4.1: Foundations of Culture and Identity

Spotlight on Culture and Identity

When Jordan was in middle school, classmates often asked, “What are you?” - a question that made him pause every time. His mother was Chinese American, his father African American, and Jordan had grown up celebrating Chinese New Year with one side of the family and Juneteenth with the other. He loved both traditions, but he often felt like he had to “code-switch” depending on who he was with - speaking differently, dressing differently, even downplaying parts of himself to fit in.

One day during a school heritage project, Jordan was told to “pick one culture” to present. He hesitated. Choosing one felt like erasing the other. So instead, he created a presentation titled Both/And, sharing stories from both sides of his family and explaining how his identity wasn’t split - it was layered. His classmates were intrigued. His teacher was moved. And for the first time, Jordan felt seen as a whole person.

Jordan’s story reflects a growing reality for many students: identity is not fixed or singular - it’s dynamic, intersectional, and shaped by culture, context, and communication. This culture explores how intercultural communication helps us understand identity - not just as something we inherit, but as something we express, negotiate, and evolve through interaction. Whether you identify with one culture or many, this chapter will help you reflect on who you are, how you communicate, and how identity is shaped in a diverse and interconnected world.

Ask yourself the question “Who am I?” Recall from our earlier discussion of Self-concept is the idea that we develop a sense of who we are based on what is reflected back on us from other people. Our parents, friends, teachers, and the media help shape our identities. While this happens from birth, most people in Western societies reach a stage in adolescence where maturing cognitive abilities and increased social awareness lead them to begin to reflect on who they are. This begins a lifelong process of thinking about who we are now, who we were before, and who we will become (Tatum, B. D., 2000). Our identities make up an important part of our self-concept and can be broken down into three main categories: personal, social, and cultural identities.

Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

We must avoid the temptation to think of our identities as constant. Instead, our identities are formed through processes that started before we were born and will continue after we are gone; therefore our identities aren’t something we achieve or complete. Two related but distinct components of our identities are our personal and social identities (Spreckels, J. & Kotthoff, H., 2009). Personal identities include the components of self that are primarily intrapersonal and connected to our life experiences. For example, I consider myself a puzzle lover, and you may identify as a fan of hip-hop music. Our social identities are the components of self that are derived from involvement in social groups with which we are interpersonally committed.

Figure 4.1.1: Pledging a fraternity or sorority is an example of a social identity (Adaenn - CC BY-NC 2.0)

For example, we may derive aspects of our social identity from our family or from a community of fans for a sports team. Social identities differ from personal identities because they are externally organized through membership. Our membership may be voluntary (Greek organization on campus) or involuntary (family) and explicit (we pay dues to our labor union) or implicit (we purchase and listen to hip-hop music). There are numerous options for personal and social identities. While our personal identity choices express who we are, our social identities align us with particular groups. Through our social identities, we make statements about who we are and who we are not.

Personal	Social	Cultural
Antique Collector	Member of Historical Society	Irish American
Dog Lover	Member of Humane Society	Male/Female
Cyclist	Fraternity/Sorority Member	Greek American
Singer	High School Music Teacher	Multiracial
Shy	Book Club Member	Heterosexual
Athletic		Gay/Lesbian

Table 4.1.1: Personal, Social, and Cultural Identities

Personal identities may change often as people have new experiences and develop new interests and hobbies. A current interest in online video games may give way to an interest in graphic design. Social identities do not change as often because they take more time to develop, as you must become interpersonally invested. For example, if an interest in online video games leads someone to become a member of a MMORPG, or a massively multiplayer online role-playing game community, that personal identity has led to a social identity that is now interpersonal and more entrenched. Cultural identities are based on socially constructed categories that teach us a way of being and include expectations for social behavior or ways of acting (Yep, G. A., 2002). Because we are typically immersed in them from birth, cultural identities tend to be the most stable and least subject to change among the three. The ways of being and the social expectations for behavior within cultural identities do change over time, but what separates them from most social identities is their historical roots (Collier, M. J., 1996). For example, think of how ways of being and acting have changed for African Americans since the civil rights movement. Additionally, common ways of being and acting within a cultural identity group are expressed through communication. In order to be accepted as a member of a cultural group, members must be acculturated, essentially learning and using a code that other group members will be able to recognize. We are acculturated into our various cultural identities in obvious and less obvious ways. We may literally have a parent or friend tell us what it means to be a man or a woman. We may also unconsciously consume messages from popular culture that offer representations of gender.

Any of these identity types can be ascribed or avowed. Ascribed identities are personal, social, or cultural identities that are placed on us by others, while avowed identities are those that we claim for ourselves (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Sometimes people ascribe an identity to someone else based on stereotypes. You may see a person who likes to read science-fiction books, watches documentaries, has glasses, and collects Star Trek memorabilia and labels him or her a nerd. If the person doesn’t avow that identity, it can create friction, and that label may even hurt the other person’s feelings. But ascribed and avowed identities can match up. To extend the previous example, there has been a movement in recent years to reclaim the label nerd and turn it into a positive, and a nerd subculture has been growing in popularity. For example, rapper Megan Thee Stallion has openly embraced her love of anime, even cosplaying characters like Todoroki from My Hero Academia at public events. Her avowal of nerd identity - once stigmatized - has helped redefine what it means to be a herd, showing that niche interests can coexist with mainstream success. This example shows how ascribed and avowed identities can evolve and sometimes converge over time.

Although some identities are essentially permanent, the degree to which we are aware of them, also known as salience, changes. The intensity with which we avow an identity also changes based on context. For example, an African American may not have difficulty deciding which box to check on the demographic section of a survey. But if an African American becomes president of her college’s Black Student Union, she may more intensely avow her African American identity, which has now become more salient. If she studies abroad in Africa her junior year, she may be ascribed an identity of American by her new African friends rather than African American. For the Africans, their visitor’s identity as American is likely more salient than her identity as someone of African descent. If someone is biracial or multiracial, they may change their racial identification as they engage in an identity search. One intercultural communication scholar writes of his experiences as an “Asianlatinoamerican” (Yep, 2002). He notes repressing his Chinese identity as an adolescent living in Peru and then later embracing his Chinese identity and learning about his family history while in college in the United States. This example shows how even national identity fluctuates. Obviously one can change nationality by becoming a citizen of another country, although most people do not.

Throughout history, society has created dominant and nondominant groups based on culture, race, gender, ability and other social factors (Allen, 2011). Dominant groups - such as white people, men, able-bodied individuals, or heterosexuals in many Western societies - have typically had more access to resources, power and influence. Nondominant groups - such as people of color, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, or people with disabilities - have often had fewer opportunities and faced more barriers.

It’s important to understand that these labels apply to social systems, not individual people. For example, a wealthy Black woman may have more money and education than a white man from a low-income background. But overall, the system still gives more advantages to white people and men as groups. These patterns are built into institutions like schools, workplaces, and government policies, and they don’t disappear just because there are exceptions.

Because of this uneven playing field, people in dominant groups often receive unearned benefits - called privilege - while those in nondominant groups may face discrimination. This can show up in everyday life: a job applicant with a “white-sounding” name might get more callbacks than someone with a name perceived as ethnic; a man might be taken more seriously in a meeting than a woman saying the same thing; or a building might lack ramps, making it inaccessible to someone in a wheelchair. Privilege and disadvantage are not all-or-nothing. No one is completely privileged or completely disadvantaged. And no two people are exactly alike or entirely different. Our identities are complex, and understanding how they interact helps us see the bigger picture of social inequality.