Identification and the Generation Gap

The last couple of months, my mother and I have been getting into petty arguments about her refusal to carry identification when she goes out. We'd go to the bank and she'd be unable to withdraw money because she never had identification on her. She is even annoyed when she is asked to verify her identification. This has always frustrated me because besides the need for tellers to know they are handing over the funds to the right person, I think it's just unsafe not to have ID on you. I always think the worst and worry that one day something might happen to a loved one and they are unable to identify their body or get in contact with someone.
Anyways, as we were getting into yet another debate when I reminded her to bring her ID when we were leaving the house, she exclaimed that she was sick of people needing to know who she was and where she came from. And then it hit me. My mother grew up in the 60s, during colonial times. When she was young, she was forced to carry identification wherever she went. It was used as a means of oppression. As colonized people all over the world did and Blacks in the US, refusing to carry identification was a form of revolt. My mother, however, has been so scarred by this experience and conditioned to be in a constant state of revolt, that even though decades have passed since demanding identification was an institutionalized, oppressive tool, she still detests the act.
Though this is a very inconspicuous example, it goes to show how deeprooted the effects of institutionalized racism are. My mother did not live in the US during the time of Black Codes and Jim Crow, but her experience in Cameroon was so parrallel, that the hostility still lingers here. It also goes to show that though I am dedicating my life to righting the wrongs of colonialism, I will never truly understand or feel what my people have gone through.