Despite its frequent use, the term race is difficult to define. Historically, races were distinguished predominantly by physical aspects of appearance that are generally hereditary. A race was defined as a group with gene frequencies differing from those of other groups. However, many physical anthropologists and other scholars now argue that because there is as much genetic variation among the members of any given race as between racial groups, the concept of race has lost its usefulness (Hirschman, 2003). For more on this contemporary view of race, based on the new tools of DNA analysis, refer to Alternative View: DNA and Racial Identity.

Despite the difficulty in accurately delineating the various races, race is still a relevant concept in most societies, and individuals still align themselves with specific racial groups, which we discuss next.

Racial identity, the identification with a particular racial group, develops as a result of societal forces—because society defines what a race is and what it is called. This means that racial categories are not necessarily the same from country to country. For example, the 2001 census in the United Kingdom did not include Chinese in the “Asian/Asian British” category, but the 2011 census “re-positioning of the ‘Chinese’ tick box from ‘Any other ethnic group’ to Asian/Asian British” shows that these racial categories are fluid (Office of National Statistics, 2012). Their census includes the “Irish Traveller” category that the U.S. census does not.

Even within the United States the categorization of racial groups has varied over time. The category Hispanic first appeared on the U.S. census form as a racial category in 1980. In the 2000 census, however, Hispanic was categorized as an ethnicity, which one could select in addition to selecting a racial identity. Therefore, one could be both Asian (a race) and Hispanic (an ethnicity), or one could be both white (a race) and Hispanic (again, an ethnicity). Similarly, as Susan Koshy (2004) has noted, people from India were once labeled “non-white Caucasians,” but today are categorized with Asian Americans on the U.S. census. These categorizations are important because historically they have affected the way people are treated. Although discrimination based on race is no longer legal, we continue to live with its consequences. For example, although slavery ended almost 150 years ago in the United States, many churches, schools, and other social institutions remain racially segregated (Hacker, 2003).

What do you think you would do if a total stranger began making racist or other bigoted comments to you? How would you react? This ABC News segment examines how some people responded in a situation like this:

Although people often think of racial categories as scientifically or biologically based, the ways they have changed over time and differ across cultures highlight their cultural rather than their biological basis. How cultures describe and define specific races affects who is considered to belong to a given race and, consequently, how those individuals are treated. As anthropologist Gloria Marshall explains: “Comparative studies of these popular racial typologies show them to vary from place to place; studies of these popular racial classifications also show them to vary from one historical period to another” (1993, p 117). Moreover, communication is a strong factor in furthering, affecting, or altering racial categories and identities to serve different social needs. For example, Guzman and Valdivia (2004) studied the media images of three Latinas—Salma Hayek, Frida Kahlo, and Jennifer Lopez—to see how gender and Latinidad are reinforced through the media (see Chapter 11). Face-to-face communication also influences peoples’ ideas about racial identities. If individuals have little contact with people of a different racial group, it is especially likely that one or two encounters may lead them to draw conclusions about the entire group.

Beginning with the 2000 census, the U.S. government has allowed people to claim a multiracial identity (Jones & Smith, 2001). This category recognizes that some people self-identify as having more than one racial identity. So, how should we categorize Barack Obama? Although “there is much to celebrate in seeing Obama’s victory as a victory for African Americans,” writer Marie Arana (2008) also thinks that “Obama’s ascent to the presidency is more than a triumph for blacks.” She feels that “Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president.” What difference does it make if we see Obama as our first African American president or as our first biracial president? As you think through this issue, you can see the complexities of race and racial politics within a culture.

Multiracial identities have arisen as a result of history as well. The Dutch colonization of Indonesia led to many mixed race children who were known as “Indische Nederlanders,” or Dutch Indonesians. The actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar is an example of a Dutch Indonesian. There is even a Facebook page devoted to the Dutch Indonesian community. What other multiracial identities have resulted from the many ways that people have migrated around the world (e.g., through colonization, slavery, wars, invasions, and so on)?

