I second (or third or fourth) the thanks to Scher for starting this great thread. I've just discovered it and read it all the way through. I loved reading everyone's responses and thinking about all the different perspectives we all have here when it comes to thinking about identity.
I was thinking about how my own response to the question of cultural identity would look. I thought first about my identity as an American, which can mean so many things to so many different people. It even has different meanings within my own family history. Half my family were either Norwegian or Swedish immigrants in the early 20th century in my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations. For them, being American meant coming from their homeland far away and working hard to build a new life farming and enduring the Minnesota winters of the American Middle-West or, on the other side of the family, working as lumberjacks in the great woods of the American North-West. From them I get a cultural identification with Scandinavian Lutheren culture, so I feel nostalgic when I hear "A Mighty Fortress" and know the taste of homemade lefse and lutefisk (though I could do without the latter).
The other half of my family tree is made up of two branches that originally came to these shores in the early to mid 17th century before the United States was even a country. I find it amazing to think of all the many different people and cultures that must be mixed into my blood from these two lines. Indeed, I have long been puzzled by a certain attitude, which seems particularly strong on the East Coast that makes it sound like having a family that goes back to around the time of the Mayflower, as mine does, is something that makes one rather posh or above the rest. I feel just the opposite, since it seems to me that the longer my family has been here, the more likely it is that I may turn out to have a tie somewhere along that history with almost anyone I meet. It makes me feel very much as though I may have a bond back there with any number of the many cultures in America, and that potential for so many different groups from such diverse backgrounds to be linked together is something I really love about my country.
So, as an American, I feel an identity with the people who come here as immigrants to start a new life, and I feel an identity with the many different people who came before. In terms of my own life experience, I've certainly been shaped by the places I've lived. The ocean and beaches of California, the sound of Spanish being spoken everywhere, the good Mexican food, the beautiful weather are a deep part of me and still (I suspect always will) feel like home, though I think that my six years here in Chicago, with its incredible architecture, the experience of deep winters and the encounters with the many different groups and individuals that come together in a large American city, have also left a large mark on my identity. No doubt there are other places, with other people and other cultures that will become a part of my own identity in the future as well.
Because of my career I have an identity that's associated with an academic culture of professors, teachers and literary critics, and this is also related to a larger culture of people who enjoy learning and sharing what they have learned, who are curious about the world, who love the joys and challenges of experiencing art of all kinds and of reading books (the last being a culture we all share here on lit net.).
Naturally it would be impossible to list all the many different factors that have contributed to my identity. Certainly I have been shaped by blessings such as having a wonderful loving and supportive family and having been brought up in a middle class household in which there were never any serious economic concerns, and I've also been shaped by some misfortune, as we all have. If I were to list one final thing that has shaped who I am and my attitude toward a cultural identity, I would definitely say that it has been my opportunities to travel, both within my own country and to other places throughout the world. The more I've seen of places, cultures and customs that are different than the ones I may be used to, the more it's hit me very forcefully that people themselves aren't different at all, or rather that they are all distinct and different individuals who, though they may be shaped in certain ways, by many different cultural backgrounds, can ultimately only really be known or understood as an individuals. The more people I meet the more I come to the sort of conclusions that blazeofglory has been expressing so eloquently on this thread: that we're really all the same underneath it all. Though it is quoted often, I can never quite get over how beautiful and true Donne's words are:
Originally Posted by John Donne
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