american cultural identity essay

Research: What Is American Identity and Why Does It Matter?

Why Does the American Identity Matter?

The most important reason for understanding American identity is related to white racial identification. It may not be prevalent in U.S. political attitudes, but it’s still an issue. A survey from 2012 asked white respondents to indicate if whiteness represented the way they thought of themselves most of the time, as opposed to identifying themselves as Americans . One fifth of the survey’s white respondents said that they preferred the term white to American when identifying themselves.

How to Analyze American Identity

• There’s no such thing as a universal identity, especially for an omni-cultural country such as the USA.
• Everyone has their own understanding of what it means to be American today, as citizens come from different religious, ethnic, ideological, and geographical backgrounds.
• Explaining the concept of American identity calls for an inclusive approach based on solidarity.
• Depending on how you discuss the concept, an academic essay may require arguments on modern-day immigration and immigrant policies. How do they fit within the common understanding of American identity?

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• One American Identity, Two Distinct Meanings

Ryan Dawkins, U.S. Air Force Academy

The question before us is whether America has a distinctive identity. The answer to this question is more complicated than it may initially seem. On the one hand, the United States is certainly distinctive. Its distinctiveness is a function of this country being, in the words of Gary Wills, an “invented” country. It was constructed by individuals who built political institutions informed by political theory; it’s a country built upon ideas rather than ancestry. Indeed, Gunnar Mydral (1944) famously wrote that American identity is built around a constellation of ideals—namely, individualism, liberty, equality, hard-work, and the rule of law—that comprise the American Creed. As long as people endorse these core values, they are part of the national community--or so the argument goes. In many ways, this distinctiveness is at the heart of our historic notion of American exceptionalism.

            On the other hand, work in political and social psychology tells us that membership in the national in-group is not so easy to acquire. Even though all Americans, as Americans, share the same national identification, the normative content of that identity can vary greatly across groups. Social identity theory holds that identities are social in nature—that is, their power is derived from the degree to which people consider membership with a group as important to their own self-concept. Group membership carries with it a set of norms and stereotypes that establish the boundaries of who is and who is not a member of the group. These stereotypes are derived from elite-driven notions about who is deemed the proto-typical group member, which includes stereotypes about any number of individual characteristics and attributes, including racial, cultural, and religious heritage. Group identifiers internalize group norms and stereotypes and develop a positive self-conception of themselves, while at the same time developing negative attitudes toward those who do not conform to those stereotypes.

            In her book,  Who Counts as an American?,  Elizabeth Theiss-Morse applies social identity theory to American identity. She contends that the proto-typical American has historically been older, less-educated, Christian, and above all else, White. According to Theiss-Morse, being a strong identifier is a double-edge sword. On the one hand, strong identifiers are more willing than their counterparts to make sacrifices for other Americans. On the other hand, they are also more likely to place restrictive boundaries around who qualifies as a “true American.” Those left out of a strong identifier’s conception of a true American are typically racial and ethnic minorities, non-Christian identifiers, and extreme liberals. The creation and monitoring of these exclusionary boundaries among strong identifiers explains why this narrow ethno-cultural conception of American identity often corresponds with Nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes, especially during periods when there is a sudden influx in the foreign born, largely non-white, population. Such demographic shifts are perceived as a generalized group threat that not only challenges the power of White America, but it's very sense of belonging in the national community.

Indeed, over the last two decades, the country has undergone profound demographic change, and the dominance of the ‘proto-typical’ American is being systematically challenged. While the average White American continues to get older, brown and black America is getting younger. A majority of American children under the age of five are non-white, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the United States will be a majority-minority country by 2045. Moreover, at the same time that the country is becoming less White, it is also becoming less religious. According to a 2014 Pew study, only 36% of Millennials describe themselves as religious compared to 52% and 55% for Gen Xers and Baby-boomers, respectively. As the image of the proto-typical American as a White Christian is being openly contested, more Americans are now embracing a new, much more inclusive conception of American identity, a conception that embraces the country’s immigrant past and celebrates diversity as a source of American strength. 

This contestation between a vision of American identity tied to America’s European roots and a conception marked by multiculturalism coincides with the sorting of the American public into the two major political parties. Perhaps the most noteworthy trend of the last forty years is the growing social, ideological, and geographic polarization between Democrats and Republicans. As Lilliana Mason recently noted, Americans are increasingly aligning their partisan identities with their other salient identities, so much so that “the two parties have vastly different social compositions” (Mason 2018, 48). While the Republican Party is primarily composed of White, Christian, self-identified conservatives, the Democratic Party is largely non-white, non-Christian, and self-identified liberal. As a result, these two competing visions of American national identity have taken on a partisan bend. 

            Using survey data collected by Grinnell College in collaboration with pollster Anne Seltzer, my own research with Abby Hansen supports this idea. When presenting a battery of questions asking respondents what it meant to be a ‘true American,’ our research found that answers tended to fall into one of two orientations: one nativist, the other multicultural. We also found that those who endorsed a more nativist conception of American national identity tended to identify as Republican, while those who endorsed the multicultural conception tended to identify as Democratic. Moreover, as people endorsed each conception of American identity more strongly, they also tended to have more negative feelings toward the party to which they did not identify.

The conclusion from this research is clear. Partisans from each party are operating in very different political realities and misunderstand their fellow Americans on even a basic level. People are no longer operating from a position where, despite whatever differences may exist, they still share a common identity as Americans. Even though we all ostensibly share the common label “American,” the norms and stereotypes associated with what it means to be American could not be more different.

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American Culture

United States of America

Core Concepts

The Indigenous people and nations of North America are the traditional custodians of the land, having inhabited it for at least 15,000 years before Europeans arrived. The process of colonisation caused existing Indigenous populations to experience widespread violence and dispossession of their land, fracturing and marginalising their communities and cultural identities.

Since the modern formation of the United States of America, mass immigration has dramatically changed the social demographics of the population and established a western European cultural mainstream. The following cultural profile depicts this newly dominant culture – a Western society and value system influenced by continual migration to the American continent.

• Independence
• Individualism
• Capitalism/Private Enterprise
• Extroversion
• Informality
• Equal opportunity

The United States of America is a country comprising 50 states expanding over the southern half of the North American continent, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. It is the third most populous country in the world, home to more than 328 million people. American society is strongly underpinned by moral and religious principles centring around Christianity (followed by approximately 70% of the population), as well as civic and political values of personal freedom, liberty and independence.

In many ways, the United States has tended to set the example of what many perceive typical ‘western’ society and values to be, as it’s media, politics, technology, pop culture, economic and military powers have had incredible international influence. Today, most foreigners are likely to have a rough familiarity with what ‘American life’ looks like. However, the idea of a homogenous American culture is no longer reflective of the plurality of values and populations within it.

American society is highly culturally diverse, with the social, ethnic and religious make-up of the population having been shaped by a history of immigration. One commonly finds social attitudes, lifestyles and beliefs can differ significantly between regional, ethnic, socio-economic or partisan backgrounds. Considering this large demographic diversity, the following descriptions are unlikely to be representative of every American person’s experience or views. However, there are common themes and principles that contribute to the values, attitudes, beliefs and norms of the dominant society.

Colonial History

The land of present-day America was originally home to expansive numbers of Indigenous peoples and nations, including the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora.1 European colonisation began in 1607, with settlers establishing multiple separate colonies across land. In 1776, these colonies united to fight for independence from the United Kingdom, eventually forming what is now known as the ‘ United States of America ’.

The European migrants that arrived over the colonisation period were from a variety of religious and social groups, who were mostly fleeing religious persecution or seeking a better life. For example, many English Protestants non-conformists (such as Quakers and Puritans) migrated to escape religious persecution in Europe and preserve their beliefs in new communities.2 Additional migrants were also sent to the United States against their will, including convicts, indentured servants and enslaved Africans. Such migration dramatically changed the ethnic and social make-up of the United States and ultimately established a European-like cultural mainstream. The variation of social and religious communities established over the colonisation period continue to inform the diversity of American society today.

National Identity and Values

While many other nations base their national identity on shared ethnic or ancestral origins, the American identity and patriotism is largely rooted in shared moral and political values.3,4,5,6 This has been shaped by its history of European colonisation . Many of the early colonists were considered radical for their time, holding beliefs about social mobility in the class system and limited government that were not common in Europe at the time.7 They were often highly individualistic and determined to preserve strongly held social, religious, political or economic ideals (such as liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, democratic and laissez-faire economics).8 In turn, the American national identity became largely defined by a set of foundational ideas and values about what a liberal society should look like. For example, the Declaration of Independence directly articulates a belief in the limited involvement and control of the government on citizen’s personal lives.

