Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person or group. Young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds will share the importance of defining their identity and the impact it has in their everyday lives.
Watch the following video with interviews from young people that talk about how they feel about their identity.
Efe Ezekiel 00:00:00:10This section explores the importance of understanding one'sidentity and seeing how it impacts our lives in various ways fromour beliefs, our expressions, the way that people treat us and theway that we understand ourselves. We have stories now fromAaliyah and Ray talking about their identity and how they seethemselves in the world.
Mushin 00:00:28:21When I think of my identity, I think of myself as a BritishBangladeshi.
Aaliyah 00:00:32:24My heritage is Jamaican, so both of my parents are Jamaican.
Aba 00:00:36:18I would characterise myself as a Ghanaian women rather thanBlack British, for sure.
Fairoz 00:00:41:07I'm very much British regardless of my heritage and I'm proud ofthat.
Aaliyah 00:00:49:08I am always proud to say I'm Jamaican cos if you meet someone,they'll be like "Ah, yeah, I know something Jamaican." If it's UsainBolt, if it's ackee and saltfish. They know so much about ourculture because we've influenced so much.
Ray 00:01:14:14When I first came here, all the way up until maybe even my secondyear of secondary school, I kind of battled with my heritage. Butyeah, that was such a weird point in my life because I almost triedto strip away my Filipino side of myself. Because of the upsurgenceof people saying that you should be proud of your culture, I startedto rethink my whole kind of outlook on my culture and I justrealised that there are so many parts of my culture that I just reallylike; the food, the music, the dances, the architecture. And I'mstarting to learn Filipino again, like properly, because I kind of lostit over the years.
Aaliyah 00:02:04:02Identity is important because obviously it makes up who you are.You have to know yourself before you introduce yourself. I think it'sfun to be Jamaican so, yeah, that's where it's come from.
Ray 00:02:18:05You should just embrace your culture because it's such animportant thing. You can't just take it away from somebody, like it'sso integrated to you like mentally and physically.
Efe Ezekiel 00:02:28:11The videos have shown you really important information about theway young people see themselves and their identity. It'd be reallygreat now if you can start to explore your identity and also makesure that you have conversations with people who may not usuallyspeak to and find out about the way they see themselves in thecommunity or the world.
Activity
For this activity, you will need:
- Colouring pens and / or pencils
- A3 or A4 blank sheets of paper
Create a self-portrait. Write about how you describe yourself around it. You could include things like:
- your name;
- where you're from;
- your race or heritage;
- what you like or dislike;
- personal traits;
- favourite sports team;
- a unique fact about you.
Share your drawings and descriptions amongst your group.
Now you're ready to move on the next video:
3. Stereotypes. video
Stereotypes are used everywhere in the media and can have a negative effect on young people.
