Author: Alina Debogović, OŠ Kajzerica, Zagreb
What is true identity? Is it the name on my ID card? Is it all the information written in the personal data sheet? I don’t think so. If that were the case, people would be boring.
In today’s world people often like to label things and have a stereotypical opinion of them.Well, at least they did in my case.
You see, I come from a little different family. My mom comes all the way from China and my dad is Croatian. Ever since I started going to school, I have drawn attention of those around me. It was the well known attention which goes back all the way to kindergarten. I had all eyes on me…. because of my looks. It was mostly because of my eyes, they are quite narrow.
I was lucky enough to have great friends. Most of my class didn’t mock me, but I would always come across some bullies. They called me “plastic girl“, “yellow girl“, “weird eyes“. All kinds of names.
I cried countless times. I was a stereotype….a stereotype of an object actually. They said I was “bad quality“. They had an identity card all ready for me.
They thought that they knew everything about me, but they didn’t. I was given an already finished identity card that didn’t fit me. I was very angry and upset but not with them, I was upset with myself. It was because I let their comments affect me and I started believing them.
I wanted to prove them wrong. So I started studying very hard for Croatian classes to get straight A’s and prove that I was “a hundred percent Croatian“. Unfortunately, that didn’t work.
I was stuck with the identity card I was given and had to wait for it to expire to make a new one. On the new identity card I wanted to have good things written about me. Information that was true.
And then…a new school!…and I thought ….A new beginning! A better beginning! But… to be completely honest it was even worse. All the kids including me were all grown up. I thought, naturally they would change and be more mature but they weren’t. The new identity card wasn’t the one I wanted.
I’m in the seventh grade now and things have changed…. but not much. I still have the same identity card I was given since coming to the new school. But I’ve learned and realized a lot. All the hardships I was given had left a message behind them. I have realized I can’t let other people define me as a person. It is me that makes me as a whole. Other people are just side-effects and I decide whether to trust them or not. I am the one that makes my identity. And I choose to be the best version of myself that could ever exist, because I choose the way I WANT my identity card to look like.