These ideologies persist in the moral and civic culture of American society today. Such values of personal freedom and liberty especially have become intrinsic to the country’s cultural identity and character.9 For example, 77% of Americans view “having freedom of choice in how to live one’s life” as the most valuable aspect of American life.10 This is epitomised in the common expressions describing the United States as a “free country”, the “land of opportunity” or “cradle of liberty”.11 The American Constitution is generally regarded to embody the fundamental American notion of independence – particularly in regards to the First and Second Amendments (which guarantee freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms).12,13 Indeed, a 2017 study found 84% agreed that individual liberties as protected by the Constitution personify the national character.14 Ultimately, such notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ tend to occupy a more prominent place in public and private discourse in the United States than elsewhere.15

The idea of cultural assimilation has been particularly powerful throughout the country’s history, whereby migrants can become ‘American’ by accepting and embracing American values. There remains a general expectation that new migrants and citizens will respect cultural values and develop similar patriotism. However, the notion of cultural assimilation is changing as more emphasis is being put on the importance of a bi-cultural identity in appreciation of the country’s broad ethnic, religious and cultural diversity.

American Exceptionalism

The United States’ national identity has also been informed by a notion of exceptionalism that became prominent in public discourse both within the country and overseas. This refers to the idea that the United States is in some way different from other countries, possessing unique characteristics that are worthy of universal admiration.16,17 There is a common assumption that the United States’ values, political system and history grant it the capacity and responsibility to make the world a better place.18 Such a view of the United States’ global role has been further influenced by its involvement in foreign affairs and trade, in which it has played a powerful and influential role.19 Indeed, many of its citizens have considered the nation to be an example and guardian of democracy and freedom.20

Moreover, the globalisation of American cultural values has led many to view it as the archetype of what a liberal capitalist, developed country is. American ideas of freedom now reverberate throughout the world, promoted by an internationalised mass media, consumer culture, and economic marketplace.21 As such, while Americans may criticise their government, the notion of the United States’ cultural superiority remains very strong. Opinion polls show most believe the United States is one of the greatest countries in the world, if not the best.22

National pride is expressed quite openly in American culture. For example, it is common for people to publicly describe themselves as ‘patriotic’. While there are differing views on what being ‘patriotic’ means, it is typically associated with showing respect, loyalty and love for one’s country.23 Traditional symbols and displays of patriotism include showing support for military troops and servicemen, standing for the national anthem and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. One’s perceived patriotism may also be defined by the degree to which they show dedication to American political institutions and national values, such as freedom, liberty and democracy (see National Identity and Values ).24,25

The United States’ national identity and patriotism has traditionally been thought to unify the population in spite of its diversity (whether differences are ethnic, religious, class-based, or ideological), just as it united early colonisers from different lands. However, public opinion polls show American pride has declined over the 21st century as displays of patriotism are arguably becoming more politicised.26,27 Shifts in values and social norms have changed some Americans’ views of the country’s identity, leading them to feel the United States is more disunited than united.28

Racial and Ethnic Demography

The United States has a very racially and ethnically diverse population, the social make-up of which has largely been determined by immigration over the past four centuries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 population estimate, 75% of Americans identify as white, 18.5% identify as Hispanic or Latino and 14.2% identify as black or African-American.29 A further identify 6.8% as Asian, 1.7% as Native American or Alaska Native, 0.4% as Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and 5.5% identify with some other race .30 These percentages total more than 100% because many Americans describe themselves as fitting into more than one ethnic or racial category. There are also many other ethnic categories that are not captured by this data and may be classified as ‘white’ by default in the U.S. Census, such as Jewish and Arab Americans.31,32

According to the 2019 population estimate, 75% of Americans identify as white – of which 21% are ethnically Hispanic or Latino (see Hispanic below).33 In contemporary America, essentially anyone of European descent is considered White. However, many also have multicultural backgrounds. Some of the largest ancestries are German, Irish, English, Italian, French, Polish and Scottish. Some white Americans may self-identify their ancestry as simply ‘American’ due to the length of time their family has inhabited the United States (those who do so are usually of English/European descent). Overall, the states with the highest concentration of ‘non-Hispanic whites’ are found in the Midwest, New England, the Rocky Mountains, Kentucky, West Virginia and East Tennessee.

As the majority, much social discourse within the United States tends to use the socioeconomic status of the white demographic as the standard measurement from which other ethnic and racial groups’ social and economic well-being is compared. Indeed, white Americans have generally held the highest political and economic positions in the country. The white working class had also decreased over the past 30 years, as more have gained higher education.34

However, today multiple studies show a notable social and political divide between the white working class (broadly defined as those without college degree and with an annual income lower than the national median) and the lower and upper middle classes (those with college educations and higher income status). The working class are more likely to have experienced shortfalls in their income and wealth, while the upper class is more likely to have experienced stronger gains in the past 10 years.35 This divide has been correlated with political positions and divisions, with the former more likely to vote Republican and the latter is more likely to vote Democrat.36 Ultimately, it is important to note that ‘white American’ encompasses almost a quarter of a billion people, spread across all classes of society with diverging experiences.

‘Hispanic or Latino’ describes any person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish descent.37 This is an ethnic signifier, not a racial category. Therefore, a ‘ Hispanic or Latino ’ person may be of any race (i.e. white, black, Asian, etc.). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.5% of the American population (over 60 million people) identify as Hispanic or Latino.38,39

Hispanic Americans reflect a large diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages. Most Hispanics Americans have Mexican (61.5%), Puerto Rican (9.6%), Cuban (3.9%), Salvadoran (3.8%) or Dominican (3.5%) ancestry.40 According to the US Census Bureau 2019, 65% of Hispanics identified their race as white and a further 25.6% identified with some other race not recognised in the census.41 This likely reflects the fact that a significant portion self-identify as mestizo (a person of mixed race that has European and native Amerindian heritage to some degree) or mulatto (a person of mixed race that has European and African ancestry to some degree).

Migration from Latin America has been one of the largest drivers increasing the Hispanic population in the United States, with thousands of immigrants arriving in the United State every year. However, two thirds (67%) of all Hispanic and Latino Americans were born in the United States.42 The Spanish-speaking population also has a long history in America that pre-dates British colonisation . For example, the states in the Southwest, West Coast and Florida were originally colonised by Spain. Meanwhile, present-day California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas were originally part of Mexico until 1848. This Spanish-speaking history continues to be visible in the names of major cities, such as Los Angeles, San Antonio and San Diego. Many of these states continue to have the largest Hispanic populations in the country. It is estimated over 40 million Americans speak Spanish at home in total.43 The states and territories with the largest Hispanic populations are California, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and New York.

According to the national census, 14.2% of Americans identify as black or African-American.44 The term ‘ black ’ refers to the race , while ‘ African-American ’ specifically refers to an ancestral subgroup within that race (usually those descending from slaves of the 19th century). Some people may not feel a strong affiliation with their African genealogy , but identify as ‘African-American’ for its cultural meaning in contemporary America. More recently, others have preferred for their race to be referred to as simply ‘black’, finding terms readdressing their identity by another category to be insulting.

The United States’ black population was initially formed as a result of the transatlantic slave trade (from the 16th to 19th century), during which hundreds of thousands of African captives were sent to the United States and forced into slavery.45 By 1860, the number of enslaved Africans in the United States reached nearly four million, with more than half living in the cotton-producing states of the South.46 Many were forced to work as servants or labourers in industries such as cotton or tobacco production, and were subjected to inhumane treatments and abuse.47 Although slavery was outlawed in 1865, in the South enforced racial segregation legislation from 1877 to 1954 (known as ‘Jim Crow’) that systematically marginalised blacks as inferior to whites, affecting almost every aspect of daily life.48 This history of domination, subjugation and exploitation continues to impact the experience of black Americans today and remains a sensitive topic (see Racial and Ethnic Relations below).

