I have three social identities that I identify myself with: Ethnicity, Socioeconomic status, and

age. In elementary and junior high school, introducing myself was a highlight to start my school
year in a new school because I would tell people that I was born in a different country, and I
loved seeing their shocked reaction when I tell them I was born in a country that they didn’t
expect. My ethnicity was a topic of conversation when I was young but as I grew older, that
information seemed less and less relevant as I joined different circles in my later years. Despite
being born in Europe to Filipino parents, I was always identified by others as Chinese,
Vietnamese, or Korean due to the shape of my eyes. In the past, I've been asked what country I
was from and I would say Belgium, and I remember their response being “Oh, I thought you
were Vietnamese/ Chinese/ Korean.” I am not offended when people assume that. The topic of
ethnicity never really bothered me because no one slandered me for it. I later learned that the
topic of ethnicity has become a touchy subject for some people so I stopped asking questions
about it later in life. Nonetheless, my ethnicity helped me identify myself as a unique individual
of culture, and that used to be a great conversation starter. I am a Filipino, born in Europe, and I
look east Asian. That is a third of my social identity.

Socioeconomic status is a bit of a touchy subject for me, but I feel like it’s too important to
glance over. I admit my parents spoiled me as a child, and have since cringed at who I was as a
kid. Our family was “well-off” in the past, however, due to some bad financial decisions, our
economic status has fallen a bit. It’s fallen enough to know how stressful it can be to catch up on
bills and rent. I learned this lesson at 12 years old. My socioeconomic status when my family had
money and when we didn’t help me visualize what life was like on both sides of the fence. I
knew the vanity, flexing, and chase of frivolous material things people often do when they have
money, and I also knew about skipping tuition payments, rent, electricity, and sometimes even
groceries when there was no money coming in. Socioeconomic status also affected the groups of
people I would associate with. I had different groups of friends when I was well off, I also had
different groups of friends when I had fallen through hard times. Right now, we’re in I’d say, the
middle. Socioeconomic status is the largest part of my social identity because it places me in
social brackets and groups of people that share the same experiences and struggles.

Finally, we come to age. After my previous college had closed down due to a lack of funds, I
have been forced to transfer schools. One of FEU’s policies about transferring is that they would
only accept 25% of my units, returning me to first-year college. This stage in my life certainly is
awkward, because I’m a couple of years older than my classmates. It may be a positive thing to
have some seniority, but it’s also awkward being in a room with no one the same age as you. I
guess the place I feel I belong in is the smoking area called Lerma behind our school building
because I meet and smoke with people who are of the same age or older. Often there are
discussions I don’t care to join because I’ve lost interest in them due to age, so I just find an
excuse to be somewhere else so it not to be awkward. Age is also another important factor in my
social identity because, like socioeconomic status, it isolates and groups me with people who
share the same experiences they have had. From observation, I see freshmen as giddy and uppity
to try things like going out to a bar or getting a tattoo, but people in my age group have already
graduated and are moving on to more meaningful things. Despite age being a touchy subject, it is
also a huge part of my social identity.