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John Yoon
Wagner
English 1A STACC
16 September 2014
Identity Essay Rough Draft
I once ended up mediating between a Korean student and the nurse at my middle
school. I didnt know why, but my fellow student was looking at me sheepishly, with
bowed head and mumbled thanks as I did my best to translate his concerns to the nurse
with my budding English skills. I knew how to use the language that the U.S. happened
to use and that was that. I didnt consider it a part of my identity or voice, or really a
major fact in who I was. I didnt think I would be a different person if I couldnt read or
write English.
Identity is something of a touchy issue. Even legally, nations like the United
States are trying to figure out right and wrong in regard to topics like same-sex marriage
and non-binary genders. For many people, identity is a matter of undecided civil right.
Persons that struggle with sex and gender identity feel that as long as people continue
to collapse gender, sex, and identities . . . it serves everyone poorly (Smith,
Recognition of Nonbinary Gender in Australian High Court.) More than simply being a
claim or a label, it is an absolute right.
Boiling that down to identity alone is like labeling some major religious
denomination and everyone who affiliates with it. Its a judgment and a statement. It has
to mean something. Language, be it written or not is how memories and feelings can be

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recorded, but even then, is it accurate to say that it is the most major influence on a
persons identity? Were making a big declaration here, no matter how you slice it.
To not be one of the 775 million people in the world who are illiterate
(Hammer, Global Rate of Adult Literacy) makes me extremely fortunate. Illiterate
people are entitled to the same rights as me or my peers, but its been said that the world
is a small place for someone who cant read (Hammer, Global Rate of Adult
Literacy.) In the information era, being able to string letters into words and post them
online alone can garner attention for an idea. The widespread charity drive for Kony
was mostly brought about, and thoroughly disbunked through social media. Facebook
alone allowed a Ice Bucket Challenge to become a notable factor in a Californian
draught virtually overnight. Being able to read and write, and in turn express ones
thoughts on the internet has fast become crucial to voice ones problems.
The existence of college-level essays are indicative of this view. How does a
person have their theories and opinions recognized by an academic instruction? A
literate, well-read essay.is used to measure critical thinking skills, understanding of
course material, and writing skills (Importance of Essay Writing), but a vocal
presentation is not. A video log is not. A lecture is a yardstick for knowledge once
academic excellence has already been established in print. Writing is a cornerstone in a
persons ability to identify themselves in the modern world.
Is this right? A person who possesses more skills than another is considered
more valuable for purposes of college admission, for a job offer. They get first pick at job
opportunities. The first chapters of the our classroom reading, the Pact emphasize how
illiteracy imposes difficulty on basic duties in society like taxes. The Constitution does

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not stipulate that an illiterate person in the United States have less rights. Indeed, in the
Jim Crow South, illiterate Caucasian farmers were given more voting weight than even
their educated African-American counterparts. There is a legal precedent that one person
is equal to another regardless of literacy or in general, competence.
Have we decided this is true for practical reasons? If a picture is worth a thousand
words, will it garner the same job opportunities that those same words could? If it is,
writing is not simply important, formative or any number of terms. The written word
would then be identity itself in the modern world.
Coming from an Asian-American family, I always knew English better than
Korean. It was more utilitarian for working in California and dealing with people. The
complexity of English as a language made it difficult for my parents to pick up late in
life. If youve never known another language, you might take for granted just how
complicated English is. Rather than having an order for words that indicate importance
like Japanese, we have rules regarding transitivity, passive and active sentences.
Pronunciation of words changes dependent on the order of vowels, and we draw from
dozens of languages for words that are now colloquial. Asian languages tend to have a
system for pronouncing foreign words romaji for Romanized words in Japanese, for
example. In English, youre simply obligated to understand individual cases, there being
no centralized rules dictating what methods to apply in broad strokes.
Being told youre talented or smart because of your English prowess is a strange
thing for me. My dad is a doctor, both of my parents got degrees in universities often
both in Korea and the U.S. I didnt understand how simply being able to speak in a
somewhat-coherent manner somehow made me good. While they couldnt correct

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grammatical mistakes I made in most cases, my parents consistently forced the written
word upon me, fostered a natural curiosity and desire to read. With smartphones having
become an everyday possession, Im called upon every day to help with this or that,
wording a text to send to one of my mothers clients. Being able to formulate sentences in
English flawlessly was a point of honor.
At my mothers workplace, the majority of employees are Chinese-Americans,
usually first-generation immigrants with only a hypothetical understanding of English.
They entered real estate before even going through the American educational system due
to the financial incentives involved in brokering and selling ones own homes. My
mother, having lived in the US for an extended time and going to a local college, had the
distinct advantage of being the first person wealthy English-speaking clients went to, and
she considered her own skills far from perfect.
My father likes to regale myself and my sister with stories of his medical school
days in Chicago. Hed often joke this nurse or this coworker would compliment his
English skill. Dates would happen from the simple ability to articulate his thoughts well.
Maybe it was half-joking, but hes never taken that ability for granted. The reality check
for me is realizing what that means for a natural English speaker like me, with access to
the information age and a colossal international community that is frequently linked by
simple websites. An estimated 39% of the world is linked by the internet4. Its been said
that lacking access to the internet is not just a function of being poor, but also a reason
some people stay poor (Smith, Internet Access Digital Age.) When a persons
livelihood is frequently dependent on a text-based source of information, illiteracy
becomes more than causation for problems. It maintains a status quo, frequently one that

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has crippling results for the community at large. India has been stated to have a colossal
illiterate population at 287 million, amounting to 37 per cent of the global total (India
Tops in Adult Illiteracy), a fact frequently correlated as a major cause for its lack of a
middle class.
Even here in the United States, where we tend to have enjoyed a literacy rate
much higher than the world at large, illiteracy has been used as a tool to separate people
and deny their rights. So much so that Jim Crow states were forced to enact Grandfather
Clauses to allow illiterate farmers to retain superiority over African-American citizens.
One of the first things Malcolm X did as a step toward empowering himself was reading
a dictionary in prison, word-by-word to learn English. He believed that the ability to
read awoke some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. (Malcolm X, Learning
to Read.) He would later attribute his knowledge of current events to his readings in
prison.
Its a song weve heard the words to many times before. You need to be literate to
have a voice, an identity. Allen Ginsberg once underlined the irony in gaining your own
voice required that an individual had to forget about having it heard. Has oral history
become entirely redundant as a tool of education? Our demographic, American college
students, often take it for granted that we live in a time where we can satiate most
curiosities of fact with a clear signal and a few taps on a phone screen. Its harder thus to
imagine how poorly we understand the importance of literacy in the modern world,
having been so coddled by it.

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Works Cited
Smith, S. E. "Australian High Court Legally Recognizes Nonbinary Gender Identities -But The News Isn't All Good." XoJanecom RSS. N.p., 4 Apr. 2014. Web. 16 Sept.
2014.
Hammer, Kate. "Global Rate of Adult Literacy: 84 per Cent, but 775 Million People Still
Can't Read." The Globe and Mail. N.p., 7 Sept. 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.
"Importance of Essay Writing in University Learning." Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 16
Sept. 2014.
"World Internet Users Statistics Usage and World Population Stats." World Internet
Users Statistics Usage and World Population Stats. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept.
2014.
Smith, Gerry. "Without Internet, Urban Poor Fear Being Left Behind In Digital Age."
The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 Mar. 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.
"India Tops in Adult Illiteracy: U.N. Report." The Hindu. N.p., 29 Jan. 2014. Web. 16
Sept. 2014.
"MALCOLM X, LEARNING TO READ." MALCOLM X, LEARNING TO READ. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.