Racial identity can often be confused and conflated with national identity. We often misuse the notion of nationality when we ask someone “What’s your nationality?” but what we really want to know is their ancestry or ethnic background. Nationality or national identity refers to a person’s citizenship. In other words, Lady Gaga’s nationality is not Italian, but U.S. American because she holds U.S. citizenship. John F. Kennedy’s nationality was not Irish; he was a U.S. citizen. Many U.S. Americans did not actively choose their national identity; they simply acquired it by being born in the United States. Although many of us have not actively chosen our national identity, most of us are content with—or even proud—of it.

Like our other identities, the importance placed on national identity can vary, depending on many factors. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the U.S. women’s hockey team came up with the hashtag #dawnsearlylight to promote the U.S. men’s hockey game against Russia which aired at an early hour in the United States. As Sporting Times noted, “Sound familiar? Hopefully, since it’s the second line of the national anthem.” (Negley, 2014). The Olympics are one context that tends to draw on national identities.

In a recent study on Iranian-American and Iranian-Canadian children, M. Razavi found that they use the Internet in developing what she calls “New National Identities” (2013). These youths use the Internet to gather information about the United States or Canada and incorporate this new information into their sense of their national identity. She distinguishes this new national identity from local co-ethnic cultures to highlight the role of the Internet.

Although race and ethnicity are related concepts, the concept of ethnicity is based on the idea of social (rather than genetic) groups. Ethnic groups typically share a national or tribal affiliation, religious beliefs, language, or cultural and traditional origins and background. A person’s ethnic identity comes from identification with a particular group with which they share some or all of these characteristics. Thus, some U.S. citizens say that they are Irish because they feel a close relationship with Irish heritage and custom, even though they are no longer Irish citizens—or perhaps never were. Likewise, in the United States many U.S. Americans think of themselves as Italian, Greek, German, Japanese, Chinese, or Swedish even though they do not hold passports from those countries. Nonetheless, they feel a strong affinity for these places because of their ancestry. Unlike national identity, ethnic identity does not require that some nation’s government recognizes you as a member of its country. It is also unlike racial identity, in that any racial group may contain a number of ethnic identities. For example, people who are categorized racially as white identify with a range of ethnic groups, including Swedish, Polish, Dutch, French, Italian, and Greek.

In other parts of the world, ethnic identities are sometimes called tribal identities. For example, “in Kenya, there are 50 tribes, or ethnic groups, with members sharing similar physical traits and cultural traditions, as well as roughly the same language and economic class” (Wax, 2005, p. 18). Tribal identities are important not only across Africa, but also in many nations around the world, including Afghanistan (Lagarde, 2005). In some societies, tribal or ethnic identity can determine who is elected to office, who is hired for particular jobs, and who is likely to marry whom. In Malaysia the three major ethnic groups are Malay, Indian, and Chinese. Because the Malay are in power and make decisions that influence all three groups, being Malay gives one an important advantage. In the United States, however, the ethnic identities of many white Americans are primarily symbolic because they have minimal influence in everyday life (Waters, 1990). Even if ethnic identity does not play an important role in your life, it can carry great significance in other parts of the world.

Gender identity refers to how and to what extent one identifies with the social construction of masculinity and femininity. Gender roles and expectations have changed enormously over the centuries, and cultural groups around the world differ in their gender expectations. How do we develop our notions of gender, or what it means to be masculine or feminine? We learn through communication: through the ways that people talk about gender, through the media images we see, and through observing the ways people communicate to males and females. For example, although crying is acceptable for girls, young boys receive many messages that they are not supposed to cry.

