understanding their situation, which is, he/she directly dictates greatly affects their confidence in the missionary; they probably do not listen but look to someone who would understand them well. This is what the researcher learned from Kosuke Koyama in his book Water Buffalo Theology. Understanding well the situation of the tribal community lessens their worries and anxieties and will have a greater possibility of receiving the gospel and seeking understanding to live out the message of God and serve God. Koyama has a very good way of evangelizing the people in northern Thailand.

Points of Exposition of the Problem

Western people have a culture of their own and their culture is harmoniously applied in their context. They have practices that are good to them but not to us oriental people, the same goes for the opposite. Western people are individualistic, oriental is not, but family and relationship-oriented people are just like the Filipinos. Among cultures, practices are distinct; these have significance and deeper meaning with respect to their respective context. Practices are preserved through teaching them to the new generation of this time. The young generation of this day lives in a highly technological age but still, cultural identity must be defined by them.

Commonality always lies between cultures irrespective of the place where they are set. There are differences but what are the means to work together, can be enriched. Commonality deals with how cultures are interrelated with each other despite their diversity. Commonality meets at the bottom line of each culture. Thus, according to R. R. Reno, in terms of church situation regarding denominations, each one should determine what they do not share and what they share so as to effectively work together for the intention of the gospel of Christ.

Superiority Complex of Western Colonization

The thought of several Western people that their culture is higher and the Filipino culture is lower is their superiority complex. This idea is an imbalance in dealing with eastern people, it doesn’t seek to understand the situation. Superiority complex adds greatly to having a colonizing mindset, not sensitive to the people’s lives. This problem of those western people who are involved is defined in their cultural identity; they look down on minor cultures as they think it with their observation. Superiority complex doesn’t assure understanding of God’s love out of the people’s situation, seeing God’s face in their lives. Superiority thinking distorts the good relationships between cultures.

According to Kraft, anthropologists have found that “it is objectively impossible to distinguish worldwide levels of cultural progress” (Beals and Hoijer 1959, 720). They have concluded that cultures are to be regarded not as assignable to some level of overall superiority or inferiority with respect to other cultures. Cultures are, rather, more or less equal to each other in the ways in which they are structured to meet the needs felt by their members. In this sense, it is felt that any given culture shapes a way of life that must be seen as valid and adequate for those immersed in it. Cultures are therefore both as good as each other and as bad as each other in shaping that way of life. None is anywhere near perfect, since all are shaped and operated by sinful human beings. But none in its healthy state is to be considered invalid, inadequate, or unusable by God and humankind. Kraft in his study cited Turnbull 1972 for a description of an unhealthy culture.

Loss of Cultural Identity

Imposing the identity of foreign cultures is the cause of the loss of identity of Filipinos. Filipinos were influenced by many colonizers, who spent years, and decades governing the Filipino community. The first colonizer was the Spaniards, then the Americans, disrupted by the Japanese and back to the Americans after they defeated the Japanese in World War II, each with their allies. In addition to these, Filipinos have early contact with Chinese merchants and other nations during the pre-Spanish era. According to Koyama, one Filipino can be observed in four different ways of living that affect their cultural identity as a people in each of their tribes. Distortion of culture is one discernible effect of colonizers of the Filipino context. Loss of cultural identity can be recovered in its sense of expression. This concern is, a concern not just for Filipinos but includes other cultures who are in the face of losing cultural identity.

Distorted Culture to Colonizing Mindset

Distorted culture because of Western influences and insistence results in a colonizing mindset. It is the situation that the Datu of Talaandig elaborated on a problem of Filipino thinking. The exposure increases awareness of what one is doing especially in the younger generation of Filipinos. The insistence on western ideas is not good, it could be applied properly to their context. This does not mean as oriental people we cannot work together with them; it is not in this intent. Insisting ideas must be controlled by seeing the advantages and disadvantages of what is beneficial to both cultures concerned. This concept is not appropriate when one is sharing the good news of Christ, the proclaimer must also be sensitive to how the people of a particular culture understand God in their community. The essence of understanding the gospel of Christ by the receiving culture is very important. This cannot distort their culture but will richly understand the gospel with the same essence as its original audience. This is an important consideration to reflect on.

How to Counter a “Colonizing Mind”

Eliminating and/or countering a colonizing mind is a challenge to the new generation of Filipinos. Everyone has a space in this world. One can contribute to one aspect of skills greatly, his neighbor can also do as enabled. To be connected to the Creator is very important. An individual is an asset to the culture to which he or she belongs. To elaborate further, the following are given discussion:

Relationship with the Creator

In countering or opposing a colonizing mind, a relationship with the Creator must be given utmost significance. One bad manifestation of our generation today is a poor connection to the Creator, they are focusing on the influences of technology and having poor management of utilizing them well. As an observation this day, in our generation, their voices reign in their lives which results in self-centeredness. A good relationship with the Creator is a process of healing and guiding us in the path of understanding the message of God and understanding who we are before the Creator. This process involves realigning our lives to the will of our Creator, living for his glory. Relationship with our Creator is the basis of our dealing with our neighbors as reflected in the Bible. This is done through our involvement or else we are disconnected from our Creator.

Relationship with the Creator in a personal sense was a result of the geographical spread of the gospel as Christian believers. Gundry, a Bible Scholar said that the geographical spread of the gospel created the need for instruction from a distance, however; so the writing of the New Testament Letters started. Somewhat later the writing of the Gospels and Acts commenced as a literary means of evangelizing unbelievers, confirming the faith of believers, and providing an authoritative record of Jesus’ life and ministry as the availability of eyewitnesses diminished through their deaths and through the movement of the gospel away from Palestine, where most of the remaining eyewitnesses resided. This means of telling the gospel bridges people to know God and have a relationship with the Creator. Apostle Paul’s letters bring Gentiles into the presence of God through Christ. In reflection, the emphasis of Paul is a personal relationship with the Creator through faith in his Son Jesus Christ. He is an apostle to the Gentiles, a dedicated servant of God in reaching out to the Gentiles for the Lord.

An Individual’s Space in the World

Each individual has space in the world given by Creator. This is observed as controlled by people who think they are superior to others; this is the problem. This is the cause why most Filipinos cannot define the essence of their identity or cultural identity due to colonial past experiences. As mentioned, educators are emphasizing to give importance of the meaning of Filipino culture which is can be recovered, they wish that we could somehow go back and receive the gospel with the same essence of intention as the believers of the Jewish people. An individual’s space in the world is granted by the creator, who we are is important to be given a definition reflected by cultural background and identity. Controlling people’s lives is detrimental to the connection with the Creator. This problem speaks of dissension among people. The results are not worth learning by children of this age. To stop this, it must start with an individual’s dealing with himself, how he loves himself reflects how he loves others as well.

An Individual’s Role in His Culture in Particular

The researcher belongs to a tribal minority as many people called. He belonged to the tribe of Sarangani Manobo. In reflecting on his role in his cultural background in particular, during the exposure to the Talaandig tribe, he realized that he is colonized by Western thinking, claims to be a tribe in identity but is not in his way of living; he realized that he was colonized and is colonizing and imposing his ideas and ideologies to others. This is most of the time a natural way of dealing. The exposure adds wisdom to the researcher on how he is understanding himself towards the Creator and towards others. The experience enriches awareness and relationship with the Creator.

