What if I
had to leave? What if one day as I was living in my community that I was born
into I was told that I had to leave? Taking this class we have read a lot of
books about loosing identity or having to leave ones home. What is my identity
and would it ever be at fault? When I think about myself when it comes to
identity I have a lot of trouble coming up with anything. I do not follow any
religion, and I do not think of myself as patriotic, so this makes me confused
to as whom I am.
In my life I
would always say that I hated the town that I lived in, I would say how much I
wanted to move away and live elsewhere. What I have learned by going away to
school and taking this class, is that where your born and grow up is very
important to who you are. It is what you know and what you associate your life
with. When I would introduce myself I would say, “I am Brian and I am from Long
Island”, immediately that created some kind of identity to the person that I
was introducing myself to. This past winter Long Island was hit hard by
Hurricane Sandy, towns were destroyed, homes where damaged, people lost their
home. Places that I grew up around had been blown away. At this moment my whole
mindset of “I hate this place” became something of sadness of the destruction
of where my childhood took place. Long Island went from suburban living to
ground zero, and this hurt inside to see something so close to me be almost
destroyed.
When I read
the preface of the book I felt some kind of nostalgia because like his life I have
moved many times in my life. When I was in elementary school I was told that I
had to leave. My parents told me that our family was moving to England. Even
though my parents weren’t the Spanish Catholics, this occurrence in my life was
very analogous to that of the people in the book Leo Africanus. My entire world was to be let go and then started up
in a whole different country. I would have to acquire new customs and learn
different cultures. For Leo and his family it would be more of a forced and abrupt
transition, fortunately I was able to return to my home and lifestyle.
So again
this makes me wonder, what defines me. Is it the places I have moved in my life
or is it the place that I have lived a majority of my life. Or is completely
independent of where you live, maybe the family in which you grow into. In both
Shadows of a Pomegranate Tree and Leo Africanus both families live in
Granada during the time of the inquisition but we can see very distinct
difference in their family structure. By looking at these two different
families no one would classify them as the same by saying that they are “Muslim
families living in Granada during the inquisition” because that is totally over
simplifying the people who lived there. I hope that when people look back at
where I live in the future they don’t put every single Long Islander under the
same category because we aren’t all classified by where we live, its more
particular to each family or even person.
So who am I?
I don’t know yet, due to the fact that I am only in college and haven’t really
lived yet. This excites me, because I have all of my college life to discover
what I want to do. I am glad that this class makes me think about how different
people lived in different times through these books. It makes me realize that
the one thing that we as humans have in common is that we have nothing in
common.
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the author of this entry, I don’t know what I would do if I was told I had to up and leave my entire life, including changing religions and being made to change my moral in life. Much like many people my family moved while I was in school, which made it so that I had to pick up and start at a new school my sophomore year in high school. Though this is nothing compared to the author/character in this book, it was still a big change for me. I had the attended the same school, had the same friends and lived in the same community for as long as I could remember. Even though I felt lost and like I was losing everything I had ever known, I did not feel like I was losing my identity or who I was because I think that goes so much deeper than just the place you live in, and the people you hang out with.
ReplyDeleteI think your identity has to do with who you are and what you believe in rather than where you live and go to school. I agree that most of the books we have read so far this semester the characters have been told that they have to up in leave, but just because they are leaving their homes and going to create a new home somewhere else I do not believe that they are losing this identity. I would say that they are losing their identity when they are being forced to change religion and believe in something that they do not (we have seen this in some of the books that we have read so far).
Just like yourself I am still finding my own identity, finally pulling away from my parents it is my decision now to decide what I believe what I do not believe and make my own identity because growing up so much of my identity was based on what my parents thought and felt about things because that is was I was taught when I was not old enough to make my own judgement but now that I am it is exciting to know that there is a world out there for me to explore and make my own judgments about thus in turn creating my own identity based solely on what I think, feel and believe to be true.