A leading scholar on gender, Judith Butler (1990, 1993) was one of the first to argue that gender identity is not biological but based on performances. She asserted that people’s identities flow from the ways they have seen them performed in the past. In other words, a man’s performance of male identity rests on previous performances of masculinity. Because the performances of traditional masculinity have been repeated for so long, individuals come to believe that masculine identity and behaviors are natural. However, some people choose to enact their identity in nontraditional ways, and their performances will be interpreted against the backdrop of what is considered acceptable and appropriate. For example, in this video Derek faces bullying because of his involvement in a dance class, which the bullies see as nonmasculine:

A woman taking the last name of the man she marries is a traditional enactment of gender identity. What do you think of this tradition? In this video, a woman discusses her discussion to take her husband’s last name when they marry:

The case of South African runner Caster Semenya underscores the complexity of gender. After Semenya achieved some very fast running times, accusations about her gender arose. If she was not a woman, then she could not compete in women’s track events. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the governing body of track and field events, decided to examine her gender through a series of tests. Although the “details of the medical testing that Semenya underwent will remain confidential” (Zinzer, 2010), the difficulty in knowing Semenya’s gender highlights the complexity of categorizing people. After 11 months in limbo, the IAAF finally cleared her to compete in women’s track events again. The issue of identifying males and females can be problematic (see Table 3.1 for the relative numbers of people who are intersex).

The complexity of how people identify with gender is reflected in Facebook’s 2014 change to the gender options. “Facebook offers 56 options. You can use up to 10 of them on your profile.” (Weber, 2014). Yet, even this array of choices may not capture the diversity of gender identifications possible in people’s everyday lives.

Sexual identity refers to which of the various categories of sexuality one identifies with. Because our culture is dynamic, it has no set number of sexual identity categories, but perhaps the most prominent are heterosexual, gay or lesbian, and bisexual. Although most people in our culture recognize these categories today, they have not always been acknowledged or viewed in the same ways. In his History of Sexuality, French historian and theorist Michel Foucault (1988) notes that over the course of history, notions of sexuality and sexual identities changed. In certain eras and cultures, when children were born with both male and female sexual organs, a condition referred to as intersexuality, they were not necessarily operated on or forced to be either male or female.

Many people think of sexuality or sexual identity as private, but it frequently makes its way into the public arena. In everyday life, we often encounter people who will personally introduce us to their husbands or wives, a gesture that shares a particular aspect of their sexual identity. However, our society often exposes an individual’s sexual identity to public scrutiny. For example, Brian Boitano, the 1988 gold medalist from the Olympics, revealed that he is gay when he was chosen by President Obama to attend the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He said, “I don’t feel that I can represent the country without revealing this incredible side of myself” (qtd in “Brian Boitano,” 2014). In contrast, former congressman Anthony Weiner sending a link to a sexually explicit photo to a twenty-one-year-old woman led to other issues about his sexuality and his need to engage in sexting: “I went from not really thinking through very much to having everything just blow up in such a monumental way, that you’d have to be really blind to not realize there must be some things that I need to resolve here and understand a little better. Therapy wasn’t something that came naturally to me. I am this middle-class guy from Brooklyn, the men in our family don’t hug each other, we don’t talk about our feelings” (qtd. in Van Meter, 2013).

Because identity categories are social constructions, there is not always agreement about what they mean. Clearly, in the public arena, people manipulate these identity categories to help retrieve their reputations when their sexual activities become public.

In daily life, a person’s sexual identity plays a role in such mundane matters as selecting which magazines to read and which television shows and movies to watch, as well as choosing places to socialize, people to associate with, and types of products to purchase. Television shows, magazines, books, Internet sites, and other cultural products are targeted toward particular sexual identities, or they assume a certain level of public knowledge about sexual identities and groups. For example, “The Bachelor/Bachelorette,” “Millionaire Matchmaker,” and “Real Housewives of Orange County” presume an understanding of U.S. heterosexual culture. In contrast, the Logo cable channel is specifically geared to gay and lesbian viewers. “Modern Family” includes gay characters, whereas “Looking” centers gay characters in its storyline. “Glee” and “Orange is the New Black” include transgender characters. These communication texts can reinforce, confirm, or challenge our notions of various categories of sexual identity.

