Olivia Gargaro

Honors 100

10 October 2021

Who Am I?

During this personal reflection assignment, I felt a deeper connection to myself develop

as I created as well as contemplated my various identities. Perhaps the identity I most dwelled on

was that of religious affiliation. Raised in a fairly Christian household, my mother even more so

than I, it’s sometimes difficult to recognize my affiliation with any religious beliefs, or rather, the

lack thereof. Despite researching and attempting to form a connection with any devotion, I find

myself coming up blank. Thus, it is with ease I say that I contemplate my religious identity most

often. On the flip side, I care least about my gender. I am pleased with who I am and how I feel

about myself with no wishes to change anything about it, so I care to examine it by far the least.

Of the people whose circles I’ve dissected, the pattern across the board is that which was

quite similar to me initially, but recently they seem quite scattered. My friends vary in ethnicities,

in genders, in socioeconomic classes. Prior to moving to Seattle, my circle maintained

nationalities only of American or Mexican, their religious affiliations Catholic or atheist, and

their socioeconomic class much similar to mine. Coming from a small town in which generations

of families lived in the same neighborhoods, attended the same school district, and even worked

within the same storefront, it’s unsurprising that most of the people I had to surround myself with

were unbelievably similar. Here, I find that my social circle has expanded to include so many

variations within each identity slice that I cannot name them all within the constraints of this

paper. I’m unsure of what specific identities I don’t typically involve myself with in others, so I

cannot specify with certainty which affiliation I least come across within my social circle.
 If given the chance, I would like to engage myself in a social circle of people who are

first generation college students, perhaps to be more specific, those students who also come from

a lower income family. I think having such like-minded individuals surrounding me would

strengthen my resolve to earn a graduate degree, if only to “beat the odds”, so to speak. Being

able to share experiences both new and within the past is a solid way to build strong friendships,

and I believe having a circle who identifies soundly with these qualities would be beneficial to

my life and my happiness. Moreover, I think it would be an interesting experience to involve

myself with a group of various ethnicities and cultures. An anthropology major at heart, I love

learning and experiencing other cultures from travelling to studying their language. Coming from

a background with very little ethnic or cultural traditions, I always find it interesting to delve into

the topic of other deeply enchanting lifestyles.

To finish, I think positionality changes every aspect of our personalities and our lives as a

whole. Philosophically, one must consider the idea that “there are no original thoughts” and thus

we are all a contemplation of our experiences and the circumstances we were born into. In

college, some may have it easier, born into a position of wealth and superior circumstances to

those who may have worked their way up from nothing. Despite being in opposite situations,

these two individuals face the same classroom expectations and it’s up to them to decide how

they will react. Will the experiences of the less fortunate student mean they understand their need

to work harder in college courses, or will the upper position of the wealthy student ensure they

already know the basics of university learning? Thus, positionality affects most everything we

do, and every aspect of who we are at our core.