Tag: family

Wearing Trust and Acceptance

Four pieces of jewelry. Two bracelets and two rings tell the story of three generations of fiercely string women. First, a pink diamond ring, set to look like three heart, and the second with a birthstone setting. Third, a secret message in the form of a bracelet and finally a shared symbol connecting us all. The first ring was given to me by my mother on my 10th birthday, the second by my grandmother on my 13th birthday. The bracelets were given to me by my mother for my high school graduation and 18th birthday respectively. These pieces don’t only serve as a symbol of our time together but also as a symbol of trust and love.

These relate to the our class as they were given to me by those who raised me much like how Hao in The Legand of Auntie Po passes on traditions and his love of cooking to Mei. Additionally, at the end of the book Hao wants Mei to have all that she wants in life and accepts that in order for her to do that she will have to stop working in the kitchen in order to focus on school. Similarly, my mother and grandmother want the best for me and my life. Further, their acceptance and support for what I want to do with my life continues to motivate me. Finally, their acceptance of who I am, what I want to do, and where I want to go, as reinforced by the jewelry, lets me know that I can and will always be able to talk to them about anything

Identity affected by external factors

Angels in America is a play that discusses the complexity of identity construction affected by external factors. In it, we can see how some characters struggle finding or accepting their identity in a world where being themselves was wrong or against their familiar and religious values.

First, Joe Pitt, a middle-aged Mormon man, who in an attempt to accept himself and his sexual orientation, left his wife Harper to be with Louis. In one of Joe’s first attempts to be open about his sexual orientation, he tells his Mormon mother, Hanna Pitt, and she answers, “You really ought to go home now to your wife. I need to go to bed. This phone call— We will just forget this phone call.” Despite the fact that he is a grown up man, Joe struggles accepting himself, in part, because of the family and religious values he has, which I consider are represented through the character of Hanna who shows herself really closed towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Second, the homosexual couple of Prior Walter and Louis Ironson is in crisis due to the cowardice of Louis to face the AIDS contracted by his partner, and decides to left him not knowing which was his role in this situation. The character of Louis is described during the funeral at the beginning of the play as a Jewish man and member of a religious family “how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home” (p.10) In this case, we can also observe the familiar and religious external factor affecting the character’s process of accepting and showing himself as homosexual.

In this play, we can notice the complexity of the character in a constant oscillation between what they consider they should do and what they really want to do in an attempt to accept or discover themselves. We can say that this process is even more affected by the influence of external factors such as their religion, family values, jobs, politics and a whole world that looks at them judging for going against social norms.