Most identities are inherited — from family, culture, religion, nation — and carried without examination until something forces the question. To build identity intentionally is not to reject what was given but to hold it up to the light, to ask what it costs and what it serves, and to take conscious authorship of the story you are living. Juana did this from within a cell, with a quill and a candle; the tools are almost beside the point.
Each step builds on the last.