The researcher learned to see who he is and that he observed that he lost in the way. The interaction helps him reflect deeply on his personal thinking. Learning to understand the situation of tribal communities is a good common ground for how to show love to them as God loved us and his whole creation. The culture of people interconnects them but God’s love encompasses all and “his peace transcends all understanding”.

An Individual as an Asset in His Tribal Community

An individual, regardless of the tribal majorities or minorities he belonged to, could be and must be an asset in his tribal culture. Intellectual preparation and training well in education to work efficiently with his fellow men is a good asset. An individual’s educational attainment and skills are an excellent tool for serving not just for himself but for others and all in all, ultimately, to the Creator. Not just intellectual preparation is a good asset but other areas also such as cultural preservation by teaching the younger generation of their identity, and cultural skills in making souvenirs which could be a good practice. The tribe of T’boli in South Cotabato is excellent in promoting their cultural products, identifiable in their way of living.

The Principle that Lies to Counter a “Colonizing Mind”

Dealing with others as a good neighbor is very important to share the gospel of Christ. People whom missionaries are telling about Christ could see and sense the working of God in the one who is sharing with them. Kosuke Koyama emphasizes that “our sense of the presence of God will be distorted if we fail to see God’s reality in terms of our neighbor’s reality. And our sense of our neighbor’s reality will be disfigured unless seen in terms of God’s reality.” This is an important reflection of Koyama to warn ministers in mission works. Loving people as God loved them is learning from the work of Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese theologian, and educator. His ideas in gospel presentation are very significant strategies nowadays as he himself reflected the concern of God and his love for all his creation.

In the experiences of a missionary, he may encounter an opportunity to share the gospel of Christ in the context of a particular people who are having a culture of their own. Apostle Paul according to Roland Allen, Paul himself can see that he did not start out with any definite design to establish the churches in one or another place he intended to proclaim the gospel. Paul was led as God opened the door; but wherever he was led, he always found a center, and seizing upon that center, he made it a center of the Christian life.

Reflection on Cultural Identity

Who am I in the Past? In the past, the researcher thinks of a colonized mind and even at times without realizing doing it, which is colonizing and controlling others. To stop a colonizing mind is good learning he learned from the exposure. This way of living constitutes an artificial identity, not the real one. Colonizing others is a corrupted way of dealing with other people; this is like an individual who is corrupting his own very self. Eradicating this practice increases the true essence of one’s identity as he or she sees himself or herself and others before God.

Who am I in the Present? In the present, the researcher develops an awareness of sensing each space of individual in the world we lived from the Creator. He learned to have a partnership, seeing commonality with others in which he could work with them and enriching to work together as the point of ecumenism emphasizes. There are human weaknesses but as we help one another it builds us up to our connection to our Creator. Working together is good common ground denominations and organizations should focus to participate. As an observation, this is very lacking in the Filipino context. But reflecting on how God loves people and loves them as he command, enriches us all to work together. With this manner of reaching out to people for Christ, our cultural identity will never suffer in the face of modern society which is facing the challenge of modernization, globalization, and economic war between nations but our culture is reflected in the work of H. Richard Niebuhr that culture will be transformed by Christ according to his will as people of all tribes submit to him.

Conclusion

Cultural identity is very important to make an individual aware of who he is and be able to determine a distinction between himself and others. As mentioned by John Stott, the new Christian becomes responsible to Christ for his old setting and to his old setting in the new truth. But he is not thereby ‘going foreign’ (Lutterworth, 1956).

When one individual is aware of his identity, he will not interrupt God’s dealing with his neighbors. He proclaims the gospel of Christ without stopping God to bless the people and not stopping himself and the hearers to worship God and encounter the God the Creator of humanity. Our concern could easily be shown to our neighbors. All cultures regardless of who they are and what they are can work together without destroying the other one with them. They have commonalities that are desirably founded on the connection with the Creator and thus, God’s love, mercy, justice, and kindness are exemplified.

References and Bibliography

1. Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: God’s Plan for Missions According to Paul. Abbotsford, WI: Aneko Press, rev. © 2017. Kindle Electronic Edition.
2. Gundry, Robert H. A Survey of the New Testament, enhanced ed., 5th ed. Michigan: Zondervan, 2012, EPub Edition.
3. Koyama, Kosuke. Water Buffalo Theology in the Preface to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition.
4. New York: Orbis Book, Maryknoll, 1999.
5. Kraft, Charles H. Christianity in Culture: A Study in Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Twenty-fifth anniversary, 2nd ed. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2005.
6. Major parts of this study constitute the reflection of the researcher in the exposure in the Tribe of Talaandig in the Municipality of Lantapan, Bukidnon, September 2019.
7. Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1951.
8. Ott, Craig and J. D. Payne, eds. Missionary Methods: Research, Reflections, and Realities Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2013.
9. Stott, John R. W. Christian Mission in the Modern World. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Interpreter of Maladies is a short story written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The story evolves around a married Indian American couple visiting their country of heritage India alongside with their children. During their visit to India, a lot of things started to cue on such as marriage problems between the Das couple to shocking secrets revealed by Mrs Das, the rollercoaster ride just never seems to be ending.

There are quite a few interesting themes that can be found in the short story itself. One of the many would be marriage. Mr and Mrs Das are both American born Indians brought up in America by Indian immigrant parents. They knew each other from a very young age and were high school sweethearts . They were inseparable at one point and got married at a relatively young age. A successful marriage is the actual contrast to the marriage of Mr and Mrs Das as seen in the short story. The duo are always bickering even for the smallest matter . For example Mr and Mrs Das were arguing on who should be the one to bring their daughter, Tina to the bathroom. Another reason on why Mr and Mrs Das’ marriage is a total opposite of a successful marriage is when tit was revealed by Mrs Das herself that she had an affair with her husband’s friends which ultimately resulted in the birth of an illegitimate child Bobby , of which his status as a product of the affair between Mrs Das and Mr Das’ friend is unknown by Mr Das himself . As we all come to know that a marriage signifies a beginning of a family and also a life long commitment. Such pureness can however take its toll and be the exact opposite . Unfortunately, toxic or troubled relationships varying from different types of situations and backgrounds does in fact exist. Some of the relationships may start off fine but slowly evolve into a troubled relationship but there are also some that are toxic to begin with in the first place. Now what we see is how people or specifically the couple themselves react to their relationship or situation. These group of people often times do not realize that they are in a toxic or troubled relationship and that they should in fact need to seek for help not only for the themselves but also for the sakes of people around them especially their family. There are also couples that are aware of the existing toxc relationship but gives little to none efforts in trying to sort things out. There are many people today who are in a troubled relationship in this case to be specific a troubled marriage, the high divorce rate in this era would be a stamp on the this issue that is faced by many. For example, it is not uncommon for people to find divorcees here and there as what it would be harder in the past to do so.

