essay

Claim: The ancestral origins, heritage and such factors as language, naming practices, physical characteristics, religion, and family customs and traditions of an individual influence the features of one's identity, construction of gender roles and their behavioral models.

Paragraph 1. Introduction

Thesis statement: One's ancestral origins, heritage, family traditions, ethnic customs and social environment shaped by the influence of behavioral norms commonly accepted in a certain ethnic community greatly influence a person's identity, personality and further interaction with the local and global communities.

Paragraph 2. General influence of my ancestral origins and heritage on shaping my identity and personality traits: family traditions, parents' example of behavior later interpreted as beliefs, and parental influence later adopted as self-evaluation aspects.

Topic sentence: I was brought up with the traditional family values instilled in my initial understanding of family as the central institution.

Support: Family values, family traditions (example: preservation of traditional arts), beliefs and self-evaluation aspects adopted from parental influence.

Transition: Of course, family was a primary institution for me to learn the traditions and values at a young age, and this helped me to enter a larger social community.

Paragraph 3. Traditional naming practices, physical characteristics and religion of my native region as the key factors influencing the racial and ethnic features of my identity.

Topic sentence: Stretching my interaction from family to my domestic community as I grew up showed me what different physical characteristics, family traditions and practices and religious motives other people in my local area had.

Support: Naming practices in Indonesia, family values from a larger community perspective, religious tensions.

Transition: Simultaneously, growing in my native community strengthened my cultural values and made me more inclined towards preserving my ethnic traditions, which, in its turn, made me more vulnerable in terms of observing cultural norms and family traditions drastically different from my native ones, and increased the risks of me becoming a target of oppression when it comes to gender roles and my identity within a foreign community.

Paragraph 4. The construction of gender roles within my family tradition and its influence on me as a target of oppression in respect to opposite gender, as well as on my identity within a larger community.

Support: Targets Survival skill set as a necessity to adopt to the social trends of the country where I currently reside.

Transition: I can become more knowledgeable of the peculiarities involved in the gender role construction which are unfamiliar or unusual to me, and preserve my own identity at the same time.

Paragraph 5. Conclusion

Ancestral origins and heritage along with their components greatly influence one's racial and ethnic identity, construction of gender roles and their behavioral models