Age, when thought of strictly as the number of years you’ve been alive, is an important identity for everyone. But your age identity is a combination of how you feel about your age as well as what others understand that age to mean. How old is “old”? How young is “young”? Have you noticed how your own notions of age have changed over the years? When you were in first grade, did high school students seem old to you? Although age is a relative term, so are the categories we use for age groups. Today, for example, we use the terms teenager, senior citizen, adult, and minor, but these terms have meaning only within our social and legal system. For example, the voting age is eighteen, but people have to wait until they are twenty-one to buy liquor. Someone who commits a heinous crime can be charged as an adult, even if he or she is not yet eighteen. Still, whether a person feels like an adult goes beyond what the law decrees and comes from some set of factors that is far more complex.

Other age-related concepts are culturally determined as well. For example, the notion of “teenager” has come into use only relatively recently in the United States, and it is certainly not a universal category (Palladino, 1996). The notion that people have “midlife” crises is not a universal cultural phenomenon, either. Moreover, these age categories are relatively fluid, meaning that there are no strict guidelines about where they begin and end, even though they do influence how we think about ourselves (Trethewey, 2001). For example, because people today generally live longer, the span of years thought of as middle age comes later in our lives. These changes all illustrate the dynamic nature of age identity and the categories we have for it.

You probably feel your age identity when you shop for clothes. How do you decide what is “too young” for you? Or what is “too old”? Do you consciously consider the messages your clothing communicates about your age? As you reflect on your shopping experiences, think about the tensions between what you like (the individual forces) and what others might think (societal forces). Here you see the tension that drives all social identities, including age.

Social class identity refers to an informal ranking of people in a culture based on their income, occupation, education, dwelling, child-rearing habits, and other factors (Online Glossary, 2005). Examples of social classes in this country include working class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class. Most people in the United States identify themselves as middle class (Baker, 2003). However, there is no single agreed-on definition for each of the classes. For example, “the “middle class” income range has been described as between $32,900 and $64,000 a year (a Pew Charitable Trusts study), between $50,800 and $122,000 (a U.S. Department of Commerce study), and between $20,600 and $102,000 (the U.S. Census Bureau’s middle 60% of incomes)” (Horn, 2013).

For Ken Eisold, social class “is really more about identity” (qtd. in Horn, 2013). In other words, the amount of money that people earn is only one part of identifying as middle class.

In his work on social class, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) found that people of the same social class tended to view the world similarly: They defined art in similar ways, and they enjoyed similar sports and other aspects of everyday life. Moreover, based on his study of social class, Paul Fussell (1992) noted that U.S. Americans communicate their social class in a wide variety of ways, some verbal and some nonverbal. For example, middle-class people tend to say “tuxedo,” whereas upper-class people are more apt to say “dinner jacket.” In the category of nonverbal elements that express social class identity, he included the clothes we wear, the way we decorate our homes, the magazines we read, the kinds of drinks we imbibe, and the ways we decorate our automobiles. We will discuss more about class and verbal and nonverbal communication in the next two chapters.

Those in occupations such as nursing, teaching, and policing soon may no longer be considered middle class. What other occupations have fallen or might fall from middle-class status? In their study The Fragile Middle Class, Teresa Sullivan and her colleagues noted the increasing numbers of bankruptcy filings (2001), especially among those in occupations that we consider securely middle class, such as teachers, dentists, accountants, and computer engineers. In the wake of the recent recession, there has been increasing public discussion about income inequality and its toll on the middle class. The recession has drawn attention to the very wealthy and the increasing wealth they are amassing while unemployment remains stubbornly high. These discussions may portend a new focus on social class identity.