The second theme in the short story is communication. There are many events in the short story that portrays the theme of communication which often ends up in rather hurtful consequences. Mr and Mrs Das do not communicate well despite being married . It was shown through out their journey in India that the duo always seem to be busy with their own things or in other words not being involved with each other. Mrs Das has also never confronted Mr Das with her unhappiness with the marriage itself which wouldn’t in any way result in a resolution to their communication problems. Mr Kapasi the tour guide himself has his own set of communication problems with his own wife in where the signs of their marriage recognised by Mr Kapasi consists only of the bickering, the indifference and pro-tracted silences . Mr Kapasi find it hard to communicate with his distant wife which forces him to drink his tea silently at night and this leads to Mr and Mrs Kapasi’s marriage being a loveless marriage. All these portrays a hurtful consequences of bad communication between one and another. People often forget of how important good communication is. If a country were to rise as the victor of a war in past times, communication would be as important as war tactics and weapons as the leaders and soldiers need to have the same understanding of what they were fighting for and how it would be executed. Communication problems still exists in modern times, people often find it hard to effectively communicate with one another which ultimately leads to unwanted conflicts and the rise of other issues. Bad communication can cause many negative side effects such as frustrations, lack of understanding between one and another as well as broken relationships. It is not uncommon for people to advise people who have disagreements to sit down and talk things out to sort all of the miscommunications and in order to be able to solve the problem arisen . Hence it is crystal clear that good communication is needed in one’s life be it in the past , present or future.

Continuing on , another theme found in the short story is cultural identity. As we all know , The Das family and Mr Kapasi are both ethnically Indians however they clash in terms of their cultural identity. This is because of the fact that the Das family are all born and raised in America . They essentially grew up in with American culture with touches of Indian cuture due to the fact that their parents are immigrants from India. The Das family are Indians but not Indians from India but rather American born ethnic Indians. This is shown when they are dressed as wholly Americans when visiting India. The Das family are no more familiar with India and are not different from other tourist themselves. Mr Kapasi himself is a native Indian who is familiar with the Indian culture. Mr Das himself relies on his tourist guidebook to enlighten him more about India while Mrs Das seems to be uninterested towards her surroundings in India. Even though Mr and Mrs Das are children of immigrant parents native to India, the duo are foreigners in the land of India. Mr Das himself seems to take pride in his identity as an American born when he told Mr Kapasi about his American roots with an “air of sudden confidence”.

Confusion of cultural identity is something many today would be able to relate . especially those who are descendants of people who immigrated from another country or even mixed marriages. There are many children of immigrant parents such as Chinese Americans, Thai Canadians, Korean Americans that face identity crisis due to the fact that they are born and raised in a different place and culture compared to their parents . This often leads to confusion on whether to self identify with their parents’ ancestral cultural identity or with the identity that they grew up mostly upon. Often times, these group of individuals would either self identify with either one side or feel like none is a fit . At this very stage, it is important to enlighten people who encounter these types of problem to embrace the uniqueness of having two or more identities as it signifies our own background and it is something to be taken pride of.

The term “fault line” has its origin in the geological definition of a phenomenon in the formation of the Earth’s structure in different eras, from different materials, whence rifts develop and proceed to tear apart the very ground we stand on (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007). Likewise, Europe has been sedimented throughout the past centuries from a multitude of socio-cultural, economic, and political pebbles, creating the base upon which the European Union started and continues to be built. Our current socio-political balance is being threatened by actions that touch upon the sensitive contact between these pebbles and may cause rifts among them.

Prominent attitudes and discourse in past and ongoing EU Member States’ elections stir old diverging opinions or fault lines placed in the deep European bedrock, and create new ones in the recent layer of the EU. These new fault lines are produced due to the fact that the themes approached in the debates on European culture and society are historically singular in character and depth. Namely, we are experiencing unparalleled socio-cultural, religious, and linguistic contact in our midst, in the context of increased global movement of people and EU-wide freedom of movement. Therefore, in this paper, “our” culture and identity will be divided on two coordinates axes, an EU one and a national one.

This paper argues that it is in fact the lack of focus on traditional national culture and identity in public discourse that deepens fault lines. Within Europe, the current emphasis on internationalism and multiculturalism is what makes of once-legitimising national identity a resistance one, by demoting the thick substrate of cultural European history in favour of a singular culture that manages to systematically undermine all cultures that it is derived from. Within the bedrock analogy, this is what causes the earthquakes that strain old fault lines in their contempt over loss of legitimisation, threatening to surface in the EU layer through the possible elections of right-wing parties in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and France.

“Identity is people’s source of meaning and experience,” writes Castells (2010, p.6). He goes on to define identity as the principal meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute (p.6). Within every European country, its thick historical bedrock has, until recently, constituted its legitimising identity – a top-down approach from various institutions that built European civil society (p.8). Restating the lack of precedent for Europe’s current socio-cultural situation, the EU’s identity is a work in progress that started in the wake of the Second World War (Nugent, 2010), a project identity that is increasingly imposed throughout the EU as its new legitimising identity. The promotion of this EU-wide singular identity with universalistic aims has undermined national, regional, and ethnic identities (De Swaan, 2007), and downgraded them from legitimising to resistance identities, “devalued by the logic of domination” (Castells, 2010, p.8). The communities thus formed are constantly antagonised and repressed by the dominant EU identity, strengthening their opposition and polarising both factions (Castells, 2010, p.9).

The discourse of prominent right-wing parties in most EU Member States panders to the worries and needs of the people of now-resistance identities throughout Western Europe (Schäfer, 2013). In Germany, a country which has taken upon itself the burden of welcoming over a million refugees over the past two years (Dearden, 2017), the platform of Alternative for Germany is “Islam does not belong in Germany”. France, a main target for European immigrants, is threatened by the unchecked rise of the National Front, who argue against immigration and in favour of a so-called “Frexit” (New York Times, 2016). In Greece, Golden Dawn’s reactionary attitude towards austerity measures in the course of their economic crisis echoed people’s anger (Knight, 2015). The root of Europeans’ discontent and disillusionment is more often than not an EU measure or situation that their country is handling; EU-national fault lines deepen when the opposition to the legitimising tendency of the EU awakes reactionary nationalistic sentiment (Knight, 2015). Therefore, it is through EU-wide systematic neglect of regional and national culture and identity that opposition is born, and not through the promotion of traditional European values.

A concrete instance of EU-wide assertion of a single culture took shape in the introduction of a few working languages, the main one being English. De Swaan (2007) highlights diverging tendencies of enlargement of the EU language family through states’ adherence, and the necessity to find common ground for easier communication among an increasingly diverse language group (p.1). The power politics ramifications of this imply the prominence of certain languages over others not only in the communications area, but ultimately in policy writing as well (p.5). The use of linguae francae is inherently elitist, favouring native speakers and privileged students, to the detriment of the knowledge of one’s native language or of other, “less important” European languages. Similarly, smaller language groups, or groups that are acutely underrepresented in EU policy-writing (such as the Slavic language family), are understandably undergoing a phase of reactionary resistance identity formation in the phase of other languages’ exertion of linguistic and cultural dominance (De Swaan, 2007). Once policies understand and aim to help the development of national languages in harmony with more dominant ones, and once the importance of all languages is acknowledged (a tenuous task to fulfil), only then would EU policy cease to undermine national cultures and stop stirring old fault lines that would challenge the existing norm. Until such a feat is achieved, it is inevitable that the promotion of the mainstream identity and the principal languages of the EU to the detriment of national ones will do nothing but accentuate the resistance identity of Europe’s many population niches.

