Stuart Hall's "Cultural Identity and Diaspora" focuses on cultural identity and how it affects the reshaping of immigrants/refugees lives. There are two different ways to think when learning cultural identity. The first way is that cultural identity is a shared culture with people who have shared the same history and ancestry. The second view recognizes that throughout time, we change who we become, and that cultural identity becomes "a matter of 'becoming' as well as of 'being.'" I remember he talked about how every person have their own history, but they have been constantly changing and not fixed with the past. He explains that when you return back to your homeland after that change, everything seems different but similar at the same time. Hall also explains how in the mid 1900s, African Americans were not identified as African in the Kingston. However, throughout time they have been starting to identify as "African" even though they do not identify wth or have forgotten that cultural identity. This relates to Asian Americans as well because I feel that my parents tried so hard to leave their "Asianness" because of the grief that happened in China, but still in America they are characterized as Asian.
Question: How does these two views of cultural identity affect the migrants/refugees? Is believing in one view more beneficial than the other?
Picture:
From: http://redefining-multiculturalism.tumblr.com/
Works Cited:
Hall, Stuart (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’ in Jonathan Rutherford (ed.) Identity: community, culture, difference, London: Lawrence & Wishart
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