Looking in the mirror: second generation, Greek women reflecting on their identity

Abstract

Society is constructed of - and - by a multiplicity of individuals, each of whom maintain their own values, beliefs, traditions and ambitions. Individual identity therefore is socially created and operates on two levels - collective and individual. Time, place, the family and one's parents, patterns of interaction between the individual and her environment, and an individual's sense of communal and self worth, all work to re-define one's identity. Individual identity functions in a similar fashion to a chameleon, constantly changing its colour, readjusting itself to its surroundings. Similarly, the individual him/herself is a prism of different colours and faces, images of reality. S/he is an amalgam of intercepting multiple identities. Thus, to achieve a more limpid reflection of the women studied in this dissertation, one must examine the 'points of intersection', where the individual interacts with, and responds to, collective images of ethnic, Greek, gender, and bi-cultural identities.