Another instance of identity conflict zones rests in the population that can be considered native, and its contact with incoming populations. Throughout Europe, the median share of immigrants in the population is around 7%, as of 2014, over half of which are of non-European origin (Eurostat, 2015). Immigrant population is still rising in some countries of the EU, particularly due to large numbers of Middle Eastern asylum seekers, mainly pertaining to Islam. On a global scale, Inglehart (2003) highlights the “gap in values between the West and the Muslim world” (p.65), especially in regards to mentality. On a large scale, Christian-Muslim divergences cause civilizational clashes, and they have done so ever since their first contact. However, immigration is blurring contact lines through the introduction of migrants in Europe’s midst. No longer are small-scale clashes hectic and unreasonable, such as was the case of the Serb-Croat war between people who did not fundamentally differ in lifestyles and worldviews, presented by Ignatieff (1998). No longer are borders the epicentres of conflict, but cultural divides are being brought into the very fabric of Europe through immigration, truly moving socio-political trenches into people’s backyards: fears and scepticism transform new neighbours, rather than old ones, into sources of apprehension. This is a new occurrence, producing friction within the EU, rather than at its borders, in the process of migrants’ integration, and it is a tension that would have previously been inconceivable, in Europe’s past single-cultural societies (Habermas, 2008, p.20). Therefore, these new fault lines reach as deep as the new EU layer, due to their exceptionality.

The efforts of the European Union towards the reconciliation of EU culture and national cultures are not particularly efficient. The aim of the EU’s cultural and linguistic protection and promotion programmes is to prevent the feeling of neglect of traditional regional or ethnic identities, resolving any conflicts that might degenerate into or stir rifts the scale of fault lines, and serving to further integrate citizens into Europe. Concretely, to reiterate the instance of languages, the EU declared itself

“committed to safeguarding linguistic diversity and promoting knowledge of languages, for reasons of cultural identity and social integration and cohesion, and because multilingual citizens are better placed to take advantage of the economic, educational and professional opportunities created by an integrated Europe” (European Commission, 2012).

However, the project of multiculturalism and multilingualism was repeatedly denounced as a failure by European leaders (Schäfer, 2013, pp.39-40). There is, as Shore (2006) observes, a stark contrast between the EU’s universalistic goals of a singular culture, and the diversity that it is based upon and claims to uphold. There are irreconcilable overlaps of these two projects in the realms of “social cohesion, European construction, and governance” (Shore, 2006, p.8). Through its cultural policies, the EU seeks to assert its legitimising identity over the continent, by pursuing popular consent and by attempting to forge and emanate a European identity to belong to (Shore, 2006, p.10). In the past, the EU has failed to successfully establish its legitimising identity through its economic policies, creating further popular displeasure during the economic crisis and facilitating the rise of the representatives of people’s grievances, namely right-wing parties. Supported by the disenchanted voters whom the EU had failed, these parties have been rising to prominence and gaining in legitimacy since 2008 (Schäfer, 2013).

It is therefore not the focus on the protection of national culture and identity that produces fault lines in Europe. Rather, it is the lack thereof, in the context of the promotion of an overarching EU identity, that is currently creating new fault lines and stirring dormant ones.

The election cycle of 2016-2017 in most European countries is proving itself to be a point of impasse for the course of the EU. It is the overlooked resentments of the people in each EU Member State that have brought us to this decisive moment, and they stem from the forceful downgrade of what has historically been people’s legitimising identity. When one’s identity is challenged, one either submits or retorts. The people who have chosen to oppose this new EU identity, in ever-increasing numbers, are understandably electing the people and parties who echo their frustrations and offer reassuring solutions. To marginalise the stances of these people means disfranchising them and thus provides them with all the more reason to persevere in their resistance.

There is a marked need for understanding, tolerance, and cooperation that is essential for the future of relations within the European Union, as old methods of EU legitimacy assertion have undeniably failed a large part of the population through the challenging of their ancestral identities. As sensitive as the equilibrium may be now at contact points within the bedrock of European society, people still believe in the EU, just not this particular manifestation of it. The damage is not irreparable, and fault lines may still be closed without major aftermaths if we can devise a more balanced and conciliatory approach to the many intersecting identities within Europe.

The notion for multiculturalism has been shifting for and against the legal and political alteration of ethnic minorities around the world. Since its first proposal during the late 1980s, there was public pressure for increased recognition and adjustment of ethnic diversity through legislation and policies. Multiculturalists viewed earlier ideas of nations as corrupt and began to introduce acceptance and better understandings of one another. However, since the end of the 20th century, there has started to see a major retreat from multiculturalism from liberals and conservatives alike, and have started to see a reassertion of a collective sense of identity and values. The withdrawal from multiculturalism has been linked to fears such as diversity has gone to far and is now threatening their way of life (Kymlicka, 2010). In this essay, I will discuss two sides of multiculturalism. Firstly, whether multiculturalism as an ideology has lead to greater social cohesion and understanding or secondly if it has led to the deterioration of social cohesion.

During the 1980s, arguments that multiculturalism would be the key to greater social cohesion have risen. It was thought that in achieving this, it would not only strengthen social solidity, but in achieving it, it would thus lead to better understanding, acceptance and equality among ethnic minorities and the rest of the population. Multiculturalism celebrates ethno-cultural diversity and encourages citizens to embrace the array of customs, traditions, music and cuisine that exist beyond their own (Kymlicka, 2010). In Australia, multiculturalism have mostly been considered to be valuable for society. This is evident in a 2013 survey that asked its participants to indicate levels of agreement with statements regarding multiculturalism in Australia. Questions such as “Does multiculturalism benefit or not benefit the economic development of Australia?” and “Does multiculturalism encourage or does not encourage immigrants to become part of Australian society?” were used in the survey (Healey 2016). In response to these questions, participants’ positive association of multiculturalism was with its impact to economic development, with 75% of responders agreeing as well as multiculturalism encouraging immigrants to become a part of society with a close 71% (Healey 2016). Multiculturalism can help to accomplish conflict management, as well as give encouragements for minorities to develop loyalty and trust towards states in decision-making and policies (Kymlicka, 2010). As a result of multiculturalism, indigenous aboriginals in Australia have now received recognition of land rights and title, legislation that allows claiming land rights as well as acknowledgment of cultural rights, like language. Whilst claiming rights to traditional territories has given back cultural and significant identity to the native aborigines which has had a profound political and economic importance as land is the material basis for economic prospects and political self-government (Kymlicka, 2010). Multiculturalism has lead to better bonds within society with everyone being able to enjoy aspects of different cultures. Thus, The achievement of multiculturalism in Australia is a good example of how it has lead to stronger social cohesion.

