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Identity and Belonging

Who am I? Where do I belong? These are questions that all of humankind has asked

themselves throughout history. But how does one form their identity? Are they born with it? Do

they pick and choose from different things as they go through life? There are many things that

affect one’s identity. In Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, many of the characters’ lives and

identities are impacted by the influence of tradition, roots, and religion their parents have on

them. But they also take their identity into their own hands, making their own choices along the

way to decide who they want to become. In The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay, told through the

eyes of the daughter, the adoptive mother, and the birth mother, the daughter experiences the

impact adoption has on her identity and begins a journey of finding herself. In White Teeth and

The Adoption Papers, it is clear that a person is not born with an identity; the people in their

lives, the environment in which they grow up, and the choices that an individual makes affect

who they become.

If a person is not born with an identity, how does one form it? In their article “Identity

Theory and Social Identity Theory,” authors Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke state that people

categorize themselves according to certain social groups or classifications, and that “through the

process of self-categorization or identification, an identity is formed” (224). According to social

identity theory, “a social identity is a person’s knowledge that he or she belongs to a social

category or group” which is “a set of individuals who hold a common social identification or

view themselves as members of the same social category” (Stets and Burke 225). According to

identity theory, “the core of an identity is the categorization of the self as an occupant of a role,

and the incorporation, into the self, of the meanings and expectations associated with that role

and its performance” (Stets and Burke 225). Bekir Emiroglu asserts in his article “Construction
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of Social Identity and Religion” that “a unique cultural climate is formed with the gathering

individuals around common language, history, culture and belief. Individuals living in this

cultural climate, even if they belong to different social categories, have many characteristics of

common identity” (98). An analysis of Magid and Millat in White Teeth shows how their

environment and social groups affect their identities. Their father Samad wants nothing more

than to have his sons return to their roots, their true identity as Muslims, because in his opinion,

British culture is corrupting them. Samad believes that “tradition was culture, and culture led to

roots, and these were good, these were untainted principles” (Smith 161). However, his plans

backfire on him.

Millat is a rebellious son. The trouble is that he is “the second son, late like a bus, late

like cheap postage, the slowcoach, the catch-up kid, losing that first race down the birth canal,

and now simply a follower by genetic predisposition, by the intricate design of Allah, the loser of

two vital minutes that he would never make up, not in those all-seeing parabolic mirrors, not in

those glassy globes of the godhead, not in his father’s eyes” (Smith 181). This problem leads to

Millat treating everything like a game that he has to win. He forms a social identity with a group

of troublemakers and becomes their leader. They call themselves Millat’s Crew and consider

themselves to be of a particular breed called “Raggastani” (Smith 192). They speak a mix of

different languages; they invoke Allah, but only when they want to, since he’s merely there as

more of “a collective big brother than a supreme being”; and their main mission is to “put the

Invincible back in Indian, the Bad-aaaass back in Bengali, the P-Funk back in Pakistani” (Smith

192). Millat considers himself to be both British and Bengali, with his foot in both worlds, but is

conflicted about his identity because he knows that he is not fully one or the other. Stets and

Burke report that people “may categorize themselves in particular ways (in a group or a role) not
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only to fulfill the need to feel valuable and worthy…but also to feel competent and effective”

(233). Millat proves this to be true when he later joins an Islamic extremist group called KEVIN.

While religion can play an important role in one’s identity, as it does in Samad’s case, Millat

cares more about a sense of belonging and acceptance. He does try to follow KEVIN’s rules, but

at the same time “understood that to rely on faith, as his own father did, was contemptible. And

no one could say he didn’t give 100 percent to the cause. That seemed enough for KEVIN. They

were more than happy with his real forte, which was the delivery of the thing. The presentation”

(Smith 367). Millat refuses to let his identity be dictated by his father’s wishes. He feels a strong

desire to prove himself, to be in charge, to win. He chooses to act on his own terms, and in short,

is on his way to becoming a fundamentalist.

Magid, on the other hand, turns to science and the law. After being sent to Bangladesh to

rediscover his roots, Magid returns to be a lawyer and is seen by his father as “more English than

the English” (Smith 336). He speaks and dresses in a proper, civilized manner; he eats food that

Muslims aren’t to eat. And while his brother Millat has KEVIN, Magid has his own clan devoted

to science. Samad is furious, declaring that they have no right to interfere with God’s creation.

But Magid thinks otherwise. With science, there are “no other roads, no missed opportunities, no

parallel possibilities. No second-guessing, no what-ifs, no might-have-beens. Just certainty. Just

certainty in its purest form. And what more, thought Magid—once the witnessing was over, once

the mask and gloves were removed, once the white coat was returned to its hook—what more is

God than that?” (Smith 405). In her article “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating

Ethnic Identity and Culture,” author Joane Nagel asserts that “as the individual (or group) moves

through daily life, ethnicity can change according to variations in the situations and audiences

encountered. Ethnic identity, then, is the result of a dialectical process involving internal and
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external opinions and processes, as well as the individual’s self-identification and outsiders’

ethnic designations—i.e., what you think your ethnicity is, versus what they think your ethnicity

is" (154). Magid self-identifies as British, despite his father wanting him to identify as a Bengali

with Muslim beliefs.

To Samad, home and roots equals Muslim tradition and a firm cultural background.

However, in his article “After the Century of Strangers: Hospitality and Crashing in Zadie

Smith’s ‘White Teeth’,” author Ryan Trimm states that “White Teeth looks toward a world

where habitation is dependent on provisional and shifting relations, where roots and home no

longer provide defining and confining anchorages” (170). This is true for both Magid and Millat;

by the end of the novel, both have stepped away from the pressure their father was putting upon

them and instead took their identities into their own hands.

