Search for Identity in It’s Hard Enough Being Me :: Synthesis Essays

Search for Identity in Its Hard bountiful creation Me In the essay Its Hard Enough Being Me, Anna Lisa Raya relates her experiences as a multicultural American at Columbia University in crude York and the perplexity she felt about her individuation. She grew up in L.A. and by and large identified with her Mexican background, but occasionally with her Puerto Rican background as swell. Upon arriving to New York however, she discovered that to everyone else, she was considered Latina. She points out that a typical Latina must salsa dance, know Mexican history, and most importantly, speak Spanish. Raya argues that she doesnt know any of these things, so how could this adjudicate apply to her? Shes caught between being a sell-out to her heritage, and at the homogeneous time a spic to Americans. She adds that trying to cope with college life and the confusion of searching for an identity is a burden. Anna Raya closes her essay by presenting a turn of advice she was given on how to deal with her identity. She was told that she should try to satisfy herself and not like about other peoples opinions. Anna Lisa Rayas essay is an enlightening account of life for a multicultural American as well as an important insight into how people of multicultural backgrounds handle the labels that are placed upon them, and the confusion it leads to in the attempt to find an identity. Searching for an identity in a society that seeks to place a label on each individual is a difficult task, especially for people of multicultural ancestry. Rayas essay is an informative account of life for a multicultural American, because it is told from an actual multicultural authors viewpoint. It gives the reader a star that the information is accurate. It would be harder to accept the viewpoint if the author were for example, a whiten male writing about how a Mexican, Puerto Rican woman feels. As Connie unfledged Yu points out, information retold by someone who didnt live the experi ences is most a great deal falsely perceived. Yu uses the example of white American historians writing about the lives of Chinese immigrants. Yu says that there is no accurate account for the lives of the immigrants, because they didnt document their lives themselves. The olive-sized information that there is in history books only tells about their apparent accomplishments. There is no official understanding of their personal lives or feelings (Yu 30).