Another progressive thing that has developed from multiculturalism has been the new forms of diverse nationality for ethnic groups including constitutional, legislative or parliamentary validation of multiculturalism at central, regional and urban levels. It has also lead to the accommodation of multiculturalism as a compulsory school curriculum (Kymlicka, 2010). Each of these forms of multiculturalism has been the consequence of earlier struggles for the recognition of ethnic diversity as a goal for more impartial and equitable societies (Kymlicka, 2010). It is assumed that when integration is at play, it requires people to give up cultural heritage and values and to adopt their new shared identity of the country in which they reside in, in order to not be excluded from society. This paradox assumes that when people are recognized for their differences and are celebrated for them, it leads them to have feelings of acceptance and therefore identify more with the society in which they live in (). If multiculturalism mainly implies a politics of recognition, the minority groups being recognized in that manner will have more reason to put faith in the social system than justice groups in societies, hence, recognition of difference does not lead to segregation (). Furthermore, claims from immigrants for cultural recognition should be interpreted as signals that they want to negotiate fairer terms of their integration into the majority culture. Members of minority groups want to express themselves in public and associate with other members of the group and want to see members of their groups occupying prominent places in society such as politicians (). Thus this reinforces the claim that multiculturalism is not a threat to social cohesion but benefices.

Whilst it is true that multiculturalism has benefitted western nations such as Australia to become more inclusive and anti-discriminatory, there is an argument to be made that multiculturalism has actually led to the deterioration of social cohesion. The retreat of multiculturalism has reflected that it had not solved issues that affected the intended recipients which would be the minorities themselves. This was because it failed to address the underlying sources of their social, economic and political exclusion from society that has unintentionally led them to their social isolation (Kymlicka, 2010). This means that even if say all members of society tended to enjoy a good halal snack pack, it would do nothing to address real issues that have been facing such as Islamophobia, xenophobia, societal segregation and discrimination. These issues cannot be solved simply by appreciating cultural differences. The focus on accepting cultural differences that are unique to each group can be unlawful and potentially dangerous (Kymlicka, 2010). Customs or traditions that pose great risk to western democracies such as under-aged or forced marriages may be traditionally practiced but are not legally tolerated (Kymlicka, 2010). However, people do tend to avoid issues such as these arising and which is why they tend to stick to other inoffensive practices such as cuisine and music. This, however, runs the risk of the ‘Disneyfying’ of cultural differences, ignoring the real problems that lie beneath the cultural and ethical distinctions. Because of this, even liberals who have been the biggest voices for movements for multiculturalism, have reversed their approach with their main focus becoming ideas of integration, common values and social cohesion. This reflects how multiculturalism may lead to a deterioration of social cohesion because it serves as an overshadow on real issues that face minorities in society today.

One example of the deterioration of social cohesion has been through the Cronulla riots in December of 2005. It was a collection of predominantly white males who rallied and took to the shores of one of Sydney’s most famous beaches, Cronulla beach. Their aim was to ‘reclaim’ what was theirs from Muslims, wogs and Lebanese Australians. The angry crowd chased, harassed and attacked a number of ethnic-looking individuals of middle eastern looking descent. This riot had been sparked by the previous week’s altercation of the attack between a couple of Lebanese men and two lifesavers, in which the lifesavers ended up getting severely assaulted. Lifesavers are iconic statuses within Australian society, and the attack on them served as a clarification for the members of the riot claiming that it was yet another example of Muslim disregard and respect for Australian values. The Cronulla riots were a reflection of a crisis in Australia’s capacity to govern and incorporate Muslim immigrants in Australia (Hage 2011). The individuals who participated saw themselves as capable of taking the law into their own hands to accomplish what they felt the government should have performed but failed to do so, which was to preserve the Aussie way of life. (Hage 2011). The Cronulla riots is an extreme example of the deterioration of social cohesion in Australian society. The views of the rioters were that multiculturalism had taken over Australia and that the immigrants were not respectful of the collective Australian values. This reinforces the statement from above of how multiculturalism has been a dangerous ideology that has threatened social cohesion.

Another argument against ethnic diversity was Brian Barry, a critique of multiculturalism. he states that it undermines social cohesion, the necessary social condition for socio-economic distribution. He states “A politics of multiculturalism undermines a politics of redistribution” (). This means that the more public recognition, accommodation, support and higher status given to minorities, the less attention it pays to social unity, which means that the more it would create the perception of us and them. () This criticism is called the ‘Progressive Dilemma’. The argument of progressive dilemma disputes that “the more different we become from one another, the more diverse our ways of life and our religious and ethnic backgrounds, and the less we share a moral consensus or a sense of fellow feeling, the less happy we will be in the long run to support a generous welfare state”. It is therefore more likely that our differences will keep us apart to the point where we cannot interact with each other. A study conducted, that seeks to answer the progressive dilemma, it revealed that in situations with a lot of diversity, one can often observe an increase in social expenditure ().

In conclusion, I agree with the statement above that multiculturalism has the potential to create social cohesion within society. The issue from liberals and conservatives alike appears to agree that policies for multiculturalism promote ethnic separatism and lessen social cohesion (Levrau and Loobuyck). The example of Cronulla riots has been a central example of how multiculturalism has led Australians to riot in anger against those of Muslim/Lebanese descent as a means to claim what once was theirs as well as the Australian identity. Furthermore, the argument made by Brian Barry is that the more attention, accommodation, and higher status given to minorities, the more it compels separatism to occur within a society. And finally, the notion that multiculturalism fails to address the real issues faced by minorities such as xenophobia, Islamophobia or societal segregation. It is important however that whilst multiculturalism could lead to a deterioration of social cohesion, it is notable that it does also have many beneficiaries as well. As explained above, it has made a difference in political policies and legislation such as the land rights for native aboriginal Australians as well as giving a sense of trust and loyalty towards states in decision-making and policies.

As Lahiri points out of her status as a racial discrimination of other creates ambiguity about her individuality. The stories has given of the readers, that the subtle way in which the fictionist probes into the various maladies and that disrupt relationships between the protagonists living in exile. They cope with the life in new world, and their emotional turmoil continues had to been the focus of Lahiri’s involvement. Being an immigrant of herself, Lahiri used to made her soul to searching study very absorbing, interpreting maladies were the dynamics of cultural identity and diaspora continue to intimidate of lahiri characters. Imbued with sensual details of both Indian cultures and American cultures, those are the stories spoke with the universal eloquence and compassion to everyone who have ever felt like an as a outsider. Like interpreter of the title story selected for both the persons. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories of Lahiri translation between the ancient traditions of her elders and sometimes baffling prospects of the New World in literature.

Jhumpa Lahiri was one of the most significant writers of the Indian diasporic in the present time duration. Her prose was scattered with the details of traditional Indian names, food, cooking and wardrobe, it has been giving character and flavor for her stories. The rhythmic sentences and her adept intelligent for depicting persons and landscapes lull the reader. This was illustrated in the following excerpt from The Treatment of Bibi Halder.

