Identity: Do We Even Have a Choice?

Before I talk about the movie that we watched in class today, I wanted to firstly discuss the idea of identity. This topic has been on my mind lately, luring and creeping behind almost all conversations that I have had. Identity. Who am I? What do I represent? How have my surroundings shaped my identity? How has the culture I've been raised in affected my identity? Identity. Does my family accept who I've become? Does my family feel that I've chosen correctly, or betrayed them? Where do I have multiple identities? Could I change my identity if I wanted to? Who says I couldn't? If I can't, why not? What's so important about my identity? Identity. Identity.

I have a hard time trying to understand identity. Not the concept because that's easy enough, but why people feel the need to protect or change. It's interesting, watching other people get defensive in class about their culture and opinions. Yet, it's also interesting watching people not really care at all finding the entire concept fluid and changing. One person today (and I'm apologizing in advance where I'm going to counter-argue what you said. I see where you're coming from, but I just don't agree. I hope that this doesn't offend you in a manner that prohibits future conversation on the topic) had a brief discussion on why he doesn't see why the American Indians are so resistant to evolving/assimilating to Western/American culture. He didn't understand why, in the movie, Seymour's tribe was so angry that Seymour left the reservation to be his own person. As I was listening to him talk about it, I realized that he was taking a very Western approach to the problem. As Westerners, we think and act and understand and perceive things very differently than other cultures. I'm thinking specifically of the American Indians. Take for example, Thomas Jefferson, a very White man, thought that the American Indians weren't humans because they didn't have monuments... written books... etc. He couldn't understand how a human wouldn't want those things? Therefore, by deduction, made the Indians less than humans. So back to topic, I don't think we have any understanding (or at least not the full grasp) of how American Indians view the relationship that they have within their tribe... the closeknit-ness of the people... the way the tribe is dependent on the unity, the wholeness, the collective people. I may only be getting at the surface of this, but I can only guess that in this Western culture that encourages people to be "their own" or to "do what you think is right" will only come in sharp contrast to a culture that seeks the benefit of the tribe over the individual. So what happens when there's someone like Seymour who wants to leave the reservation?

Going off this, the idea that American Indians should just assimilate to Western/American culture is just.... wrong. Maybe if they want to assimilate, that's one thing, but to give them no choice but assimilation is essentially squeezing their culture out of them until they're just the faded memories of what Indians used to be. We have created a society where we've forced our culture on them, yet, at times we get mad at them because they're mimicking us "White folk customs" and not being true to their roots. But how could they not? We've made a system that doesn't allow for people to not conform? But to say "why don't they just evolve because that's what culture's have been doing for centuries?" I just don't agree. I understand the evolution of language, or the invention of different aids for agriculture, roads, etc..... but to suggest that aboriginal indians and America should just merge.... would never work. Both cultures think so vastly different..... and think about what what each would gain and lose. American would gain more and the Indians would lose more. It's about choice, not forceful assimilation.

Looking at the movie that way, I can understand how betrayed Seymour's tribe must have felt. Betrayed and unworthy. However, as much as I can understand that, I have a hard time with it. I think about where I've seen this happen in my life. Take for example, I was raised in a very Southern town so it wasn't uncommon that most of the towns stores were family owned and operated. The usual thing for families with sons would be that once the father was too old to take care of the store, it would be passed down to the sons. Simple as that. It was an expectation of the sons.. of the community.. without this tradition then the town would fall apart. But what about the kids who wanted to leave the town? To be more than a Tire Store owner... to be a doctor. or a philanthropist. or a teacher. or a missionary. I knew of a few people that chose their own path in life over what their fathers wanted. How can I say that their choice is wrong? I think it's great to seek after your hearts desires, to not settle for less than what you deserve. But I also think it's wrong to abandon your family and your community who are dependent on you.

I've also seen this in a more racial context with a few of my Black friends from high school. The culture in which the majority of Black people fell under in my town looked kind of like the movies... by this I mean they lived in a separate part of town and fit a lot of society's "stereotypes" about Black people. However, I had one close friend, Latoya, who chose an identity that contrasted with what she was raised. Instead of listening to Lil' Wayne and dressing like a "thug", she loved country music and "nice" clothing. (I put " "'s on things sometimes because I truly think that taste is relevant and none are better than others) Latoya was chastised for it. The Black community hated her because they thought she was being too White... Latoya once told me that her neighbor said she spoke "like a cracker." She was hurt deeply by it and began to hate a lot of the Black people in Fuquay-Varina, however, part of her hated herself, too. As much as she wanted to get away from the poisonous environment that her Black friends lived, she still felt like she was betraying her own blood, like a part of her needed to represent her Black heritage- even if today's Black heritage is nothing like African culture.

A quote from the movie that we watched, The Business of Fancy Dancing, that I really liked was when Seymour and Aristotle got in an argument. Aristotle kept yelling at Seymour, "Im not just ANY Indian!" I felt bad for Aristotle... You could tell that he felt used by Seymour. I could also tell that Aristotle understood Seymour as family and because of that, the betrayal was that much more. When watching this part of the movie, I kept thinking that Aristotle was acting as Seymour's skeletons. No matter how much Seymour wanted to get away and be his own person who was not defined by his race or reservation, his skeletons followed him everywhere, reminding him of who he was, calling him home. I don't think that Seymour will ever, if the movie continued, get away from his racial identity. For some reason, humans have linked race and identity so closely together making them almost inseparable. I wish that they could be malleable, flexible, but i think the reality is that they're not. They coincide. Not entirely of course, but they do have a strong connection that even distance cannot break. No matter how far away Seymour moved, he couldn't get away from his reservation.

All of this to say, identity is such an extremely complex and convoluted issue. And I truly don't know if there IS a right and wrong answer for whether Seymour, Latoya, or anyone else has actually "betrayed" their culture if they choose a different path. It's all relative, really, and depends specifically on the philosophies of each person, family, community, tribe, and nation. But even then, it's still murky and polluted and full of history and no matter how hard people try to get away from it, it follows you everywhere like skeletons.