The United States still struggles to build and maintain positive race relations between white majority and black minority amidst racial inequalities (see Racial and Ethnic Relations below). The black population is still significantly disadvantaged in regards to rates of imprisonment, education, income and political representation. As such, one’s experience as a black person in the United States differs significantly from those of the white population. Further, black Americans are more likely to say their race is central to their identity than those of other racial backgrounds. A 2019 survey of black adults found about three-quarters of respondents stated being black was extremely (52%) or very (22%) important to how they think of themselves.49

Today, most of the black population is born in the United States, descending from former slaves. However, the foreign-born black population has also increased in recent years, with significant voluntary migration from Africa, parts of South America and Caribbean Islands (such as Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago). Each of these groups has distinct cultural and social identities. Over half of the country’s black population (56%) lives in the South.50

It is estimated 6.8% of the American population are Asian (23 million people), making this the fastest growing racial group in the country.51,52 The term ‘Asian American’ refers to a vast and diverse group of people who trace their roots to over twenty countries across East and Southeast Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent.53 The largest ancestry groups among Asian Americans are Chinese (23%), Indian (20%), Filipino (18%), Vietnamese (9%), Korean (8%) and Japanese (6%).54 However, it is estimated 14% of Asian Americans identify with one or more races and 3% identify as Hispanic.55 As such, it is important to note that the Asian population of the United States encompasses many different cultural backgrounds, histories, languages and other characteristics.

It is estimated 57% of the Asian population was born in another country.56 However, many of these people migrated over 10 years ago and have since had families in the United States. For example, most people with Japanese heritage are American-born. Overall, the Asian population in the United States is considered to have high economic status and educational attainment when compared with the overall population.

However, this does not reflect significant variations between different origin groups. For example, while 75% of Indians 25 years or older hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, this figure is only 15% among Bhutanese. There are also vast differences between how recently individuals migrated, their pre-arrival life experiences and migration circumstances. For example, the experience of those who arrived as refugees in the 1970s (e.g. many Cambodians, Laotians, Hmong) are likely to vary significantly from those who arrive as skilled migrants today. As of 2019, nearly a third of America’s Asian population live in California.

Before colonisation , the land of present-day America was home to expansive numbers of Indigenous peoples and nations (including the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora).57 European colonisers violently conquered and dispossessed the existing Indigenous populations. Indigenous people were forcibly assimilated or displaced from their traditional lands, fracturing and marginalising their communities and societies. The Indian reservation system was created to exclude Indigenous communities from areas of land that European Americans wished to settle. Many of these reservations remain today.

Today, 'Native Americans and Alaska Natives' comprise 1.7% of the American population according to the National Census.58 There is much effort within Indigenous communities to preserve their culture, traditions and spirituality. Despite these positive developments however, Native Americans are still one of the United States’ most economically disadvantaged populations.59 Many continue to face challenges in access to health care and education.60

Importantly, the degree to which a Native American knows or integrates their traditional culture into their life varies and is said not to define them as being any ‘more’ or ‘less’ Indigenous. For example, some Native Americans live with their tribal community and continue to practice their ancestral culture, while others may operate within the United States’ dominant mainstream culture and have a more limited knowledge of cultural practices. There are shared values and attitudes that are common to most Native Americans. However, many traditional customs and practices are tribally specific (such as systems of governance and language). The tribes that have the largest number of people identifying with them are Sioux, Navajo, Choctaw, Chippewa and Cherokee.

Racial and Ethnic Relations

Multi-ethnic familiarity, tolerance, awareness and acceptance has grown significantly in the United States, as different ethnicities and races have gained prominence in the public sphere. However, there are definitive social tensions around the stigma and social disadvantage faced by certain racial or ethnic identities. Due to the country’s recent history of racial segregation and slavery, conversations about racism are especially sensitive. Immigration is also a sensitive topic commonly igniting public and political debate – with stigma often directed towards the Hispanic and Latino population.

Ultimately, race is a key social and cultural touchstone in the United States, discussed more openly and frequently than is common in many other English-speaking countries. Americans are arguably more attuned to perceived racial slights than people from other English-speaking countries and the terminology used to refer to people of different origins is contested (see Other Considerations ). Moreover, it appears the American public has an increasingly pessimistic view of the country’s racial progress.61 National polls conducted in 2019 showed that more adults have a negative view of race relations than they did 20 years ago, with 65% saying that it has become more common to express racist or racially insensitive views.62,63 More recently, police brutality against black citizens has become a flashpoint for public outrage and discussion on race relations in America.

Individualism and the 'American Dream'

American culture is highly individualistic, whereby people are expected to be self-reliant and independent. There is a strong belief in equal opportunity and meritocracy – that reward is based on a person’s abilities rather than their wealth or social position. In turn, American society has long promoted the aspirational belief that any individual should have the opportunity to achieve upwards social mobility, prosperity and success, regardless of their social class or place of birth.

Known as the ‘ American dream ’, this ideal is powered by the individualist mentality that one’s success is a direct result of their own work. Therefore, ideally anyone should be able to obtain a higher standard of living than their parents if they put in the effort. The American dream is often epitomised by entrepreneurs or ‘self-made men’ who work their way from the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to the top. It also continues to be expressed by many migrants that view America as the gateway to a better life.

However, various studies and public opinion polls show that many Americans are concerned social mobility is becoming less realistic or no longer achievable. While 92% of children born in 1940 ended up in higher income distributions than their parents, this figure was only 40% for those born in the 1980s.64 Moreover, Americans have become more sceptical of the promise of ‘self-made’ success as opportunity for socioeconomic mobility is often dependent on access to previously established privilege, networks or even luck. This pessimism has increased since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007, which saw the American middle class significantly decline; many lower-income families now struggle to rise through the social strata.65

Nonetheless, the enduring belief in the American dream implies a sense of optimism toward the future and the possibility of upward social and economic mobility. Paired with the competitiveness of the free market, these ideals can power an achievement fever in the American workforce and economy.66 Today, Americans are renowned for their optimism, opportunism, individualism and innovative nature. Many people share an emotional desire to continually find and believe in something new.67 This is visible in the way new ideas, opportunities, entrepreneurial ventures and public personalities can gain an eager following in the United States.

_____________________1 Pauls, 20182 Facing History and Ourselves, 20203 Kirsch, 20194 Freese, 20085 Foreman, 20066 Widmer & Erikson, 20177 Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 20208 Bains, 20159 Allen & McGuire, 202010 American Enterprise Institute, 201911 Foner, 201812 Keating, 201013 The White House, 202114 Sedensky, 201715 Foner, 201816 Walt, 201117 Edwards, 2018; Kershaw, 201818 Levitz, 201919 Spencer, 201420 Proquest, 201721 Foner, 201822 Thorsett & Kiley, 201723 Hatemi, Plutzer & Berkman, 201924 Foreman, 200625 Widmer & Erikson, 201726 Brenan, 202027 Ibid.28 Widmer & Erikson, 201729 United States Census Bureau, 2019b30 Ibid.31 Ajrouch, 201632 Korelitz, 199733 United States Census Bureau, 2019e34 Picchi, 201935 Emmons, Kent & Ricketts, 201836 Picchi, 201937 United States Census Bureau, 2019a38 United States Census Bureau, 2019e39 United States Census Bureau, 2019c40 United States Census Bureau, 2019d41 United States Census Bureau, 2019c42 United States Census Bureau, 2019f43 United States Census Bureau, 2017 44 United States Census Bureau, 2019b45 Berry, 201746 Ibid.47 Ibid.48 Urofsky, 202149 Horowitz, Brown & Cox, 201950 Tamir, 202151 United States Census Bureau, 2019b52 Budiman & Ruiz, 2021a53 Budiman & Ruiz, 2021b54 Ibid.55 Ibid.56 Ibid.57 Pauls, 201858 United States Census Bureau, 2019e59 Austin, 201360 Ibid.61 Horowitz, Brown & Cox, 201962 Morales, 202063 Horowitz, Brown & Cox, 201964 Chetty et al., 201765 Bains, 201566 Ibid.67 Ibid.