One reason people in the United States avoid discussing social class is because they tend to believe that their country is based on meritocracy, meaning that people succeed or fail based on their own merit. This idea leads to claims such as “anyone can grow up to be president.” However, this has not proven to be true. For example, until the election of Barack Obama in 2008, every president in the United States has been white, male, and, in all cases but one, Protestant. Social identity and class have a powerful impact on one’s life because they can determine where you go to school (and what quality of education you receive), where you shop (and what quality of resources you have access to), which leisure activities you participate in (on a scale from constructive and enriching to destructive and self-defeating), and who you are most likely to meet and with whom you are mostly likely to socialize. In this way, social class identity tends to reproduce itself; the social class one is born into is often the same as the social class one dies in. People who are working class tend to live around other working-class people, make friends with working-class people (who influence their expectations and behavior), and attend schools that reinforce working-class values. In an early study that showed how communication was used to perform social class identity in conjunction with gender and race, Gerry Philipsen (1992) noted that men tended to speak much less than women and rarely socialized outside their working-class community, which he called “Teamsterville.” More recently, Kristen Lucas (2011) studied how family is an important site for communication messages that “both encourage and discourage social mobility” (p. 95). By examining how families reproduce their working-class identity, we can see how there are contradictory messages sent to the children about social class and moving toward white-collar occupations.

It Happened to Me: Melinda

My parents went through a divorce when I was two, and my mother has worked hard so we could have a comfortable life. Throughout my life, I’ve gone to private schools and universities with other students whose families had much more money than mine. I’ve always tried to fit in with the other students. Recently my mother has gone into debt, and I am having trouble adjusting to this change. I haven’t told any of my upper-class friends because I am afraid they won’t understand my situation. It can be a struggle to be honest with people you don’t think will understand your situation, but it is a struggle that I have to overcome. People should accept each other for who they are, not what social class they fit into.

In our previous example of the 2011 census in India, the census form does not ask people about their caste. In that cultural context, “census officials worried the sensitive subject of caste in multicultural and secular India could upset the results of the population count” (Daigle, 2011). Social class can be a sensitive topic in many cultures. To better understand your own social class identity, see Did You Know? Social Class ID Check.

People can identify with or be identified as disabled for many different reasons. Disability identity is often defined as having an impairment of some kind. Some people experience differences in hearing, sight, or mobility. Not all disabilities are visible or evident to others. In 1990, the United States passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which recognized disability as an important identity that needed federal protection from discrimination. This act also defines “disability” in Section 12102:

The term “disability” means, with respect to an individual

1. a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual;

2. a record of such an impairment; or

3. being regarded as having such an impairment (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990, 2008).

Although this legal definition may be helpful to some, it does not tell us what this identity means and how it is performed by those who identify as disabled, nor does it tell us how disability is viewed by others.

It is through communication that “disability” as an identity gains its meaning in our society. As Deanna Fassett and Dana L. Morella explain,

If we are swimming in a sea of communication, the many meanings that we generate in everyday communication give meaning to disability.

Like other identities, disability is performed; it is “always in the process of becoming, then disability is something we do, rather than something we are” (Henderson and Ostrander, 2008, p. 2). Disability, in this view, is about how it is enacted and lived; it is not about a fixed state of being. For example, in his study on disabled athletes who play wheelchair rugby, Kurt Lindemann found that “performances of disability, especially in a sport context, can subvert the stigma associated with physical disability in surprisingly effective ways” (2008, p. 113). By focusing on athletic activities, disabled people attempt to challenge stereotypical views of those with disabilities. More recently, disabled actors have complained about media productions that feature able-bodied actors portraying disabled characters, such as Kevin McHale’s portrayal of Artie Abrams in Glee. Some question whether there is a stereotype that disabled actors can’t perform and work as well on studio sets as able-bodied actors.

