Stuart Hall & Identity

"Identity is not only a story, a narrative we tell ourselves; it is a set of stories that change with historical circumstances, and identity shifts with the way in which we think, hear and experience them. Far from only coming from the still small point of truth inside us, identities actually come from outside; they are the way in which we are recognized and then come to step into the place of the recognitions others give us. Without others there is no self, there is no self-recognition."

I watched the Stuart Hall Project a couple days ago. It had me thinking about my own identity, how it came to be that I have grown to disassociate myself from my cultural origins, to have disavowed any influence from East Asia. Being multi-racial, being a foreigner in your birth place, this desire to return to your roots, yet there being no specific roots by which you feel you are able to return to. As I grow into adulthood, my various notions of myself are seemingly incommensurable, i attempt to unify them by either erasing one or emphasizing others. Cultural identities aren’t some inherent feature by which your personhood is wholly representative of; identity in this way is an ongoing discourse, between one’s self and the world in which they exist. It is a truism that our perceptions of ourselves are largely shaped by how others perceive us; we don’t know our status in this society until the first time we are “othered”, and somehow after that point, we accommodate and shape our identity according to this system. I always had an unfortunate penchant for defining myself by my failures, by certain uncontrollable circumstances in which I took recourse to actions often regrettable, and the like. Stuart Hall spoke about cultural identities always being in a state of flux, in a state of being while simultaneously becoming  , never a finished product but in a dialogue, at the crossroads between the past, present, and the political.