Firstly, I’d like to mention why we should be aware of our identities. We can categorize them into gender identity, sexual orientation, ability (a football player), race, nationality, ethnicity, religion/spirituality, and social class. Each of these identities helps us to understand who we are as a person. The most important lesson I took from the workshop is to recognize our identities and accept them as a part of us. 

The first activity we started our workshop with was called “Labels”. Every participant in this debate was a Vietnamese living in Czechia. But how each of them identified themselves was sometimes slightly different from other participants. 

Other people can also perceive us in a different way which can influence our identity. How we view ourselves can change over time. During the workshop, we discussed mainly our racial, ethnic, national and multicultural identity. An identity doesn’t always have a good meaning. There are some particular labels with negative connotations that are used to downgrade someone, e.g. “chink”, “dink”, “Chinese” (hinting that all Asians look the same), “slant-eye” (“šikmoočka” in czech), “Yellow” (“žluťásek”) etc. 

Some labels have been here for way too long that we don’t even perceive them in a negative way anymore and we accept them as part of our life. And that will be e.g. “Banana”. You may have heard  someone saying “Yellow on the outside, White on the inside”. The origin of this ethnic slur “Banana” was used by East Asians to shame other East Asians who have assimilated into the Western culture and slowly withdrew from their roots.