At her insistence, they used to showed her their own photo albums embossed with designs of butterflies, she had pored over the snapshots that the chronicled the ceremony and butter poured in fires, garlands exchanged, vermilion-painted fish, trays of shells and silver as well as gold coins.

While she used to brings out the warm, loving the nature of the Indians, she also noted down the benefits of being in America literature. Despite of all the independence, royal and comforts provided by the America, the immigrants experience a dire needed to meet and talked to people from their own lands. They did miss the love and affection of their own pupils. Lilia used to observes her parents closely who have been used to trail their fingers and through the columns of the university directory and used to circling surnames familiar of their part of the world.

Interpreter of Maladies is replete with the references to Indian food items. Food, Even though apparently a trivial matter, the plays a very significant role in their own society as well as in nation. It is used to symbolize privilege, economical class and social position. For the immigrants and non-residents, food becomes associated with their own identity. It induces a sense of belonging in a foreign country. Here, they have given familiar items of food brought immense pleasure. Hence, it became a significant aspect of cultural exchange and bonding. Jhumpa Lahiri used food and dining as a vehicle to display the deterioration of familial bonds, and community, culture through the transition from Indian ways of life in American ways of life. This is most evident in the genre of short stories.

In the story was entitled with When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, food comes as a fistful soil from their motherland. Food was the factor that binds Mr. Pirzada with the character Lilia’s family. Mr. Pirzada came from Dacca whereas Lilia’s parents were from India. But they used in same food and this was establishes affinity between them. They used to ate pickled mangoes with their meals, and they ate rice every night for supper with their hands like, parents, Mr. Pirzada took off his shoes before entering into a room, chewed fennel seeds to after meals as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for dessert dipped austere biscuits into successive cups of tea.

Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s used to a food as Mrs. Sen’s home, family, friend and her own country. Sen was a typical Bengali for whom fish was inevitable. Absence of fish in the diet for some time made her sulk like a child. She used to shares her passion for Bengali food with Eliot. Whenever the fish arrives at the local shops, it was the greatest news to sen.

The Third and concluded Continent revolves around the life of a Bengali gentleman who had pursues his studies at Britain and his job in the America. In spite of her contact with three continents, he and the person wife still maintain their cultural identification and food was one of the most important factors that the help them in retaining of their Indians. Even in American place the smell of steamed rice and a dish of chicken make with fresh garlic and ginger on his apartment into a home. Thus, food was one of the most significant links binding the non-residential Indians to their own motherland. Not only the food items but eating habits also build up an Indian atmosphere in an alien land.

These characters live in exile, as Lahiri herself observes, and these are defining and redefining the Indian-American diaspora identity in particular and immigrant patches to this promise land in general. Love, tradition and identity issues are always at the heart of the story and of the characters. Who find happiness are those who can embrace their present circumstance while at the same time never forget their Indian roots. We learn about Mrs. Sen who sits on her floor everyday chopping vegetables in the same way she did in India, with the same knife she used there. Her adherence to an insistently Bengali identity is evident in the fact that she doesn‘t even use a conventional western knife.

The wife and the husband in The place of Third and the Final Continent was anxious whether their son could retain his Indian way of eating food. They drive him to Cambridge to visits him, or brought him home for a weekend, so that he can ate rice with them and his hands, and speak in Bengali, things they were sometimes worry he would no longer do after they die. The representation of the Indian culture was inherently presents throughout her stories. Yet, it did not become exaggerated. In spite of the differences between the ages, nationalities and religions, Lahiri’s characters to be demonstrate the universality of life experiences. In The Third and concluded Continent, they see the cultural differences between the India, London and the United states throughout the eyes of a young Indian man.

The story was an only the isolation of the immigrants travelling to be an foreign country, but also describes the yearning and craving for his love that lies in every human heart. Through the interaction between the young man and his aged landlady, and the author showed how soothing and comforting life could become if there was someone who can just listen to him for a few moments regardless of the age and the nation to which one belong. The young man who has simple gestures everyday could fill with the some color into the life of the old and lonely landlady.

The ambition that had first hurled across the world is part of his ability to know himself and to recognize that the strength he gains from his origins is the ideal foundation on which to build a strong identity. The frontier itself requires a more nuanced interpretation. The frontier is an elusive line, visible and invisible, physical and metaphorical, amoral and moral and the idea behind Lahiri’s stories is that we all have to fight our share of frontier wars.

Jhumpa Lahiri seems to fictionally agree that the journey creates us. We become the frontiers we cross. Lahiri’s stories was explore human relations in a cultural context, but the writers approach to culture seems to be an in terms of the one or two possible paradigms, large and respectively small culture. Culture was thus looked at both as the large ethnic, national or international‖ entities and as any cohesive social grouping with no necessary subordination to large cultures. Therefore, none of the story is to been exclusively focuses on the encounter between the large cultures or on the one o two between and within the small cultures, but rather on the tension generated by the fact that individuals perforce evolve in both. Lahiri’s characters were seem to confirm that the dislocation was the norm rather than the aberration in their time, but even in the unlikely event that they spend an entire lifetime in the one place, the fabulous diverseness with which they live reminds them constantly that they are no longer the norm and the center.

It was no longer and only the clash between national cultures that represents the writers main interest, although some of Lahiri’s protagonists did seems to conform to the typical imagination of the contemporary migrant, the individual severed from his roots, often translated into a new language, always obliged to learn the ways of a new community forced to face the great questions of change and adapt. It was the case of the protagonist of The Third and Final Continent who looks at himself from the very beginning of the typical migrant.

A Temporary Matter is about a couple growing estranged from each other after the death of their own child and how they become experts at avoiding each other in their three-bedrooms in the house, spending as much time on separate floors as possible. It is fully set in America, but Shoba and Shukumar were of Indian origin. The story was far from analyzing their inability to adapt to a hostile cultural environment. They used to find it impossible to communicate and got estranged to the point of separating.

The stories might be considered equally heterogeneous if analyzed in the terms of narrative technique employed. Two of the stories, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine and The Third and Final tenant were first-person narratives. The former was narrated from the point of view of a ten year child, and latter from the perspective of an Indian Immigration on America. The rest were third-person narratives, but the story was filtered through the consciousness and sensibility of a more or less involved into the character. It would be a difficult to say whether Lahiri’s choice of method had anything to do with a certain pattern she had intended for the stories. But the effect she had obtained was a kaleidoscopic one. The reader was offered the possibility to look at the issues of the stories deal with the form of various angles, although they cannot speak about a multiple point of view narrative.

The issue of race and identity can be found in African American communities for many years. Such texts as Jazz by Toni Morrison, The Invisible Man by and Zora’s Their Eyes were watching god discuss this theme. This theme covers the three narratives and it is clear in the character’s voices and actions. This issue of race affected African Americans’ lives, self-perceptions, and identities. In this essay, I will discuss how racial discrimination and the constant search for identity are portrayed by the character’s storytelling in these three texts.