People who are not disabled can become disabled and then develop this new identity as a part of their larger configuration of identities. For example, many people, as they grow older, may experience increasing hearing loss, reduced visual acuity, or other physical or mental impairments that can render them disabled. But disability, of course, is not limited to older people. How we talk about disability, see it in media images, and experience it in everyday life are all part of how we communicate about and construct the meanings of disability as an identity. In her study on autobiographical narratives of those growing up with chronic illness or disability, Linda Wheeler Cardillo found that “communication at all levels has a powerful impact on these persons and their experiences of difference. A deeper understanding of this experience and how it is shaped by communication can lead to more sensitive, respectful, affirming, and empowering communication on the part of health-care providers, parents, teachers, and others” (2010, p. 539).

In the United States today, religious identity is becoming increasingly important. Religious identity is defined by one’s spiritual beliefs. For example, although Jim hasn’t been to a Catholic church in decades, he still identifies himself as Catholic because of his upbringing and the impact the religion has had on his outlook. Most researchers and writers agree that “religion is certainly one of the most complex and powerful cultural discourses in contemporary society, and religion continues to be a source of conflict between nations, among communities, within families, and … within one’s self” (Corey, 2004, p. 189). Although you may believe that your religious identity is part of your private life and irrelevant outside your family, this is not true. For example, in the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, Muslim identity has been viewed with particular suspicion. A 2004 study done by researchers in the Department of Communication at Cornell University found the following attitudes about Muslim Americans:

About 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government, and 26 percent said they think that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. law enforcement agencies. Twenty-nine percent agreed that undercover law enforcement agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising. About 22 percent said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslim or have Middle Eastern heritage. In all, about 44 percent said they believe that some curtailment of civil liberties is necessary for Muslim Americans (Cornell University, 2004).

Religious identity also takes on public significance because it correlates with various political views and attitudes (Corey & Nakayama, 2004). For example, the 2004 Cornell study found that Christians who actively attend church were much more likely to support differential treatment of Muslim Americans. In contrast, the nonreligious, or those less active in their churches, were less likely to support restrictions on civil liberties of Muslim Americans.

However one responds to other people’s religious beliefs, most U.S. Americans feel a strong need to embrace and enact personal religious identities (Corey & Nakayama, 2004). In 2000, for example, 46 percent of U.S. Americans belonged to religious groups, and approximately 40 percent of U.S. Americans claimed to attend religious services regularly (Taylor, 2005). Thus, in their article on “Religion and Performance,” Frederick Corey and Thomas Nakayama (2004) write that individuals feel a “tremendous need to embody religious identities and reinforce those identities through spirited, vernacular performances” (p. 211). To understand how one student’s religious identity affects her life, read It Happened to Me: Elizabeth.

It Happened to Me: Elizabeth

If I meet someone in a college class, I don’t tell them that I’m involved in a church or that I’m a Christian unless they bring it up or it’s obvious they are, too. I do not want to appear to be a religious nut waiting to shove my belief system down their throat. My belief in Christ is really at the core of who I am, though. When I meet people through work who are in churches, I am open with them about my work, my life, and even my challenges. This is because they are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and that’s the culture of what we do—care for, and about, one another.

The virtual environment has also been influenced by and influences religious identity. Sometimes people find religious communities online, and some people even use their iPhones for prayer and other religious purposes. Others resist the Internet for fear it would compromise or challenge their religious beliefs. Communication scholar Heidi Campbell notes: “Digital religion as a concept acknowledges not only how the unique character of digital technology and culture shapes religious practice and beliefs, but also how religions seek to culture new media contexts with established ways of being and convictions about the nature of reality and the larger world” (p. 4).

We’ve shown throughout this chapter that aspects of our personal identity such as race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, age, social class, and religion develop through the tension between individual and societal forces. Although we may assert a particular identity or view of ourselves, these views must be negotiated within the larger society and the meanings that the larger society communicates about that identity. See Alternative View: Respecting Religious Differences for an example of how one individual’s religious identity became a public issue whose meaning was discussed and negotiated within the larger society. In the next section, we discuss the role of ethics in communication about identity.