Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield tackles the question of identity in second generation West Indian immigrants and how second generation immigrants see themselves in a New York setting. She hypothesizes certain types of self-identification for the people she interviews. Some people may identify with their parents’ culture and strictly adhere to it. Others would somewhat assimilate to different degrees into the culture they encounter every day. Some will assimilate, but will still try and uphold the culture their parents have shown them. The participants in her interviews show different types of self-identification based on their life experiences. Also it seems that it is not really hard at all to identify one’s self until someone else asks about it.
Pearl, a thirty-three year old nurse, says in her interview that even though her parents did not like Trinidadians their perspective changed when they became neighbors with them. Also a thirty-year-old woman Marie remembers about the time she was in high school and a teacher asked her about the “black experience.” To this day Marie has no idea what that means. From these two interviews alone it is apparent that perspective about oneself occurs when one finds other that are different from them. When Pearl’s parents decided that they did not like Trinidadians they must have been in an environment where everyone hated Trinidadians because they lived in a different country and spoke a different language. Before Marie was asked the question about the “black experience” she might have never known that her teacher felt so different from her or how her other classmates may feel different from her as well. It’s these experiences that force people to decide who they are and what do they stand for.
The self-identification process changes as you grow from a young child into early adulthood. Children identify themselves as nothing more than children that like to play around, eat junk food, and watch movies. It’s the later experiences with other people that change how they see themselves. A parent may tell their child that they are different from other children and then the child will go around expressing this difference. This leads to a whole cycle of people expressing their differences throughout their life. Even though as humans we possess very little differences between each other, we escalate whatever differences we have.
