Layered Identity

Our entire lives we’ve been told that we need to find our own identity and that all of our identities are unique. We always have heard identity as being a single thing, either you’re a boy or a girl, you’re an immigrant or citizen, many of the things we identify usually only connect to one idea. In this way no one really is unique. What makes every single person unique is the fact that every person has different layers to their identity that are more than the surface presents. Identity is a complex topic that can’t be summed up by one phrase.

In the book the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald,  Jay Gatsby is a young man trying to win over his former love with extravagant parties and boasting his money. He tries to stand out as much as possible, yet no one even knows who the real Jay Gatsby is. “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.” This quotes shows that Gatsby is trying to be known only through one piece of his identity. He wants to be known as the Oxford man, who is now very wealthy but, fails to realize that under the top layer of this identity there is more. The fact that he grew up on a farm and that his family was very poor, the fact that he does not make his money in the most respectable way. These are things that were ignored by Gatsby the entire story because he was so stuck on keeping this one idea for his identity, when in reality everyone has multiple layers to who they are.  

In the movie “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a girl named Hushpuppy is living in the bathtub with her father. Due to icebergs and global warming the government is trying to evacuate the bathtub. This leads to Hushpuppy and her father being taken by the government and taken to a shelter. After being taken to the shelter Hushpuppy says, “I’m recording my story for the scientists in the future.” Hushpuppy unlike Gatsby realizes that there are different levels to her identity. Although she was raised in an environment that is completely different from the modern United States, she still acknowledges that they are apart of the reason she grew up the way she did, unlike Gatsby who completely ignores his past and only wants people to see one layer of his life, Hushpuppy is recording her entire life for the scientists so that they have a clear picture of the different layers of her identity.

“Don’t talk when we get inside, I don’t want them to know we’re not from around here. They’ll give us the discount if they think we live here.” We were waiting in the lobby, we wanted to go waterfall jumping. All of the male employees had buzz cuts, and close to no facial hair. I stood leaning against a wall, my hair grown out long enough to tie it back into a bun, and almost a full beard. I didn’t look anything like any of these men, and I felt their eyes glued on me every time as they walked past. They could tell I was Dominican like them but that my style said something different about me.  For the first time in my life I questioned my Dominican authenticity. I understand why she would tell my brother not to speak, he didn’t even speak spanish, but what was so different between me and them. I realized that giving off the impression that we were “authentic” and “regular” would work better in our favor. Saying that I only identify as a Dominican male would be wrong, as that is only one part of my identity, and in this case it was the identity that would work best in our favor, but I am more than just that. I had to accept the fact that I am also an American child and that it’s apart of who I am and how I should identify. We have different layers so that we can change based on our situation, we shouldn’t only be defined by one part of our identity.

People only tend to scrape the top layer when they are talking about their identity, and it’s because they only ever decided to identify with that top layer. Identity is more complex than just saying you are one thing or another, identity is made up of several pieces that fit together like a puzzle to make every single person unique.  Everyone can use the different layers of their identity depending on their situation. We saw Hushpuppy recognize the different layers of her identity in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” being stuck between the Bathtub and the modern US. I realized that part of my identity would disadvantage me in DR and I would need to hide that part. All of us have layered identities, it’s up to us if we want to start using all the layers.