In addition to culture and tradition, adoption also plays an important role in identity

formation. The question of “Who am I?” turns into the question, “Who am I as an adopted

person?” In their article “Adoptive Identity: How Contexts Within and Beyond the Family Shape

Developmental Pathways,” authors Harold D. Grotevant and others state that “for persons who

were adopted, this question adds layers of complexity because they have different parents of

birth and rearing and because the knowledge of their biological heritage may be incomplete”

(379). Adoptees may feel the need to research their biological origins and to know if they have

inherited any medical or genetic risks. Transracially or internationally adopted children are

especially prone to facing challenges, because their physical appearance is almost always

different than their adoptive family. This can lead to a questioning of belonging and problems

with racism. It is also important to note that “because most aspects of adoption do not concern

things that the person has chosen, the task of identity involves ‘coming to terms’ with oneself in
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the context of the family and culture into which one has been adopted” (Grotevant et al. 382). In

The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay, the adoptive daughter must face all of these challenges.

The daughter wants to know from the very beginning who her birth mother is. She looks

for her original birth certificate and begins to wonder, “All this bother, certificates, papers. / It is

all so long ago. Does it matter?” (Kay 20). She experiences racism at school, when her

classmates call her names and her teacher tells her derogatory things about herself. As a black

adopted child of two white Scottish parents, the daughter reflects, “I can see my skin is that

colour / but most of the time I forget, / so sometimes when I look in the mirror / I give myself a

bit of a shock / and say to myself Do you really look like this? / as if I’m somebody else” (Kay

27). She doesn’t know what kind of diseases she might get because of her genetics and she has to

tell doctors that she doesn’t know her family history. They keep trying to make it matter, and she

admits that she wants to know her blood (Kay 29).

In his article “Adoption Losses: Naturally Occurring or Socially Constructed?” author

Irving G. Leon says, “Adoptees who are placed in the first days or weeks of life grieve not only

for the parents they never knew, but for the other aspects of themselves that have been lost

through adoption: the loss of origins, of a completed sense of self, of genealogical continuity”

(652). The adopted daughter feels that she cannot know who she truly is unless she is able to find

and meet her biological mother. She thinks of her birth mother as “faceless” and thinks that

“once would be enough, / just to listen to her voice / watch the way she moves her hands when

she talks” (Kay 30). However, while a relationship with a birth parent may help some adoptees,

it is not always the case that it is beneficial. Leon argues that it is important to challenge the

“socially constructed schema of the ‘real’ (i.e. biological) mother” (655). As evident in The

Adoption Papers, the daughter is seeking a relationship with her birth mother to “consolidate a
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sense of identity through filling in the missing pieces of one’s genetic background and acquiring

a clear history of one’s biological family” (Leon 656).

But the idea that blood relations is what truly bonds one person to another is false. When

an adopted child has been raised his or her whole life by their adopted parents, they have a much

stronger bond with them than they do their biological mother or father. Leon states, “Contact

with the birthmother destroys that part of the motherhood myth that claims the primacy of the

biological blood bon. When these adoptees confronted the reality of a ‘stranger’ who they had to

get to know, they recognized the fallacy of this myth” (656). The adopted daughter experiences

this like a bucket of cold water to the face. She has imagined what her birth mother would be like

for so long, but their reunion is disappointing. The daughter has created an image of her mother

in her mind, but in reality, she is nothing but a distant stranger. The daughter thinks, “If I picture

it like this it hurts less” and realizes “nothing is what it was” (Kay 33). The reunion is not what

she imagined it would be, and her birth mother says that she never imagined their reunion

because it would have driven her mad (Kay 33). The daughter realizes, “There is nothing left to

say / Neither of us mentions meeting again” (Kay 33). Recognizing that she must now find her

identity outside of her mother, the daughter has the closure she needs to decide who she wants to

be.

In White Teeth and The Adoption Papers, identity is clearly something that individuals

must discover for themselves. In White Teeth, rather than succumbing to their father’s wishes,

Magid and Millat each choose their own paths. They create for themselves a sense of belonging

in their own respective groups—Millat with KEVIN and Magid with science and law—and form

identities separate from their parents’ identities. In The Adoption Papers, the daughter realizes

that a relationship with her birth mother is not a magical solution to her problems. It will not
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answer the questions she has about who she is; she must find that out for herself. An identity is

not an innate thing that someone is born with. Instead, it is something that is formed through

things that people experience, the groups they spend time with, and by choices that each

individual makes—all to answer the question: Who do I want to be?

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Works Cited

Emiroglu, Bekir. “Construction of Social Identity and Religion.” International Journal of

Eurasia Social Sciences / Uluslararasi Avrasya Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 11, no. 39,

Mar. 2020, pp. 92–117. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.35826/ijoess.2699.

Grotevant, Harold D., et al. “Adoptive Identity: How Contexts within and beyond the Family

Shape Developmental Pathways.” Family Relations, vol. 49, no. 4, 2000, pp. 379–87,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/585833.

Kay, Jackie. The Adoption Papers. Bloodaxe Books, 1991.

Leon, Irving G. “Adoption Losses: Naturally Occurring or Socially Constructed?” Child

Development, vol. 73, no. 2, 2002, pp. 652–63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3696380.

Nagel, Joane. “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and

Culture.” Social Problems, vol. 41, no. 1, 1994, pp. 152–76,

https://doi.org/10.2307/3096847.

Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Random House, Inc., New York, 2000.

Stets, Jan E., and Peter J. Burke. “Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory.” Social

Psychology Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 3, 2000, pp. 224–37, https://doi.org/10.2307/2695870.

Trimm, Ryan. “After the Century of Strangers: Hospitality and Crashing in Zadie Smith’s ‘White

Teeth.’” Contemporary Literature, vol. 56, no. 1, 2015, pp. 145–72,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/24734965.