Idea Blog: Multi-Culturalism

Throughout my reading i have found quite a few synonyms between identity struggles and multiculturalism. The issues that they each address are very close and cross boundaries on each of their territories. Identity is, according to the dictionary, a distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Multiculturalism is relating, reflecting, or adapting to diverse cultures. What the connection between the two is, is the effect that multiculturalism has on identity. Where you grow up defines how you are, how you live, what you do, and when you do it. For me, i feel like i almost have two identities; one being the teenage boy from Africa, and the other is the developed fantasy world of college in America. The hard thing is that it feels like these two different identities that create multiculturalism inside of me are always competing. One wants to do what is right in that mindset, and the other wants to do the complete opposite, and yet is still right in its mindset. They clash inside of me, creating this internal struggle with myself. I started thinking about the word multiculturalism, viewed images, and found a few things that were interesting to say the least. If you type into google a search for images of multiculturalism, all you get are such images as below. Many different hands or people from many different nations, in the world, holding hands around the world, or holding the world up itself. Now, for me, this just seems ridiculous, because what if you might have two different cultures represented by one hand? People would not get multiculturalism. People assume by the color of my skin that i am American, which i find very sad. These images are not representative of multiculturalism, they are just a bunch of hands from different places, and of different people. The definition of identity specifies such details as an 'individual', so if multiculturalism defines identity, then why do people assume that multiculturalism has nothing to do with just one person.
After thinking about my art and its relation to multiculturalism, i have found that maybe my artwork should be a place to show others how to depict multiculturalism through imagery in more than just one way. After some searching i found this imagery of 'multiculturalism', which i find quite relevant to my artwork in its meaning. This is much closer to what i am looking for to help me generate creativity. This might be a simple photograph of flags, but it means something more to me, because it puts me as the viewer in a place of thought about how many of those flags represent me. And that is much closer to the multiculturalism i am looking for. To me this inspires me to continue dealing with conflicting identities, and really dig deep to find what it really means to be multicultural.

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/Atlas/Images/Glossary/Multiculturalism.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__hspjzfC024/SRf1jsQAo5I/AAAAAAAAArQ/WVl-BNqz8yI/s320/multiculturalism-freedom-equality.jpg