The issue of Identity in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is portrayed in the narration and choice of words of the invisible man and his attempts to be seen as an individual in society. In the prologue and the first chapter, the nameless man narrates his story and how he got to this point in his life where he hides in an apartment basement in Harlem that has a hundred light bulbs inside it that are lit with stolen electricity. The main character struggles to understand his life and purpose, especially after the changing life events that caused him to question his identity. For example when he says ‘ you often doubt if you exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds … you curse and you swear to make them recognize you’ (Ellison, p.3) the narrator cares how people see him and what they think about him.

As the novel progresses, a group of white officials asks the invisible man over to deliver his speech. However, to his surprise, he is forced to engage in a fight with young black men for money and they are all blindfolded. After that, he is requested to share his speech and with a mouth full of blood, he accidentally makes a mistake saying, “social equality” instead of “social responsibility” The white men are in a rage after this mistake and the invisible man has to fix it. This action shows how black people are inferior in this environment where white rich men rule because

The White officials prefer the ideology of Booker T. Washington to Du Boi. In the novel the whites decide the fate of the black when the white officials grant him a scholarship at a negro college, They defined his future. and they even define the identity black people should have because as a result of racism, the invisible man’s identity is facing limitations although’ [He] was praised by the most lily-white men of the town. [He] was considered an example of desirable conduct – just as [His] grandfather had been (Ellison, p.14) he felt embarrassed and didn’t like the praise.

Moreover, Race in Jazz by Toni Morrison is a strong theme that we notice throughout the narrative. This theme is defined by the way white people and African Americans talk and treat each other. Not to mention that most of the characters in this narrative are African-Americans and each one encounters and narrates racism and identity conflicts along their lives. The narrative revolves around a married couple Joe and Violet who live together in Harlem but are unhappily married. When Joe meets a young black girl he falls in love with her and they start a discreet relationship. After Dorcus loses interest in Joe he shoots, her and this event changes the couple’s lives.

Toni Morrison shows how whites treat African Americans when Joe narrates about a fight that almost got him killed in a summer in 1917 with a group of white men. The white man’s action shows the hatred and racism Joe encounters. Another example is when skin color is an obstacle to African American safety. When Joe shoots his lover the people and Dorcus’s black friends at the crime scene do not call the cops. because they know the police will not help them. They do not feel that the white authority will help them so they rather be silent. Dorcus is an orphan girl raised without her mother and father. This problem of growing up without parental affection, authority, and support may cause the person to feel detached from identity.

The final text that discusses the theme of race and Identity is ‘their eyes were watching god’ by Zora Hurston. It’s a story about Janie Crawford, a black, beautiful woman, although being mixed race she is considered black. She returns to her hometown in Florida and she is retelling her tragic story and experiences to her friend Phoebe who supports her, unlike the townspeople. Janie faces an obstacle with her Identity when her husband Joe Starks imitates and follows the style of white men. By constantly banning Janie from speaking like ‘such trashy people'(Hurston,71) her voice as a woman is repressed and she ‘learned to hush'(Hurston, 95). So she is Forced by Joe and her grandma to imitate white women by keeping silent.

However, in the story, we notice how Hurston uses the dialect between the characters to emphasize that Janie is in control of her feminine voice and identity so she tells her narrative to her friend Phoebe, and with this, she stands against the people’s opinions about herself. Such as Joe’s opinion when she said ‘But I’m a woman every inch of me, and Ah know it’ (Hurston,106) She overcomes her abusive third husband who used to beat her up out of fear that she would leave him because he is dark-skinned. These ideas about race can be sensed in Tea Cakes’s voice and dialect as well ‘Ah beat her tuh show dem Turners who is boss'(Hurston,197)

In conclusion, Race as a theme is covered in the three texts and it is shown with storytelling by the characters. In addition, racial conflicts cause African American individuals to lose their self-perception as equal to whites. Thus, they face a constant search for their identity either individual or collective.  

The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros tells the story of Esperanza Cordero through beautiful vignettes and the narrator describing how her family first arrived on Mango Street. When the pipes in their previous apartment burst and the landlord refused to repair them, she , her parents, brothers Carlos and Kiki , and sister Nenny moved to Mango Street. Esperanza had not been hoping for a small , decaying red house in a poor urban neighborhood when her parents promised to move the family to a house on Mango Street. Esperanza, who is often followed by her younger sister Nenny, meets the other residents of Mango Street and describes their often difficult lives in a series of vignettes . In a coming of age book, the main concept is the search for self-definition , and in The House on Mango Street , Esperanza’s struggle to define herself underpins her every action and encounter.

Esperanza must describe herself both as a woman and as a artist , and her sense of her identity shifts over the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel Esperanza tries to change her name so that she can define herself on her own terms , instead of accepting a name that reflects her family heritage. In “My Name” vignette , on page 11 it states , “I would like to baptize myself under a new name , a name more like the real me , the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.” She wants to distance herself from her parents and younger sister in order to build her own life, and changing her name seems like a good first step.

Esperanza later decides that she wants to be “beautiful and cruel” so that men can like her , and she pursues this intention by becoming friends with Sally. She no longer wants to describe herself as “beautiful and cruel” after being assaulted and she is once again uncertain about who she is .In “beautiful and cruel” vignette , on page 89 it states, “ In movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away.” And also In “ Red Clowns” vignette, on page 99 and 100 , “Those boys that look at you because you’re pretty. I like at be with you , Sally . You’re my friend .But that big boy , where did he take you? I waited such a long time. I waited by the red clowns, just like you said , but you never came , you never came for me.

Cultural clashes occur when members holding different cultural beliefs and values don’t integrate into the society. The resulting conflicts can range from discrimanation in day to day life or can reach ruthless heights of violence and hate-crime.

As we know, almost every country across the world is culturally diverse. A severe cases of culture-based segregation occurred during the 1941 genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany and first hand works of literature provide un-veiled understanding of the extremity of Holocaust.

Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” would be an appropriate reference for this period. Frankl sheds light on his experience in Auschwitz and three other concentration camps while emphasizing how cultural conflicts uprooted his whole life.

Frankl lost both his parents, his brother and his pregnant wife in the camp but he endured the pain and clung on to the things he could never be robbed of: “the last of human freedom, to choose one’s attitude in any circumstance and to choose one’s own way” (Frankl, 1946).

Existential crisis occurs when individuals question whether their lives have meaning, purpose, or value. Frankl lost his entire family because of cultural domination and yet he didn’t succumb to losing himself. His book is a powerful tool to show that one can either submit to those in power or instead hold on to their inner freedom. He also kept other Auschwitz prisoners at sanity and helped them discover meaning in their lives, one day at a time.

A work of literature from a more recent period is “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. The essay portrays the vast differences between the Chinese and American cultures and how being a migrant victimized her family to culture-based discrimation. Her mother’s “limited English” commonly subjected her to disrespect, and ill-treatment at places like hospitals and restaurants where they either didn’t treat her well or pretended not to understand her.

Tan could have easily lost herself or her pride in her culture amidst the cruelty she received, but yet she hung on to her values and used her literary platform to show that people of different cultures are no different and everyone must be treated and protected equally.

As she says, the “Power of language can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.” (Tan, 1990) and to this day she persuades people to develop love and acceptance.

