Resendis 1

Thomas Resendis
Professor Beadle
English 113B
11 May 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 (Levithan 1). 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 (Levithan 1). Although one might 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 on the exterior because he might have a greatly negative impact on the
persons life of who he is that day. As identity is unique because although he is unable to show
who he externally he is caring, aware, and adaptable.
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

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keeping himself a secret one can say that his identity is somewhat mysterious but also caring
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 due to his nature he had no say in what he
was able to do. A, as an 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. Some days he wakes
up and he is in a well-respected house hold were the family is organized and unified and other
times he wakes up in a family where there is no communication and no one gets along. A has this
unique identity of adaptation. 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.

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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
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

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example of culture and ambition. Your surroundings and struggles define your goals and therefor
creates your identity.
Identity and culture work together to help form a person. A person from two parts of the
world can have the same behaved but that does not mean they have the same goals or the same
mind set. For example, in Every Day the character A can be said to be a nice person because
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. In page 127 in Eevery Day the character a is in Kelseas body
and notices that she is depressed. Meanwhile he is in her body he is sad because he knows he
cannot intervene in her problems, but he really wants to help her. I am in control of the body,
and as long as I am in control of the body, I will not allow it to hurt itself (Levithan 127). This
shows that A cares about the people he is in but he knows he cannot help without effecting the
person in some sort of way. Other people are different such as, a 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 by Donna Kate Rushin, she explains how she was a part of two
different types of cultures. 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

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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 link between both cultures and one can conclude from that she has a unique identity that
contains two cultures. Like Rushin, A has similar struggles because he is not just in one culture,
he was connected to everyone and also had no choice but to live with it. They both had to be a
link of some sort because she was used to communicate with one another race and A was a link
between the body of the person he was that day to the persons every people. They both went
through a struggle realizing that their identity was already set for them to be a link between
people.
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.
Those are two great ways to adapt to each culture. In a way this is the same thing that 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. When A wakes up every day he has to quickly go through the persons
mind to figure out who he is in order to fit that persons role for that day. 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. Both of them are faced with more than one

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culture that they can be the only difference is that Valdes has a choice on what culture she wants
to be and A has to fill the role of the person he is in that day.
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
"The Bridge Poem. Donna Kate Rushin (1981)." The Bridge Poem | Donna Kate Rushin (1981).
N.p., n.d. Web.
Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa. My Hips, My Caderas How to Read Reflections: 73-75. Print

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