Raymond Evans
ENG 123
Eric Drown
February 11th 2019
Expressing my abilities to integrate my own personal ideas and opinions is something I never thought that I personally struggled with. My problem when first walking on campus was learning how to correctly write what I was was trying to say along with my opinions and observations of what i am reading and learning about. For example in my Yoshino essay i learned and found interesting that there are people like Appiah that think identities are a lie. I used the quote “identities can break people apart just as much as it can pull people together” because i was very interested and thrown back by the fact that even the person saying this has an identity to people. What he is writing about is his opinion and makes him unique of course but as a writer would he not like to be identified as that? Also another question I had about this was what would his alternative be to things like names that give not only people but objects an identity to everyone. I used this as an object of analysis in my essay to later explain what i personally felt he meant as well as what should be learned about what he is saying. I used Kenji Yoshino’s idea of “covering” as well in this essay to provide background information. I used the quote “focused on what pulls us together instead of what pulls us apart.” He defines True Self as the self that gives an individual the best feeling of being real which is the most exciting way for a person to feel like they are existing. True Self is the most honest way a person can exist with themselves and also coexist with the objects and the world surrounding them. Yoshino says it correlates most with self “spontaneity and authenticity”. I also used the Appiah quote to change the direction of the conversation so that people I could talk about how people with a different way of thinking approach the idea of having an identity. “People do not realize that as a society it is and should be ok to have different people in different groups throughout different communities. These differences should be embraced into what makes our culture and society unique.” I use this quote in my own words to offer my stance and give a reader a new idea to wrestle with about my essay. I use after I shared Yoshino’s stance and opinions to give an insight of what I wrestles with abd show what conclusions i came to.