Needless to say, there are numerous literary works on similar lines. For example, “Ethnic Angst” by Ajay S. Deshmukh highlights the struggle of the Parsis who are an ethnic minority in South Asia. When they migrated to India for safety, they instead faced conditional refuge. An autobiographical work is the “The Diary Of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank gives first-hand accounts of Frank’s hiding during the Holocaust, who was ultimately killed in a gas chamber.

Conclusion

All the works portray one theme in common: both internal and external conflict could potentially lead to an existential crisis.

When the cultural clash is internal, the protagonists struggle to choose between opposing beliefs within themselves, like Amy Tan in “Mother Tongue” who had to decide whether to hold on to her Chinese traditions or build a new American identity. When the cultural clash is external, the protagonists face external forces who stand against their way of following a certain belief, like Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” where the Nazis aspired to eradicate the Jewish culture.

In both cases, the protagonists could have lost their identity under opposing domination but they held onto their beliefs and didn’t undergo an identity crisis.

In 1865 slavery was abolished in the United States of America; however this act did not prevent white people from treating black people as inferior or having stereotypical ideas towards them. The events in Invisible Man occurred in the years between the 1920s and the 1930s which was also the time in which Jim Crow laws of segregation were introduced, along with African Americans suffering racism in all fields of life in the American society.

Ellison’s main character can be considered as one of those who happened to go through similar situations of living in racist societies and seek for an individual identity to represent them in the American society which is the main theme of the novel. That is to say, the narrator embodies the life of every African American living in America. In fact, the protagonist’s attempt to escape north was an aspiration to build his own identity away of all the racism and segregation laws he faced during his days in the south. Unfortunately, he did not achieve his goal. The invisible man was a victim of those laws. The best example of the narrator struggling from racism can be seen in the prologue where he incidentally bumped into a white man in the streets leading the white man to insult him for the reason of not having the same skin color. In the next day the Daily News published about this accident stating that the white man was bitten by a black man while in fact he was not but rather he was bitten by his prejudices and stereotypes. In other words, the white men have fixed ideas about black people such as black people are violent by nature and savage which in fact just stereotypical ideas.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Ward, S., Phillips, B., Mannheimer, K., &Boomie.(2002). Invisible Man Ralph Ellison. New York: SparkNotes LLC. ;Abbott, A. S.(1993). Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. New York: World Library, Inc. ;Ellison invisible man]

According to Gayatheri .T in her journal “Racism as an Obstacle to identity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” the reason that led Ellison to present his protagonist as a nameless character with only few information about his past is to prevent the reader from treating him as a person in addition to deny the narrator from the identity. Therefore, in order to identify the protagonist the reader tries to connect him to a society or a group he belongs to.

Throughout his journey, the narrator passes through series of communities from the college of Negroes to the Liberty Paint Plan and till joining the Brotherhood. Hence the protagonist goes under a psychological evolution: First, from being a naïve student in college of Negroes to a simple worker in the Liberty Paint Plan and eventually an orator in the Brotherhood. By the end of his adventure, the protagonist gradually comes to realize that as a black man he is supposed to act differently according to each institution and that his identity is not only being limited by mere racist ideas and attitudes but also by people’s more general ideologies, which had a great influence on the development of his identity; as the he contemplates; “everybody wanted to use you for some purposes.” (294) the white society create him according to their needs and not allowing him to be himself leading him to suffer from an identity crisis.

The protagonist in his manhole realizes that throughout all his life he has been living with a self-imposed identity by social expectations, communities as well as individuals. The narrator declares “And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man”.573 through this quotation the invisible man declares the reasons behinds adopting invisibility, although he did not choose to be invisible in the beginning of the novel. He was busy switching identities throw to him by white people in order to satisfy them yet never getting the change to demonstrate his own.

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon is an outstanding work about the aftermath of colonialism on colonized people, but it is also concerned with how race and racism are constructed on the psychological level, both in the individual and the collective unconscious. Fanon argues that once the black man acts and thinks as a white man, he finds himself as a phobic object. Fanon illustrates: “A normal Negro child, having grown up within a normal family, will become abnormal on the slightest contact with the white world”[footnoteRef:2]. He continues: “The Negro is unaware of it as long as his existence is limited to his own environment; but the first encounter with a white man oppresses him with the whole weight of his blackness”[footnoteRef:3]. For Ellison’s nameless protagonist, these realities occurred to him both before and after moving from his home in the South to Harlem city. [2: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lamm Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986), 463.] [3: Ibid.466]

Kun Jong Lee’s article “Ellison’s Invisible Man: Emersoniaism revised” states that the narrator utilized the Emersonian theory to mediate his past and seek for his identity (331). Lee argues that racial differences are obvious and that despite the social movements in the American history, the concept of racial segregation did not disappear. Emerson claims that “Nations and races, like individuals, have each an especial destiny: some are to rule and others be ruled. No two distinctly-marked races can dwell together on equal terms” 334. Regardless of the existing differences such the narrator’s fluent speeches that provided him a sort of an identity, Emerson asserts that segregation and racism are in the superior races’ side and by that making it the dominant race.

During his the life the invisible man continuously finds himself going through a variety of dramatic events. A naïve black student who accepts the life of obedience with all its complexity ad unpredictability, but by the end he decides to emerge from his underground “hibernation” and force the world to acknowledge his complex identity and acknowledge his existence outside their prejudiced expectations.

The What?

Today, on March 2nd, I learned about how mainstream Australian cultures make assumptions based on two pictures. One of the images was of a western classroom and the assumption that was common was there was no technology and a teacher talking to a whole class with a group-oriented way of learning another picture of an oriental class with the common assumption that everyone is on their laptops with more of a focus towards self-learning. I also learned about what words the people in my peer group think about in relation to the word “culture”; the words that come to everyone’s mind were ‘colorful’, ‘symbols’, ‘outside’, and ‘celebration’(Quin, 2020). The last learning activity that I and everyone else had to complete was drawing a culture tree of our own personal culture. This included what your ‘roots’, your core values, and branch values are (Quin, 2020).

So What?

I am cultural of the mainstream, Anglo-Saxon, Australian culture, even though in my heritage I am also a south-sea islander and the first nation of Bundjalung. Because of my cultural background, I shared the same synonyms for the word ‘culture’ because I was raised in the same culture as my peer group. I also shared the assumptions of the stimulus materials that were common because of my cultural background. My personal culture tree possesses a diverse cultural background as the ‘roots’, that formed the core and branch values, the values seemed to point towards unity between first nations people and Anglo-Saxon people in Australia since I have a heritage in both. Lastly, when it comes to the context of indigenous education that has been learned, it helps me understand my mainstream cultures’ reaction to the material presented versus someone else from a different background whether they are a first nation or foreign.

What Now?

This reflection has given me an understanding of how the Anglo-Saxon Australian culture makes assumptions about the notion of ‘culture’ and how education ought to be taught in western civilization and abroad. In regards to my personal culture tree, I have gained an understanding that my values are beyond the mainstream Anglo-Saxon culture or any cultural groups which are good in the classroom as I, subconsciously, have no favoring of students because of their race or cultural background, as this corresponds with the APST of 7.1(‘Teacher Standards’, 2020).