Personal Essay Example: Identity and Socialization

Introduction

For over thirteen years my life as an immigrant has been unfolding to be exciting and at the same time challenging. Looking back at the life I used to live before the immigration to America, I notice the great way in which my identity socialization has been influenced. It is sad to mention that most of the changes and adaptability developed have been on the negative side. Having experienced social discrimination due to my origin, having to survive under my daily struggles of earning a living, and having difficulties fitting in and feeling like I need to prove that I am worthy of being a citizen of this country just like everyone else has really shaped my social identity. Even though there are positive aspects that were bred by the immigration, such as better and easier access to health care, there still are more negative aspects that make the immigration appear to not have been a bright idea.

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The House on Mango Street and Identity

To begin with, The House on Mango Street depicts a perfect picture of the life I have experienced so far and how it has shaped my socialization identity as an immigrant. I have heard of living in residences that could be referred to as there (Cisneros 5). According to the House on Mango Street house description, Poor plumbing conditions and a small house with no backyard nor basement were the outstanding characteristics of the houses I have had to live in as an immigrant. Comparing the house I lived in with the house I ever wished for, with big enough space to even raise a family with and one with good plumbing and sanitation conditions, makes me realize that I have to persevere through many hardships in order to afford such a house. The fact that I have had to deal with different landlords for the period of my stay in this country has made me realize how far I have been living in relation to the dreams I associated with living in America.

Immigrants in Our Own Land Analysis

As Baca puts it in the poem Immigrants in Our Own Land, we are all born with dreams within our hearts (Baca 1). Nevertheless, being immigrants makes our dreams just a mirage. We may put much effort in what we do, but at the end of the day I am just among those who are seen as an out-country who do not belong. Just as the Native Americans are said to have sat around in the new world and talked of how their initial world was better rather than how much they had gained through immigration (Baca 2), my view has become the same. What I expected to get after my immigration I have hardly gotten and have actually gotten even more psychological torture from sociological pressures that have resulted in my life. The fact that I had difficulties getting well-paying jobs, even after putting so much effort in the jobs I secured, is all but socially demoralizing considering the fact that they steal away my dream to progress to a better livelihood in the future. Instead of moving to a better place of a progressive and enlightened life, I feel that I moved from working in a mine within my own country to working hard in a factory within my new country. In other words, my overall happiness and emotional stability have been compromised every now and then even as I try to push on with life in this new land (not new as such anyway) as shown by Immigrants in Our Own Land poem.

The Things They Carried Analysis

Tim O'Brien associates what we carry to our sociological lives in the text The Things They Carried. The text portrays the message that the things that a soldier carries are highly determined by their necessity, the social preferences such as religion, superstition among other factors (OBrien 1-4). In other words, being in love, being committed to something and aspiring to accomplish something are the major sources that determine one's social identity and the things they carry around. Logically relating these complex relationships between what one carries and the identity they have, my life in America has been hinged on the fact that I carry a Russian identity. The prejudice that comes with this mere fact is unbelievable. I get odd looks from people: looks of insecurity or disapproval simply because I am of a Russian origin. My origin in this case has been identified with the carriage of the aspect of causing trouble or disrupting peace within America. Hence, as much as I try to do well and carry myself differently within this country, I will always get the looks from people. What's worse is that the origin I have generated is the question of whether I am a Russian or not which is followed by the uncalled for looks. This unfortunate factor escalates within small communities such as Grove City and Slipper Rock where personal relationships are key in business as one has to interact one on one with nearly every customer or resident within the community. As such, I and those of my origin experience a tough and unworthy social categorization which further affects and dismals our socialization identity, as in The Things They Carried, making immigration into this region lame to a given extent.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, the whole fact that I am a Russian striving to make a living in America is enough reason for establishing a negative socialization identity for me. This socialization is crowned by the fact that there has always been a negative vibe between the American and the Russian nation on a broader scale. The differences in the modes and aspects of governance and the other political and social aspects between the two governments have trickled down to the grass roots of citizens' interactions. An immigrant into America from Russia is highly susceptible to this trickling-down as it causes a difficulty in the acceptance and assimilation of different social groups within this new country. The difficulty is as basic as the language one speaks. In this case, for my case, I had to go back to school within my new locality in a bid to sharpen my initially learnt and presumably had-been good English. In other words, the whole being of the immigrant has to transform in a more or less negative way so as to fit in within the new society in which one is still not so welcomed. There will always be prejudiced looks which will ever cause a depletion in one's socialization identity. Even though life should hopefully get better, it is unfortunate that the negative socialization identity factor will always be a part of my life unless there is a positive trickling of positivity from the ruling groups of people from the two countries.

Work Cited

Baca, J., S. Immigrants in Our Own Land. 1977. Print.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House On Mango Street. 1st ed. New York: International Pan-American, 1984. Print.

OBrien, T. The Things They Carried. 2017. Print.