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Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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5.3: Writing about Race, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity: A Process Approach

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To review, race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory provides us with a particular lens to use when we read and interpret works of literature. Such reading and interpreting, however, never happens after just a first reading; in fact, all critics reread works multiple times before venturing an interpretation. You can see, then, the connection between reading and writing: as Chapter 1 indicates, writers create multiple drafts before settling for a finished product. The writing process, in turn, is dependent on the multiple rereadings you have performed to gather evidence for your essay. It’s important that you integrate the reading and writing process together. As a model, use the following ten-step plan as you write using race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory:

• Carefully read the work you will analyze.
• Formulate a general question after your initial reading that identifies a problem—a tension—related to a historical or cultural issue.
• Reread the work , paying particular attention to the question you posed. Take notes, which should be focused on your central question. Write an exploratory journal entry or blog post that allows you to play with ideas.
• What does the work mean?
• How does the work demonstrate the theme you’ve identified using a new historical approach?
• “So what” is significant about the work? That is, why is it important for you to write about this work? What will readers learn from reading your interpretation? How does the theory you apply illuminate the work’s meaning?
• Reread the text to gather textual evidence for support.
• Construct an informal outline that demonstrates how you will support your interpretation.
• Write a first draft.
• Receive feedback from peers and your instructor via peer review and conferencing with your instructor (if possible).
• Revise the paper , which will include revising your original thesis statement and restructuring your paper to best support the thesis. Note: You probably will revise many times, so it is important to receive feedback at every draft stage if possible.
• Edit and proofread for correctness, clarity, and style.

We recommend that you follow this process for every paper that you write from this textbook. Of course, these steps can be modified to fit your writing process, but the plan does ensure that you will engage in a thorough reading of the text as you work through the writing process, which demands that you allow plenty of time for reading, reflecting, writing, reviewing, and revising.

Peer Reviewing

A central stage in the writing process is the feedback stage, in which you receive revision suggestions from classmates and your instructor. By receiving feedback on your paper, you will be able to make more intelligent revision decisions. Furthermore, by reading and responding to your peers’ papers, you become a more astute reader, which will help when you revise your own papers. In Chapter 10, you will find peer-review sheets for each chapter.

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Our current political polarization can feel new, but it has a long cultural history. Two dominant visions of American identity have historically been in tension and at times outright competition with one another: pluralism and exclusion.

On the one hand, the first vision understands the United States as a country built on a commitment to pluralism, where anyone, from anywhere, can be American. As people fled religious persecution, the US as a nation of immigrants provided many a home where diverse religious and political views and backgrounds could co-exist. In this broad sense, the country affirms its society is a land of others. These ideals laid out by the Framers of the Constitution have over the centuries been invoked by groups marginalized by race, religion, and immigrant backgrounds to argue for a more inclusive, representative American democracy.

On the other hand, the exclusionary vision of American society has emphasized that American identity–and all the idealized or normative standards that entails (e.g., race, gender)–is not available to all. Historically, what it means to be American has been exclusively available to white people – white men in particular – with European ancestry , both in how people imagine American identity and how law has enforced boundaries of citizenship. For example, when Asian Americans and Latino Americans made legal claims for citizenship in the 19th and early 20th century, they were forced to argue that they fit either ‘white’ or ‘black’ definitions of citizenship. Both during this period and since, citizenship held by immigrants and/or racialized minorities is insufficient to be considered “American.”

Given this tension between a cultural value for pluralism and narrow notions of American identity, how does the public understand what it means to be “truly American” and are these views changing?

Since 2015, PRRI has asked questions about the hard boundaries of American identity on four occasions. This battery of questions assesses how important the following factors are to being “truly” American: being a Christian, being born in America, being able to speak English, and believing in God. Since 2018, PRRI has included a question about whether being of European heritage is important to being “truly” American.

We examined attitudes about each of these items on a cross-section of Americans in 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2022.

Second, most Americans place the greatest importance on English language skills as the most important factor of the five posed to being truly American, whereas being of European heritage is the least important of the five factors.

Finally, while these trends suggest slight movement toward inclusion, they also show that many people still believe that religious identities and beliefs, language, and place of birth dictate who counts as a true American to some degree. Rates of moderate agreement with these questions are more stable over time.

Together, this snapshot suggests that the tension between the pluralist and exclusionary traditions endure. While the over time trend suggests a move towards a more pluralist vision, the majority of Americans still believe that these hard boundaries of American identity and the exclusionary vision that they support define what it means to be a true American.

Today, some Americans believe that speaking English and holding particular kinds of religious beliefs are central to American identity. These beliefs are tied to citizenship and denied to religious minorities . National political rhetoric often underscores the reality of this vision of America. National identity is regularly invoked in American politics, often to turn public opinion away from progressive  immigration policies. Politicians regularly contrast American citizens with immigrants, arguing that their cultures and religions are incompatible with American values and that they will never be “true Americans.” Research also shows that people do not always choose a pluralist or an exclusive vision of American society – their attitudes toward different social groups often combine parts of both visions .

Nazita Lajevardi , Evan Stewart , Roy Whitaker , and Tarah Williams are members of the 2021-2022 cohort of PRRI Public Fellows.

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Diverse cultures and shared experiences shape asian american identities, about six-in-ten feel connected to other asians in the u.s..

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the rich diversity of people of Asian origin or ancestry living in the United States and their views of identity. The study is part of the Center’s multiyear, comprehensive, in-depth quantitative and qualitative research effort focused on the nation’s Asian population. Its centerpiece is this nationally representative survey of 7,006 Asian adults exploring the experiences, attitudes and views of Asians living in the U.S. The survey sampled U.S. adults who self-identify as Asian, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic ethnicity. It was offered in six languages: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), English, Hindi, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. Responses were collected from July 5, 2022, to Jan. 27, 2023, by Westat on behalf of Pew Research Center.

The Center recruited a large sample to examine the diversity of the U.S. Asian population, with oversamples of the Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Korean and Vietnamese populations. These are the five largest origin groups among Asian Americans. The survey also includes a large enough sample of self-identified Japanese adults, making findings about them reportable. In this report, the six largest ethnic groups include those who identify with one Asian ethnicity only, either alone or in combination with a non-Asian race or ethnicity. Together, these six groups constitute 81% of all U.S. Asian adults, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey (ACS), and are the six groups whose attitudes and opinions are highlighted throughout the report. Survey respondents were drawn from a national sample of residential mailing addresses, which included addresses from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Specialized surnames list frames maintained by the Marketing Systems Group were used to supplement the sample. Those eligible to complete the survey were offered the opportunity to do so online or by mail with a paper questionnaire. For more details, see the Methodology . For questions used in this analysis, see the Topline Questionnaire .

The survey research plan and questionnaire were reviewed and approved by Westat’s institutional review board (IRB), which is an external and independent committee of experts specializing in protecting the rights of research participants.

Even though the U.S. Asian population was the fastest growing racial and ethnic group in the country from 2000 to 2019 , it is still a relatively small population. According to the 2021 American Community Survey, the country’s Asian population constitutes 7% of the U.S. population (of all ages) and 7% of adults (those ages 18 and older).

Pew Research Center designed this study with these details in mind to be as inclusive as possible of the diversity of Asian American experiences. Even so, survey research is limited when it comes to documenting the views and attitudes of the less populous Asian origin groups in the U.S. To address this, the survey was complemented by 66 pre-survey focus groups of Asian adults , conducted from Aug. 4 to Oct. 14, 2021, with 264 recruited participants from 18 Asian origin groups. Focus group discussions were conducted in 18 different languages and moderated by members of their origin groups.

Findings for less populous Asian origin groups in the U.S., those who are not among the six largest Asian origin groups, are grouped under the category “Other” in this report and are included in the overall Asian adult findings in the report. These ethnic origin groups each make up about 2% or less of the Asian population in the U.S., making it challenging to recruit nationally representative samples for each origin group. The group “Other” includes those who identify with one Asian ethnicity only, either alone or in combination with a non-Asian race or Hispanic ethnicity. Findings for those who identify with two or more Asian ethnicities are not presented by themselves in this report but are included in the overall Asian adult findings.

To learn more about how members of less populous Asian origin groups in the U.S. identify, see the quote sorter based on our focus group discussions. There, you can read how participants describe their identity in their own words.

For this analysis, an additional national survey of 5,132 U.S. adults was conducted from Dec. 5 to 11, 2022, using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel . The survey of U.S. adults was conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

Pew Research Center has conducted multiple studies that focus on Asian Americans. Previous demographic studies examined the diversity of origins , key facts , and rising income inequality among Asians living in the U.S. and key findings about U.S. immigrants. Qualitative studies have focused on what it means to be Asian in America as well as barriers to English language learning among Asian immigrants. Previous surveys have focused on concerns over discrimination and violence against Asian Americans, as well as studies about their religious beliefs . Find these publications and more on the Center’s Asian Americans topic page .

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. The Center’s Asian American portfolio was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from The Asian American Foundation; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Henry Luce Foundation; the Doris Duke Foundation; The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation; The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation; The Long Family Foundation; Lu-Hebert Fund; Gee Family Foundation; Joseph Cotchett; the Julian Abdey and Sabrina Moyle Charitable Fund; and Nanci Nishimura.

