Cultural anxiety can be defined as referring to an individuals’ fear that their ethnic culture could
be altered and stunted in the development and survival of their ethnic cultural heritage. But what
does one do when their own culture has yet to be “defined”? – When an individual floats through
society not necessarily having a secure grasp on their own identity or claim to their heritage?
This is the type of anxiety that is often brushed aside as an issue of lack of effort or drive, and
when presented with the issue of identity in the later stages of life, it becomes more of a crisis in
the form of self-evaluation for those confronted with it. And in understanding what makes one
the same as everyone else, versus what differentiates them, one scrambles to think of the
characteristics just as easily as one can stumble over their own words. The quest for “selfdiscovery”
can often lead to the need for clarification between identity and culture. For some,
they are one in the same, constantly influencing one another, and for others, they are two
completely opposing factors that often complicate that path. Exploring the nature in which those
two categories primarily affect how I understand my own identity and place in both the world
and my culture by focusing on themes of language barriers ( i.e. broken speech) and
geographical culture shifts, this image serves to illustrate the multiple facets in which I believe
depict who I am as both an individual and a part of a whole.
