WK5 Material Culture: Identity

 I'm not sure I can properly answer the question of who I am by listing up to five concepts. I would have to go deeper than that for this task, but if I try to keep it simple, I guess I'd just say that I'm a caring sister, loving daughter, commited friend, diligent student and a young woman still working on finding herself and her path.

In his essay American Dreams, Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, is describing his experience of accepting himself and in doing so achieving his own version of the American Dream. Growing up in a poor family whose members haven't managed to achieve anything "big", he spent his childhood cultivating dreams of becoming the president. Believing in the concept of the American Dream, he knew this was possible if he was willing to work hard enough, dedicate himself completely to his goal and adapt his persona to acommodate the societal expectations. In doing so, he became estranged from his family and his origins, but worst of all, he became estranged of himself.  He refused to admit to himself and anyone else who he really is and he lost himself completely in the process, he even tried to commit suicide. And who he is is a gay man. He knew that coming out of the closet meant disappointing his family and renunciating his goals, but what he didn't know at the time is that the costs of the Dream far outwieghed its rewards. The most important lesson he had learned at Harvard was the importance of taking control of his own destiny, and that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. He was willingly giving others this possibility by staying in the closet, because he was accepting the idea that there was something wrong with him.  From that point on, he started following a new path, a path that was only his own and not imposed on him by the society and the American Dream. This path opened numerous questions about the world we all live in, such as position of women, gay people, black people, poor people, as opposed to "others". Those others being the ones who fit to the standard norms which they themselves made as such. These questions then led him to a conclusion that he is fighting now for the very same thing that he would be fighting for if he was the President, and that is liberty and justice for all.