We would also like to thank the Leaders Forum for its thought leadership and valuable assistance in helping make this survey possible.

The strategic communications campaign used to promote the research was made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation.

The terms Asian, Asians living in the United States , U.S. Asian population and Asian Americans are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Asian, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

Ethnicity and ethnic origin labels, such as Chinese and Chinese origin, are used interchangeably in this report for findings for ethnic origin groups, such as Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. For this report, ethnicity is not nationality. For example, Chinese in this report are those self-identifying as of Chinese ethnicity, rather than necessarily being a current or former citizen of the People’s Republic of China. Ethnic origin groups in this report include those who self-identify as one Asian ethnicity only, either alone or in combination with a non-Asian race or ethnicity.

Less populous Asian origin groups in this report are those who self-identify with ethnic origin groups that are not among the six largest Asian origin groups. The term includes those who identify with only one Asian ethnicity. These ethnic origin groups each represent about 2% or less of the overall Asian population in the U.S. For example, those who identify as Burmese, Hmong or Pakistani are included in this category. These groups are unreportable on their own due to small sample sizes, but collectively they are reportable under this category.

The terms Asian origins and Asian origin groups are used interchangeably throughout this report to describe ethnic origin groups.

Immigrants in this report are people who were not U.S. citizens at birth – in other words, those born outside the U.S., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories to parents who are not U.S. citizens. I mmigrant , first generation and foreign born are used interchangeably to refer to this group.  

Naturalized citizens are immigrants who are lawful permanent residents who have fulfilled the length of stay and other requirements to become U.S. citizens and who have taken the oath of citizenship.

U.S. born refers to people born in the 50 U.S. states or the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.

Second generation refers to people born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories with at least one first-generation (immigrant) parent.

Third or higher generation refers to people born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories with both parents born in the 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.

The nation’s Asian population is fast growing and diverse. Numbering more than 23 million, the population has ancestral roots across the vast, ethnically and culturally rich Asian continent. For Asians living in the United States, this diversity is reflected in how they describe their own identity. According to a new, nationwide, comprehensive survey of Asian adults living in the U.S., 52% say they most often use ethnic labels that reflect their heritage and family roots, either alone or together with “American,” to describe themselves. Chinese or Chinese American, Filipino or Filipino American, and Indian or Indian American are examples of these variations.

There are other ways in which Asians living in the U.S. describe their identity. About half (51%) of Asian adults say they use American on its own (10%), together with their ethnicity (25%) or together with “Asian” as Asian American (16%) when describing their identity, highlighting their links to the U.S.

And while pan-ethnic labels such as Asian and Asian American are commonly used to describe this diverse population broadly, the new survey shows that when describing themselves, just 28% use the label Asian (12%) on its own or the label Asian American (16%).

The survey also finds that other labels are used by Asian Americans. Some 6% say they most often prefer regional terms such as South Asian and Southeast Asian when describing themselves.

Asian adults see more cultural differences than commonalities across their group as well. When asked to choose between two statements – that Asians in the U.S. share a common culture, or that Asians in the U.S. have many different cultures – nearly all (90%) say U.S. Asians have many different cultures. Just 9% say Asians living in the U.S. share a common culture. This view is widely held across many demographic groups among Asian Americans, according to the survey.

Though Asian Americans’ identities reflect their diverse cultures and origins, Asian adults also report certain shared experiences. A majority (60%) say most people would describe them as “Asian” while walking past them on the street, indicating most Asian adults feel they are seen by others as a single group, despite the population’s diversity. One-in-five say they have hidden a part of their heritage (their ethnic food, cultural practices, ethnic clothing or religious practices) from others who are not Asian, in some cases out of fear of embarrassment or discrimination. Notably, Asian adults ages 18 to 29 are more likely to say they have done this than Asians 65 and older (39% vs. 5%).

Asian adults in the U.S. also feel connected with other Asian Americans. About six-in-ten (59%) say that what happens to Asians in the U.S. affects their own lives, at least to some extent. 2 And about two-thirds (68%) of Asian Americans say it is extremely or very important to have a national leader advocating for the concerns and needs of the Asian population in the U.S.

The new survey also shows that large majorities of Asian adults share similar views on what it takes to be considered truly American. And they consider many of the same factors to be important in their views of the American dream.

These are among the key findings from Pew Research Center’s new survey of Asian American adults, conducted by mail and online from July 5, 2022, to Jan. 27, 2023. This is the largest nationally representative survey of its kind to date that focused on Asian Americans. The survey was conducted in English and five Asian languages, among a representative sample of 7,006 Asian adults living in the United States. 

Asian Americans are 7% of the U.S. population, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the 2021 American Community Survey. Their population is diverse, with roots in more than 20 countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. About 54% of the national Asian population are immigrants. The six largest origin groups (Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese), a focus of this survey and report, together account for 79% of all Asian Americans.

Overall, about 34% of Asian Americans are the U.S.-born children of immigrant parents, and another 14% are of third or higher generation (meaning their parents were born in the U.S. as well), according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the 2022 Current Population Survey, March Annual Social and Economic Supplement.

This survey and report focus on Asian adults in the U.S. The six largest origin groups together account for 81% of Asian adults. And 68% of Asian American adults are immigrants, according to Center analysis of the 2021 American Community Survey. Additionally, 25% are the U.S.-born children of immigrant parents and 10% are of third or higher generation, according to Center analysis of government data.

The making of Asian American identity and knowledge of Asian history in the U.S.

The pan-ethnic term “Asian American” emerged in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s as part of a political movement to organize the diverse U.S. Asian population. The creation of an Asian American identity was in reaction to a long history of exclusion of Asians in the country, including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and a pair of Supreme Court cases in the 1920s clarifying that Asians, including South Asians, are not “free White persons” and therefore were excluded from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. 3 Subsequently, the term was adopted by the federal government and today is the principal identity label used by media, academics, researchers and others to describe today’s diverse Asian American population.

In most cases today, someone is considered Asian or Asian American if they self-identify as such. But Asian Americans do not necessarily agree on which regional or ethnic groups from the Asian continent they consider to be Asian, according to the new survey. The vast majority of Asian adults say they consider those from East Asia, such as Chinese or Koreans (89%); Southeast Asia, such as Vietnamese or Filipinos (88%); and to a lesser extent South Asia such as Indians or Pakistanis (67%) to be Asian.

But Asian adults are split on whether they consider Central Asians such as Afghans or Kazakhs to be Asian (43% of Asian adults say they are). While about half of Indian adults (56%) say they would include Central Asians in the category Asian, fewer than half of Filipino (40%), Chinese (39%), Japanese (34%), Korean (32%) and Vietnamese (30%) adults consider them Asian.

Few Asians say they are knowledgeable about U.S. Asian history

Asian Americans have a long history in the United States. From Chinese laborers who helped build the first transcontinental railroad, to Japanese immigrants who arrived as plantation workers in what is now the state of Hawaii, to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, to Filipinos being treated as U.S. nationals while the Philippines was a U.S. territory, the Asian American experience has been a part of U.S. history.

With the passage of the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a new wave of immigrants from Asia began arriving in the United States, creating a new, contemporary U.S. Asian history. The Vietnam War and other conflicts in Southeast Asia brought Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees to the U.S. , first with the passage of the 1975 Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act and then with the Refugee Act of 1980. The 1990 Immigration Act raised immigration ceilings and set in place processes that allowed the flows of Asian immigrants, particularly of high-skilled immigrants, to continue and expand. The U.S. technology boom of the 1990s and 2000s attracted many high-skilled immigrants, particularly from India and China, to tech centers around the country.

This rich history, however, is little-known to Asian adults, according to the new survey. One-in-four (24%) say they are very or extremely informed about history of Asians in the United States, while an equal share (24%) say they are little or not at all informed.

The majority of those very or extremely informed about the history of Asians in the U.S. say they learned about this history through informal channels: internet (82%), media (76%) and family and friends (70%). In contrast, 49% learned about it from college or university courses and 39% from elementary through high school.

Immigrant ties shape Asian Americans’ identities and their life in the U.S.

Immigration experiences, connections with home countries, and how long someone has lived in the U.S. shape many Asian Americans’ identities. Among Asian adults in the U.S., immigrants are more likely than those who are U.S. born to describe their identity most often with their ethnic labels, either alone or together with the label American (56% vs. 41%).

