Resendis 1

Thomas Resendis
Professor Beadle
English 113B
4 April, 2016
Identity and Culture
Figuring out who you are takes more than one day. It takes years to know what one
enjoys and what one wants in life. To build an identity one must mold themselves by selfexperience and self-knowledge. But to do so they must be themselves every day. In the novel
Every Day by David Levithan the character A plays an interesting role because he is a person that
switches bodies every day and has a hard time figuring out his own identity Every day I am
someone else. I am myself- I know I am myself- but Im also someone else. (Levithan1). This
shows the internal struggle that A is having to fully understand his own persona. In order to fully
understand oneself, one must have their own background and understanding of their own culture
and goals. The character A is unfortunately unable to have such a privilege because of the fact
that he switches bodies every day and has to be someone new all the time. I wake up.
Immediately I have to figure out who I am. (Levithan1). Although one many say that the
character A does have an identity because he knows who he is internally it is hard for him to
actually show who he is in the exterior because he might have a greatly negative impact on the
persons life of who he is that day.
In the novel Every Day the character A has to live his life trying to fit the culture and
identity of the body he is hosting that day. He has to make sure that the parents of the children do
not notice that it is someone else in the body because his identity has to remain a secret. In
keeping himself a secret one can say that his identity is somewhat mysterious but also caring

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because he does not want to harm the children in any way. But because he is living in the
shadows it is hard for him to express who he really is or more so how he is actually feeling. He
has lived all his life hiding himself until the moment he met Rhiannon. Once he spent the day
with her he never wanted to let that day go but sadly do to his nature he had no say in what he
was able to do. A, as am individual has traits of his own like his identity is caring and hidden.
Caring because he knows that if he does not perform the role of the person he is in that that may
affect the person negatively in his life because he has done it before. Later on A struggles to
maintain contact with Rhiannon because of his love for her but she cannot love him physically
because he switches bodies every day.
Identity is a unique personality of oneself. A persons identity comes from many factors
such as culture. Culture is the broad topic that contains a few of the following: food, music,
traditions, people, art, etc. This comes to show that the character A has a few struggles internally
because it is hard for him to fully express these traits to the public because he is never just one
person. Although A cannot say that he is part of a large culture one can say that he is part of
many cultures because everybody that he is in is different from any other. He has learned to
adapt quickly to each environment that he is in and that is also a unique trait. but it is still
difficult to say that he is part of a common culture. His identity is unique but he is never able to
fully express it to the public. The only one that really knows his identity is Rhiannon.
Identity is important to have for every person because it defines who you are and why
you are unique. Having a unique personality makes you who you are and also tells people how
you are. A person that works in the construction may be humble like a person that works in a
huge corporate but their culture is different and their goals are different. Another example is that
a middle class person may not have the same advantage as a rich person. Obviously the rich

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person will have an easier time being exposed to many different activities because of the wealth
they possess. The culture that someone lives in can be the surrounding they grow up with or the
wealth they have during their life time.
Culture is your surroundings. It is the traditions you grow up it, it is the people you grow
up with. Every person is normally a reflection of their culture. I met a man that was born in a
poor environment that was in a suburban area, Melvin Sokolsky. The fact he person was born in
a poor family, it made his ambition and goals even higher so that he would be working day to
day to make sure he eats the next day. He worked hard every day hustling to make sure he makes
enough money to feed his family since his dad was unable to work anymore. He started working
as a janitor in a body building gym. The surrounding of the gym made his realize what people
needed there in order to be fully satisfied so he built a tanning machine that people had to pay a
quarter to use. This was a start to his great success. After a few weeks he also decided to make
clothing for the body builders because he knew that it was difficult for them to find clothing that
would fit into them. After a few months he had enough money to buy himself a camera. Once he
had the camera his life was changed forever. He told me he took a few pictures that a newspaper
wanted to use so he sold them. Later on the newspaper company hired him to be the
photographer and then set him to a later on great career. Now he is a professional photographer
that has recently won an award for best pictures taken within one hundred years. This is a great
example of culture and ambition. Your surroundings and struggles define your goals and therefor
creates your identity.
Identity and culture work together to help for a person. A person from two parts of the
world can be the same behaved but that does not mean they have the same goals or the same
mind set. For example, in Every Day the charancter A can be said to be a nice person because

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every time he is on someones body he makes sure that he acts like them so that no one would
notice anything different or so that he does not hurt or effect their lives in a negative form. But
his niceness was created through the struggles that he has gone though and by experience when
he actually hurt a person before. Whereas another person could be born with the same niceness
but was taught that because it was said to be proper behavior. Another example is the way people
eat. Both of the people can be nice and have ethical ideas but they might not have the same
manners on eating. One can chew with their mouth open while the other does not. This all comes
from the culture they were raised from. The teachings of their parents help mold them to be who
they are and have a somewhat set identity.
In the poem The Bridge the woman has two cultures that she is a part of. The white
culture and the black culture and she describes how she is used to link both of them together. She
has a struggle understanding why she is who she is. She says that when a white person wants to
communicate with a black person that they go to her to tell them what they were going to say and
the same the other way around. She did not want to be this person that they use as a link each
other with but she really did not have a say on who she was supposed to be because she was born
like this. In knowing this she decided that she had to be the link between both of them because if
it was not her then who could it be. she chose to be the ling between both cultures and one can
conclude from that she has a unique identity that contains two cultures.
Having two identities does not always have to be stressing all the time. In the article My
Hips My Caderas by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez she explains how she would use both of her
cultures to her advantage. Whenever she needed someone to love her and be affectionate towards
her she would go to the Hispanic side of her culture and stay there for a while but when she
needed someone to like her for her intelligence she would be in the American side of her culture.

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There are two great ways to adapt to each culture. In a way this is the same thing the A is going
though in Every Day. Switching bodies everyday trying to fit in to every culture that he is faced
with when waking up. It is the same thing with Valdes, she has to wake us and see the situation
she is in and decide who she is going to be that day and who she is going to be around that day.
Because of her physical looks people know that she is not all Caucasian but she is also part of a
Hispanic community. She would get teased because of her hips. She said that she knew that most
Hispanics wanted hips like hers and most white women tried to get rid of the hips they had.
In the article Regulative or Constitutive Behaviors: Culture and Identity in Human
Interaction it explains how people send signals to attract other humans. This is natures because
that is one-way people learn to get along with others or even have relationships with others. But
this is a problem for A because since he is not really himself everyday it is hard for him to stay
with the same friends or even have stable friends. He eventually gives up on having friends until
he meets Rhiannon. One he meets this girl he tries to stay with her as long as he can and has a
hard time trying to let go of her.
Overall A may have a unique personality and vast knowledge of many cultures but he
does not have a true culture that he can strictly say that it is his. He struggles internally because
he wants to fully express his emotions towards Rhiannon but cannot because he may affect the
life of the person that he is in that day. But A found a temporary way to talk to her through social
media but still struggles with actually physically wanting to be with her.

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Work Cite
Cassell, Justine. "Regulative or Constitutive Behaviors: Culture and Identity in Human
Interaction."Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Social Signal Processing,
(2010): 71-72

Levithan, David. Every Day. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Print
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