Ethnic And Racial Identity During Adolescence Into Young Adulthood

While during the internalization-commitment stage, they are satisfied and secure about their race and welcome other racial and ethnic groups; in this stage, they apply their internalized racial identities into their behaviors and actions (Cross, 1991). The frequently used instrument to operationalize Cross’s model is called the Racial Identity Attitude

Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search

The Helms White Racial Identity Development Model identifies six racial identity statuses (Sue & Sue, 2016). These statuses include contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independence, immersion/emersion, and autonomy. Each of these statuses identifies characteristics that individuals in these statuses have. I traveled through theses statuses and believe I am currently in the immersion/emersion status. During different points in the model, I learned about race and myself that allowed me to move through each status, and currently working towards entering autonomy.

A person’s owns racial and ethnic identity is impacted due to youthful familiarities. This is brought out through adolescence and remains throughout their life. However, a person’s growth development varies from person to person is contingent based on their race and ethnicity, and there are five stages that contains evolving racial and ethnic identity. The five stages are the Conformity Stage, the Dissonance and Appreciating Stage, the Resistance and Immersions Stage, the Introspection Stage, and the Integrative Awareness Stage. During each phase, Atkinson et al., (1998; Sue & Sue, 2008) emphasizes the client’s outlooks for self, others of the similar minority group, others of a diverse minority group and outlooks concerning the lead group.

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

Along with that, racial identity is another big contributor to the degradation of African American’s youth mental health, as a weak racial identity results in poorly mishandled ways of coping with racism and stress. African American students as early as middle school engage in introspection of their racial identity, where they begin to discover who they are and the negative stereotypes surrounding their identity (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). The results of a study of 297 African American adolescents by McCreary, Slavin, and Berry found that a strong pride in racial identity was important in handling stress in a positive manner and decreasing poor mental health (Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p.256). Students were less likely to internalize negative racial stereotypes that devalue their worth and build resistance towards it. If not, students were more susceptible to succumbing to stereotype threat, racial bias, and a negative self-fulfilling prophecy that could alter their well-being and threaten their mental health. Chronic exposure to this can severely damage African Americans adolescents’ mental health, which is evident by their mental withdrawal in school and loss of interest or motivation to achieve academic success.

The concept of race… reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. Furthermore, the race categories [used by the Census Bureau] include both racial and national-origin groups… data on race in Census 2000 are not directly comparable to those collected in previous censuses.

Race and ethnicity in sociology is comprised of various subfields such as the aspects of social, political, and economic. Researchers and theorists aims to find the interactions with race and ethnicity in a given society, region, or community. Today, racial and ethnic disparities in the United States do exist and many racial and ethnic minority are faced with inequality in resource, power, status, and income. Such majority-minority relations are under the association of power; therefore, probable tensions or conflicts always exist. When examining schools, neighborhoods, politics, and media; such factors is thought to shape who we are – our identities. Identity or as you may call it ‘social identity’, essentially define who we are and where we belong in the social world. Who we are in the sense of our gender, race ethnicity, and religion is a deciding factor of the hierarchy of social stratifications. It is often heard in the United States that one may say, “I don’t see color”; proving that race and ethnicity are irrelevant to their behavior and strive to not admit the subjective issue behind it. Yet if race and ethnicity are the dimensions of organization in society, workplace, neighborhood, and even classroom; they are important for the identities of everyone who partakes in these settings. Race and ethnicity influence identity and behavior in so many ways. The influential factors depend on the majority or minority status of the group with which one is

The main purpose of the paper was to reflect the changes in the racial identity development during the course of history. The assignment was aimed to achieve several tasks: to analyze the impressions and responses to the interview; to trace back the causes of the negative reactions on some questions; to reflect the story of the Racial Identity Development, as well as elaborate the ways of racism confrontation within and outside oneself.

It is studies like these that shed new light on self-identity, which define a different meaning of self-concept through racial-ethnic identity. To put it another way, identity theory gives an idea to individuals that one can

In many perspectives, racial identities mean the differences in appearances of individuals especially with regards to the color of skin. Racial identities are mostly determined genetically or biologically. This includes traits like hair, bone structure color of the eyes etc. In recent times the biological determination of race has been disputed by social scientists who also propounds that races have more fluid social contexts.

I think ethnicity will give a broader identity in relating to others because it contains similarities in social views, identified language, cultural experiences and other experiences. Also, ethnicity differs from a race because race limits one to physical characteristics, unlike ethnicity which can link you to other cultural groups for more social

I remember myself being forced to examine the way people view me, contemplating whether or not I was likable and acceptable. Psychologist Erik Erikson called this life 's fifth psychosocial crisis Identity vs Role Confusion, the time when adolescents are in a stage where they are neither a child or adult, when life is definitely getting more complex as they attempt to find their own identity, struggling with social interactions, “and sorting through the traditions and values of their families and cultures” (Berger, 485). This is the time when “some teenagers seem to drastically change their appearance, their behavior, and their goals from one year to the next”—a.k.a. Role Confusion. In my case, I specifically fell into the category of identity confusion or rather racial identity confusion. It was the time I was questioning myself, “Who am I?” “Where do I belong?” while facing the pressure of “fitting in” as a biracial teen in prejudicial Filipino society.

In a multicultural society like the United State, people are often defined by their ethnicity and background rather than their characteristics. It is often difficult to look past a person’s ethnicity because many people make these assumptions in their head before even knowing the person. This issue leads to the question to what extent ethnicity affects a person’s identity in the United States. I believe that ethnic background plays a big role in determining a person’s identity in the United States, these assumptions create phenomenon like institutionalized racism, redlining, and racial scripts. I conducted interviews with a Japanese American and a Mexican American to see how their ethnicity has affected them when it comes to interaction with other people. I am interested to see how big of an impact would being a model minority or being stuck in negative stereotype affect how they are treated. Through these interviews I believe that it will show how big of a role ethnicity plays in a person’s identity in a multicultural society.

Causal directionality could not be determined due to the nature of this study. There is question whether these adolescents had stronger ethnic identity as a result of their experiences with discrimination or whether they perceived discrimination because they were more outward with their ethnicity. Both directions are equally plausible. In the first scenario, rejection from the majority would lead to individuals seeking acceptance from their ethnic group thereby increasing ethnic identity. In the latter scenario, research has shown that individuals who are highly identified with their racial/ethnic group tend to be more sensitive to intergroup inequalities and be more prone to labeling negative encounters as discrimination (Crocker & Major, 1989; Sellers & Shelton, 2003; Shelton & Sellers, 2000). Furthermore, those highly identifying with their ethnicity may become more aware of others’ experience in their group and have more opportunities to hear about those experiences. Longitudinal studies may clarify the directionality of this relationship by investigating changes in these variables as time passes.