Meanwhile, Asian immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born Asians (46% vs. 65%) to say they most often describe themselves as American in some way – whether by their ethnic label combined with American, as Asian American, or simply as American. Still, nearly half of Asian immigrants describe themselves in one of these three ways.

When it comes to identifying with the label Asian – either alone or as Asian American – immigrant and U.S.-born Asians are about equally likely to say they do so (28% and 29% respectively). Immigrant Asians are less likely than U.S.-born Asians to identify most often as Asian American (14% vs. 21%).

On the question of seeing themselves more as a “typical American” or “very different from a typical American,” Asian immigrant adults are far less likely than those born in the U.S. to think of themselves as a typical American (37% vs. 69%).

Nativity is also tied to how Asians in the U.S. develop their friendships. Those who immigrated to the U.S. are more likely to have friends who are Asian or of the same ethnicity as them than are U.S.-born Asians (56% vs. 38%).

Asian immigrants (15%) are also less likely than U.S.-born Asians (32%) to have ever hidden a part of their heritage from people who are not Asian. When asked in an open-ended question to explain why they hide aspects of their culture, some U.S.-born respondents mentioned phrases such as “fear of discrimination,” “being teased” and “embarrassing.”

Views of identity among Asian American immigrants are often tied to time spent in the U.S.

How long Asian immigrants have lived in the U.S. also shapes their identity and experiences. Those who arrived in the U.S. in the past 10 years are more likely than those who arrived more than 20 years ago to say they most often use their ethnicity, such as Filipino or Vietnamese, to describe themselves. And about two-thirds (65%) of those who arrived in the U.S. in the past decade describe their identity most often with their ethnicity’s name, either alone or combined with American, compared with 54% among those who have been in the country for more than two decades.

Roughly half (54%) of those who have arrived in the past 10 years say they most often use only their ethnicity to describe themselves, compared with just 21% of those who arrived more than two decades ago who say the same.

On the other hand, just 17% of Asian immigrants who arrived in the country in the past 10 years describe themselves most often as American, by their ethnic label combined with American, or as Asian American, while 59% of those who arrived more than 20 years ago do so.

When it comes to their circle of friends, 60% of Asian immigrants who arrived in the past 10 years say most or all of their friends are also Asian Americans, while 50% of those who arrived more than 20 years ago say the same.

And when asked if they think of themselves as typical Americans or not, Asian immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the past decade are substantially less likely than those who arrived more than two decades ago to say they are typical Americans (20% vs. 48%).

Asians in the U.S. share similar views among themselves and with the U.S. public on what it means to be American

The new survey also explored the views Asian Americans have about traits that make one “truly American.” Overall, Asian Americans and the general U.S. population share similar views of what it means to be American. Nearly all Asian adults and U.S. adults say that accepting people of diverse racial and religious backgrounds (94% and 91%), believing in individual freedoms (92% and 94%) and respecting U.S. political institutions and laws (89% and 87%) are important for being truly American.

Similarly, Asian Americans and the U.S. general population share in their views about the American dream. They say having freedom of choice in how to live one’s life (96% and 97% respectively), having a good family life (96% and 94%), retiring comfortably (96% and 94%) and owning a home (both 86%) are important to their view of the American dream. Smaller shares of Asian and U.S. adults (30% and 27%) say owning a business is important to their view of the American dream.

Here are other survey findings highlighting the diverse views and attitudes of Asian adults living in the U.S.:

• Indian adults are the most likely of the six largest Asian origin groups to say they most often use their ethnicity, without the addition of “American,” to describe themselves. About four-in-ten Indian adults (41%) say they do this. By comparison, smaller shares of Korean (30%), Filipino (29%), Chinese (26%) and Vietnamese (23%) adults do the same. Japanese adults (14%) are the least likely among the largest groups to use their ethnic identity term alone.
• Japanese adults are the least likely among the largest Asian origin groups to say they have friendships with other Asians. About one-in-three Japanese adults (34%) say most or all their friends share their own ethnicity or are otherwise Asian. By contrast, about half of all Indian (55%), Vietnamese (55%), Chinese (51%), Korean (50%) and Filipino (48%) respondents say the same.
• One-in-four Korean adults (25%) say they have hidden part of their heritage from people who are not Asian. Some 20% of Indian, 19% of Chinese, 18% of Vietnamese, 16% of Filipino and 14% of Japanese adults say they have done the same.
• Across the largest ethnic groups, about half or more say that what happens to Asians in the U.S. affects what happens in their own lives. About two-thirds of Korean (67%) and Chinese (65%) adults say this. By comparison, 61% of Japanese, 54% of Filipino, 55% of Indian and 52% of Vietnamese adults say they are impacted by what happens to Asians nationally.
• Most Asian adults among the largest ethnic origin groups say a national leader advancing the U.S. Asian community’s concerns is important. Roughly three-in-four Filipino (74%) and Chinese (73%) adults say it is very or extremely important to for the U.S. Asian community to have a national leader advancing its concerns. A majority of Vietnamese (69%), Korean (66%), Japanese (63%) and Indian adults (62%) says the same.  
• About half of Vietnamese registered voters (51%) identify with or lean to the Republican Party. In contrast, about two-thirds of Indian (68%), Filipino (68%) and Korean (67%) registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. And 56% of Chinese registered voters also associate with the Democratic Party. 
• This finding is from a nationally representative survey of 5,132 U.S. adults conducted by Pew Research Center from Dec. 5 to 11, 2022, using the Center’s American Trends Panel . ↩
• In recent years, a major source of concern and fear among many Asian adults in the U.S. has been the rise in reported violence against Asian Americans . ↩
• For more on the history of the creation of an Asian American identity, see Lee, Jennifer and Karthick Ramakrishnan. 2019. “ Who counts as Asian .” Ethnic and Racial Studies. ↩

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Table of contents, q&a: a behind-the-scenes look at pew research center’s extensive new survey of asian americans, when surveying small populations, some approaches are more inclusive than others, in their own words: asian immigrants’ experiences navigating language barriers in the united states, in their own words: the diverse perspectives of being asian in america, what it means to be asian in america, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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One of our most common terms, “identity” is rarely defined. In everyday language, its most common usages—“personal identity” and “social identity”—designate meanings not only distinct from one another but also hierarchically related. Personal identity is often assumed to mediate between social identities and make sense of them. Whereas our social identities shift throughout the day, what allows us to move coherently from one to another is often imagined to be our personal identity, or “who we are”—our constant.

Personal identity conventionally arbitrates taste and lifestyle. “It’s just not me,” a potential home buyer says to her realtor. “That’s so you,” a helpful friend appraises as the shopper steps out of the dressing room. An “identity crisis” is a crisis rather than an “identity opportunity” because personal identity demands proper and unimpeded expression. It is a value, something we prize. This sense of identity implies an immutable essence unchanged by physical development or external circumstances. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the origins of this usage to the late sixteenth century, but it has recently been challenged by social theory and postmodern conceptions of subjectivity, and feminist theory has generated especially rich rethinkings of our notions of identity.

In reference to social categories, identity has long carried the meaning of relational and mutable identifications, actuated either by the individual’s chosen identifications or by others who label individuals or groups on the basis of characteristics and behaviors that seem shared. Whereas we commonly talk of having a unitary personal identity (our “personality”), social identity is regarded as a constellation of different and often competing identifications or “cultural negotiations” (Alcoff 2000, 315). Adrienne Rich’s volume of poetry Your Native Land, Your Life (1986) is one example of such a negotiation. It draws on feminism, Jewish history, and progressive social struggles to ask what in identity is chosen and what is given:

With whom do you believe your lot is cast? From where does your strength come? … There is a whom , a where that is not chosen that is given and sometimes falsely given In the beginning we grasp whatever we can to survive

W. E. B. Du Bois’s famous formulation of “double consciousness”—“one ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro” ([1903] 1986, 364)—also speaks to this sense of not merely negotiated but “warring” social identities. If personal and social identity are seen as “warring”—if I must keep “who I am” intact and unrestrained by “who I am supposed to be”—then the stakes of such negotiation are inevitably raised. The recognition of our multiplicity may not seem as important as the resolution of it.

Identity politics, as it emerged in the United States from the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, gay rights struggles, and the New Left in the 1960s, offered new conceptualizations of the importance of recognizing—and valuing—previously denigrated or devalued identities. This “politics of recognition” expanded the kinds of rights claims that were earlier associated with progressive demands for the redistribution of social goods. As Charles Taylor (1992, 25) influentially put it, “A person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a conflicting or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.” At the same time, identity politics articulated coalitional strategies for linking those social identities to one another and to a range of struggles for justice, equity, and rights.

