C and P: Student example

Relationships are an important factor in developing our identity and sense of belonging.

Many aspects are involved in shaping one’s identity; these include a person’s culture, beliefs, values and also relationships. Relationships, in particular, help us understand ourselves into being the person we aspire to be. By understanding the person we are, are able to discover the crowd in which we belong in, the people we wish to surround ourselves with and come to know the environment we enjoy and feel safe being in.

In the novel, Growing up Asian in Australia, edited by Alice Pung, one story clearly stood out from others in displaying the importance of friendships and how they are able to shape one’s identity and sense of belonging in both positive and negative experiences. The story, ‘Wei-Li and Me’, written by Aditi Gouvernel, showed Aditi as a young Indian girl trying to survive the school playground and its bully; Barry West. Barry’s foul actions towards Aditi, including encouraging the other children to not even talk to her, ‘as though [her] words and [her] body, carried an infection their immune system couldn’t fight,’ cause Aditi to feel completely ostracized. Aditi’s relationship with Barry and the other children made her feel as though she was worthless, ‘a piece of sh**’ who didn’t matter at all. They made her feel as though she didn’t belong with the other children. However, everything changes once a Chinese boy, Wei-Li, enrolls in the school as well. Makiing fun of his name the children begin to torment Wei-li, removing the bright smile he brought in with himself at the beginning of the day. Without any other options, Wei-Li and Aditi become extremely close friends. Together they would avoid Barry as much as they could. They became each other’s ‘Jalrah’, a Tamil word meaning shadow. By doing this Aditi and Wei-Li were able to discover the person they truly are and realize where they should belong in social status, much higher than Barry West.

In another story in Growing up Asian in Australia, a friendship is again used for the characters to discover each other’s sense of belonging. The relationship is between Tanny and Daryl in the story ‘Exotic Rissole’, by Tanveer Ahmed. Each boy was able to see that they were equals as human beings. The differences between the two boys were simply due their cultural backgrounds, one being Indian and the other Australian. Things like the food they were given and the haircuts they wore were unique to their heritage, not reasons to discriminate against and hate each other, but reason to admire each other and be enriched by what the other’s world could offer them. The friendship between Tanny and Darryl was pivotal in broadening their personal perspectives of Australian identity to be ones of belief in cohesiveness within multicultural communities, an example of inclusive Australian identity types Ahmed wishes his readers to be aware of and, in fact, choose to be if they aren’t already.

In a film titled Bend it like Beckham directed by Indian director Gurinder Chadha, Jess is presented as ‘an Indian girl born to play soccer for England’. Jess is torn between her family’s rules and culture and her love for the game. She meets many new friends as she finds herself secretly on a team. On the team, she feels surrounding herself with her fun team mates, she realizes that she should be able to do both, be in the Indian culture and play soccer, without being judged. With courage, she tells her family this and stands up to what she believes in and eventually they accept her talents and love of soccer.

Personally, I believe that everyone’s identity is influenced by the people that they surround themselves with. I am the person I am today by looking at the people around me, and those I read about or see on TV. I am able to see those people for who they are, their personalities, traits or beliefs, then pick the ones I feel as though help me be the person that I want to be for role models. The relationships I carry with these people are important factors as to why my identity had to developed to be the way it is. Those relationships are what have influenced me to become a person who is resilient, reliable, hardworking and respectful. The type of person who will in turn take up the generational legacy to foster Australian values of mate ship, compassion and a fair go for all in my personal, working and social relationships.  

Relationships help us be the person we are today. They are used as an influence to become the person we become. By understanding the person we are, we are able to know where we belong and how we fit in society.