Belonging and Identity
“A CRITICAL SOCIETY MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR CHILDEREN AND TEENERGERS FROM MINORITY CULTURES AND GROUPS TO FIND A WAY TO BELONG”
Good morning ladies and gentlemen Today I’d like to discuss and persuade you that a critical society makes it difficult for teenagers and children from minority cultures and groups to find a way to belong to a foreign country. I am discussing three characters( Simon tong, Hoa pham and Diana ngyuen) in Alice Pung’s text Growing up Asian in Australia and experience of my own
From early childhood, a child acquires ideas and attitudes about him\herself and others, these attitudes are significantly influenced by the interaction within the family and immediate environment. Through them we learn out true identity and who we belong to, in contrast when involved in foreign or broader community we feel pressured to change our identity in order to be accepted.
In modern world, it’s difficult to find a way to belong to a certain group without changing our identity, you are often bombarded with messages of what we should be, as a result we change the real us and became who they want us to became. Our peers and friendship groups reflect our personalities and sometimes even our insecurities.
Language is the major means we have of representing to ourselves and to others, it determines who we are, people who speak same language are perceived they belong together, being foreigner to a new country without speaking the language can often be difficult, Many Australians have stereotypes about Asian people and overall migrants, they assume you are stupid or illiterate idiot, take the case of Simon tong in Alice Pung’s Growing up Asian in Australia, he was an attentive and conscientious student who was on top of his work, who loved reading and fantasied about growing up to be a writer, but that quickly changed when he migrated to Australia, culture shock had a huge effect on Simon’s sense of self identity and his feeling of wellbeing he suffered a lot of
Good morning ladies and gentlemen Today I’d like to discuss and persuade you that a critical society makes it difficult for teenagers and children from minority cultures and groups to find a way to belong to a foreign country. I am discussing three characters( Simon tong, Hoa pham and Diana ngyuen) in Alice Pung’s text Growing up Asian in Australia and experience of my own
From early childhood, a child acquires ideas and attitudes about him\herself and others, these attitudes are significantly influenced by the interaction within the family and immediate environment. Through them we learn out true identity and who we belong to, in contrast when involved in foreign or broader community we feel pressured to change our identity in order to be accepted.
In modern world, it’s difficult to find a way to belong to a certain group without changing our identity, you are often bombarded with messages of what we should be, as a result we change the real us and became who they want us to became. Our peers and friendship groups reflect our personalities and sometimes even our insecurities.
Language is the major means we have of representing to ourselves and to others, it determines who we are, people who speak same language are perceived they belong together, being foreigner to a new country without speaking the language can often be difficult, Many Australians have stereotypes about Asian people and overall migrants, they assume you are stupid or illiterate idiot, take the case of Simon tong in Alice Pung’s Growing up Asian in Australia, he was an attentive and conscientious student who was on top of his work, who loved reading and fantasied about growing up to be a writer, but that quickly changed when he migrated to Australia, culture shock had a huge effect on Simon’s sense of self identity and his feeling of wellbeing he suffered a lot of