Since the inception of identity politics, however, it has also aroused suspicion and criticism from the very avenues where it originated. Because group identities—religious, tribal, and national loyalties especially—can be obstacles to building broader political coalitions and often have been the excuse for systemic social violence, the limits of group identity sometimes seem to outweigh any political benefit or affective comfort to be had by such belonging. Hence the struggle for recognition becomes a questioning of recognition. Rather than taking personal or political recognition for granted as a social good, some scholars and activists argue that recognition is a red herring that hooks us to concepts of belonging and being that can only prove exclusionary. As Ernesto Laclau (1994, 5) argues, how to legitimize and affirm “the proliferation of political identities in the contemporary world” (by whom and under what social practices) has now become “the question that sets the agenda for democratic politics.”

On the one hand, then, identity politics has been understood as grounding new democratic possibilities through its reinvigoration of ideals of representation, voice, and self-determination. On the other hand, it has also been seen as limiting those possibilities by encouraging narrow solidarities rather than broader identifications. In a complex defense of a more nuanced identity politics, James Clifford (2000, 106) writes, “Given the constitutive tension of positive and negative impulses in claims to peoplehood, all assertive identity movements, including those that empower the dispossessed, can seem to be symptoms of a general disease.” The negative view, Clifford notes, associates identity claims with the violence and scapegoating that make “people kill… their neighbours” (106). A fluid sense of identity categories may provide a more positive resolution to the contradiction, since it sees the categories we want to be recognized as positions we move through in complex, challenging, and changing ways, not as boxes we are stuck in for all time (C. Kaplan 1996). And while it may seem that we are caught between two views of social identity—one of which demands that overlooked and denigrated identities be recognized and affirmed and another that sees the immutable self as a socially constructed fiction from which we need to free ourselves—the tension between these two strains in contemporary theorizations of identity can be productive. In practice, it can inform a progressive identity politics capable of embracing this tension as its own.

Within the academy, acknowledging that social identities matter, that they make a difference, and that we may need to both contest and celebrate them has led to some of the most sweeping changes in the history of postsecondary education; disciplines have been reconfigured and vital new models of knowledge production created. These new fields are often focused on the recognition and exploration of different social identities, most prominently in ethnic studies, women’s studies, and lesbian and gay studies programs. While these institutional formations tend to be premised on recognition of diverse social identities in their intersectional relations to one another, the intellectual work that these formations generate and support has been able to challenge the very idea of identity.

Rejecting the notion of the self as a centered, transparent, or realized presence, a deconstructive notion of the subject argues that identification, the chief mechanism of identity formation, reveals identity’s lack or absence. On this account, identity is neither something we possess nor something that defines us but is instead an unending linguistic process of becoming. Whereas identity politics, the politics of recognition, and multiculturalism insist that a lack of affirmation for some identities is a social insult needing rectification, a poststructuralist or deconstructive perspective names identity itself as the problem. When ascriptions are placed onto individuals and groups by others, and when those ascriptions limit or constrain the myriad personal and social identities one might wish to claim, recognition of our identities no longer seems a mechanism of social justice but rather seems to be the social insult. In the global marketplace, moreover, multiculturalism and a diverse politics of identity always risk reinscription as just another commodity, offering us a “superficial shopping mall of identities” to keep capital flowing (Clifford 2000, 101).

Some theorists suggest that what we need is the subversion of identity, not its recognition. But how do we subvert “what we are”? One answer has been that we use identity categories only strategically, refusing to treat them as if they referenced an independent or transcendent reality. This is what is meant by the often-repeated injunction to be “strategically essentialist” in one’s thinking about and practice of identity (Spivak 1990). Another answer has been that in place of seeking recognition, we play with it and that we do so in such a way as to make clear that recognition is a circuit of power, not a naming of reality. If identity is, in Judith Butler’s words, a “ regulatory fiction” and if political appeals based on available social categories reinforce “limitation, prohibition, regulation, control” by addressing “ready-made subjects,” we can subvert identity by revealing how it is “ready-made” (1990, 2, 149). This subversion is what is meant by “performativity,” a concept with an enormous impact on American studies, cultural studies, and related interdisciplines. Performativity is understood to unfix regulatory identity by exposing the reiterations by which “a phenomenon is named into being,” a process called “citationality” (Butler 1993, 13). A performative understanding of gender’s citationality, for example, can reveal how gender does not name “what we are” but rather constitutes the identities it purports to name through chains of repetitive citational signs. Performativity can be a subversive practice because it reveals that identities are not really “our own” and that we are not really “what we are”; rather, we are how we identify—a process that is mutable and changeable. As a citational practice, performativity can refigure available norms as contingent and open to change.

The subversiveness of performativity cannot be determined in the absolute, outside of specific practices, acts, and situations. This may account, in part, for why the appeal of performativity as a theory of resistance has proved limited outside of the academy. Accepting that there is no “there there” and that identity is a “regulatory fiction” does not necessarily lead people away from a desire for identity. From popular culture to the reinvigoration of identity politics to the rise of new nationalisms, we see a persistent desire for identity, however much identity may be constructed, illusory, and unstable. One of the tasks of American studies and cultural studies will be to explain that persistence, to trace its workings, and to offer suggestions for how to make contradictions enabling and liberatory. The call for “a realistic identity politics” is one such attempt to recognize “the dynamic, variable, and negotiated character of identity” (Alcoff 2000, 340, 341) in ways that reposition us toward a more just and equitable world.

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A New African American Identity: The Harlem Renaissance

With the end of the Civil War in 1865, hundreds of thousands of African Americans newly freed from the yoke of slavery in the South began to dream of fuller participation in American society, including political empowerment, equal economic opportunity, and economic and cultural self-determination.

Unfortunately, by the late 1870s, that dream was largely dead, as white supremacy was quickly restored to the Reconstruction South. White lawmakers on state and local levels passed strict racial segregation laws known as “Jim Crow laws” that made African Americans second-class citizens. While a small number of African Americans were able to become landowners, most were exploited as sharecroppers, a system designed to keep them poor and powerless. Hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) perpetrated lynchings and conducted campaigns of terror and intimidation to keep African Americans from voting or exercising other fundamental rights.

With booming economies across the North and Midwest offering industrial jobs for workers of every race, many African Americans realized their hopes for a better standard of living—and a more racially tolerant environment—lay outside the South. By the turn of the 20th century, the Great Migration was underway as hundreds of thousands of African Americans relocated to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York. The Harlem section of Manhattan, which covers just three square miles, drew nearly 175,000 African Americans, giving the neighborhood the largest concentration of black people in the world. Harlem became a destination for African Americans of all backgrounds. From unskilled laborers to an educated middle-class, they shared common experiences of slavery, emancipation, and racial oppression, as well as a determination to forge a new identity as free people.

The Great Migration drew to Harlem some of the greatest minds and brightest talents of the day, an astonishing array of African American artists and scholars. Between the end of World War I and the mid-1930s, they produced one of the most significant eras of cultural expression in the nation’s history—the Harlem Renaissance. Yet this cultural explosion also occurred in Cleveland, Los Angeles and many cities shaped by the great migration. Alain Locke, a Harvard-educated writer, critic, and teacher who became known as the “dean” of the Harlem Renaissance, described it as a “spiritual coming of age” in which African Americans transformed “social disillusionment to race pride.”

The Harlem Renaissance encompassed poetry and prose, painting and sculpture, jazz and swing, opera and dance. What united these diverse art forms was their realistic presentation of what it meant to be black in America, what writer Langston Hughes called an “expression of our individual dark-skinned selves,” as well as a new militancy in asserting their civil and political rights.

Among the Renaissance’s most significant contributors were intellectuals W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Cyril Briggs, and Walter Francis White; electrifying performers Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson; writers and poets Zora Neale Hurston, Effie Lee Newsome, Countee Cullen; visual artists Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage; and an extraordinary list of legendary musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Eubie Blake, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ivie Anderson, Josephine Baker, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and countless others.

Josaphine Baker

At the height of the movement, Harlem was the epicenter of American culture. The neighborhood bustled with African American-owned and run publishing houses and newspapers, music companies, playhouses, nightclubs, and cabarets. The literature, music, and fashion they created defined culture and “cool” for blacks and white alike, in America and around the world.

As the 1920s came to a close, so did the Harlem Renaissance. Its heyday was cut short largely due to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and resulting Great Depression, which hurt African American-owned businesses and publications and made less financial support for the arts available from patrons, foundations, and theatrical organizations.

However, the Harlem Renaissance’s impact on America was indelible. The movement brought notice to the great works of African American art, and inspired and influenced future generations of African American artists and intellectuals. The self-portrait of African American life, identity, and culture that emerged from Harlem was transmitted to the world at large, challenging the racist and disparaging stereotypes of the Jim Crow South. In doing so, it radically redefined how people of other races viewed African Americans and understood the African American experience.

Most importantly, the Harlem Renaissance instilled in African Americans across the country a new spirit of self-determination and pride, a new social consciousness, and a new commitment to political activism, all of which would provide a foundation for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In doing so, it validated the beliefs of its founders and leaders like Alain Locke and Langston Hughes that art could be a vehicle to improve the lives of the African Americans. 

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The United States of America’s Culture Essay

Introduction, american culture, works cited.

Culture in the United States has been characterized with tension from the European ideals and the domestic originality. The overall culture of America include beliefs, arts, traditions, values, customs, innovations and ideals drawn from the locals and from foreigners across the boarders. American culture in a mixture of ideas and ideals from varied quarters, factors like democracy, civil liberty, Christianity, traditions, moral elements and entertainment have all been intertwined into a single unit feature appearing as the American culture.

Due to the several parameters that constitute it, America culture is so dynamic and has kept on changing with the variation in demographic composition. “American culture is divided into about 49 subcategories which are soaked up into a single distinct culture called “the American Culture” (Bogle, p.56). This paper will deal the issues that make up the American culture and what various writers have to say about those issues.

To be an American, demands that citizens have to be devoted in upholding the rule of law, liberty, equity and justice to all. Being an American means that one has the advantage of being under a government that oversees the welfare and interest of everyone within and outside its boarders. The American society does not only look at the comfort of everyone in need, and not only regardless of its border boundary.

The culture promotes freedom of choice and association…therefore in this context, being an American means living in a cohesive society of mixed values owing to its diversity. A critical analysis of American cultures spills over to several miles from the boarders due to their great influence worldwide, the same applies to what constitutes American Culture which is a combination of mixed practices like sports, music, art and fashions to mention a few. Issues related to race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and censorship are the ones that shape the culture. “Every individual that proclaims to be an American is taught to uphold American cultural values like positive attitude, leadership skills, entrepreneurship and craftsmanship among others” (Gaspar de Alba, p.124).

American culture is structured by their system of governance, laws and regulations and how people relate with each other owing to their original disparity. From face value, it can be said that America has no culture; Gaspar refers to individuals who hold such opinion to hear fish denying the existence of water (p.125). It is only that the American culture is shared by a vast majority which makes a culture of its own, unique in every aspect.

Americans believe that they can compete in literally everything and enjoy equal opportunity with every other player worldwide. The strong desire of Americans to be democratic and free from oppression of all kinds, has characterized the activities in America, events that are so extraordinary that only Americans themselves can understand and explain. These are however just general views on what the American culture really is, the next section of this paper will go to the specifics, and zero in into the following factors that determine the true culture of America. That is; language, literature, faith, national holydays, sports, arts beside other popular cultures as given by different writers.

Regarding language, about sixty five percent of America’s populations speak English as their native language, making America the second most populated English speaking nation in the world after India. The federal government has no official language but the latest report indicate that the society is pushing to have English be made the official language. Apart from English, other languages that are spoken in America include Spanish, French, Navajo as well as some minority immigrant languages which have persisted to date. Literature in America traces its origin to Europe.

It is the foreign culture from this end of the world and has characterized American literary voce foe centuries (Lipsitz, p.41). American writers have managed to capture the literary arena by wining Nobel Prize in Literature severally. “It is believed that the mixed values that make the American culture are the reasons behind great literary skills…the perfect blend works well for the artists” (Lipsitz, p.43).

America is believed by some researchers as the most religious nation among the developed world considering its demographics. Religion plays a very important role in the life of American citizens. There is freedom of worship in America and no single person is discriminated on the basis of religious affiliation. “The American society is composed of Quakers in Pennsylvania, Roman Catholics in Maryland, Puritans in Massachusetts and many more who practice whatever religion they feel deem fits them best” (Marsden, p.45). Marsden adds that the nation has established a law that respect religion and prohibits the federal interference in religious matters.

Any America citizen has to observe all National Holydays that define memorable and significant events in the countries history. Some of the National holydays recognized by the American culture include but not limited to ; Thanksgiving day observed by traditional Americans, Easter, St. Patrick’s and Lent, by Christians and the Independence Day, observed by everyone with American affiliation whether within or outside boarders. Independence Day is celebrated every Fourth of July to mark the day America was declared independent from the Kingdom of Great Britain (Lipsitz, p.46).

Sports in an important component in American culture, it is though very unique from other countries even the neighboring ones. America prefers to go domestic as far as sports are concerned. In the beginning op in the priority list of the most preferred sports is baseball which dates back to 1869 when it first went professional. Currently, the most famous sport is the American football followed by Basketball and Ice hockey. American culture has a unique architectural style. America has very little to remind them of their history, probably because it has a very young country and still has a shortened past.

The paintings that show their skills in architecture are all based on modernity like the skyscrapers; it basically represents Mediterranean style i.e. electric…a fact which is not surprising with the multicultural nature. Related to Architecture is the American sculpture which depicts the past history with religion, it shows the ancient practices of the Roman Republicans and Protestants Christians. Just like their architecture, the fashion in America is modern and informal as well as what Lipsitz refers to as electric in (p.47).

American dressing code is basically casual with the most dominant style being blue jeans. “The blue jeans have become so common in the country to an extent that it can pass as arguably the American contribution to world fashion” (Bogle, p.71). America’s films, heater, music and dance are all affiliated to the Western Europe, just like many other ideals. The country is multiethnic and instead of having ethnic affiliations which can be quiet numerous, racism comes into play.

This is where individuals classify themselves as men of color (non white) and whites. To some extent, even the Native Americans were discriminated against due to their minority status. But American government has walked a good walk in fighting racism; hopes are that someday racism related incidences would be a thing of the past is very much alive among the American public. Acts of democracy would have been embraced and neither social class nor gender is used to bar anyone from taking advantage of a great opportunity. Government policies of the modern America have been geared to amicably address gender biasness and class differences, the policies have gone a long way in doing away with such social ills that are reaping value from the culture (Gaspar de Alba, pp.125-127).

From the facts presented in this paper, it can be said that whatever the American culture is, hopes also lie with the schools and other cultural based institutions to help pass cultural values from one generation to the other. The parents are better positioned to help in this initiative. Emphasis should be put on the teachings on customs and tradition the child draws from the parents. American culture as it has been determined offers opportunity for all in the society through the help of the government which avails necessary resources. The culture honors the principle of equity which seems to be the chief driving force steering the nation to greatness.

Bogle, D. An Interpretive History of American. New York: Viking Press. (1973). pp. 56 72.

Gaspar de Alba, A. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition. Austin: University of Texas Press. (1998). pp.122-127.

Lipsitz, G. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (1990). pp. 41-47.

Marsden, G. Religion and American Culture. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1990). Pp. 45-46.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Cultural Identity — I Am Proud of My Cultural Identity

I Am Proud of My Cultural Identity

• Categories: Cultural Identity

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Updated: 7 November, 2023

Words: 1139 | Page: 1 | 6 min read

• Chen, K., Shao, A., Jin, Y., & Ng, A. (2020). I Am Proud of My National Identity and I Am superior to You: The Role of Nationalism in Knowledge and Misinformation. Available at SSRN 3758287. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3758287)
• Schwartz, S. J., Zamboanga, B. L., & Weisskirch, R. S. (2008). Broadening the study of the self: Integrating the study of personal identity and cultural identity. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(2), 635-651. (https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00077.x)
• Smolicz, J. (1981). Core values and cultural identity. Ethnic and racial studies, 4(1), 75-90. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1981.9993325?journalCode=rers20)
• Hall, S., & Du Gay, P. (Eds.). (1996). Questions of cultural identity: SAGE Publications. Sage. (https://sk.sagepub.com/books/questions-of-cultural-identity)
• Lucy, S. (2007). Ethnic and cultural identities. In Archaeology of Identity (pp. 96-119). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203087572-10/ethnic-cultural-identities-sam-lucy)

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