More handpicked essays just for you.
Variables in cultural diversity research paper
Review of related literature about cultural diversity
Examples of essay about culture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel, My Year of Meats, is centered around the main character, Jane Takagi-Little, as she struggles to find her racial and cultural identity, because she is half White and half Japanese. Jane is a producer on the Japanese reality show “My American Wife!”, which attempts to expose its Japanese audience to the average American household.. The show features an American wife cooking a beef-centred meal, usually and old family recipe. The goal of the TV show is to encourage their audience to purchase more beef. By exposing the audience to the desirable lifestyle, it makes them want to incorporate some of the American culture in their everyday lives, and the easiest way they could do this is by cooking the meals presented on the show, and thus buying beef. Jane is responsible for finding the wives that are featured on the show. Jane’s multiracial struggle is enhanced while working with the other Japanese producers because she is always budding heads with them because her diversity …show more content…
A case study focused on mixed race individuals reactions to certain social situations mentioned that “the majority of the respondents experienced identity conflict or discomfort, usually in the form of not belonging” (Motoyoshi,176) . People with mixed races struggle to fit into the little categories that society wants to place them into. Society likes to categorize people based on race and give each race a certain set of expected behaviors, so when people who fall under two different categories society does not know what to expect from them. Mixed raced individuals sometimes struggle to fit into their own skin because although their bodies scream once race, their cultural beliefs express a different race. People also struggle to fit in because sometimes their own racial groups will unintentionally exclude them because they express too much of their “other”
Take a step back from your papers and focus on Wallach 's chapter on "Food and the Founding." Specifically her take on how the colonists used food to define themselves. Take note of how proud they were to be tea drinking British citizens then later coffee swilling Americans. Really cool on the surface right. Now think about how the colonists/Americans made the money to purchase these goods. Yup we are talking about race and slavery, because in this chapter Wallach demonstrates the creation of American racism as we know it today through her examination and comparison of indentured servants and slaves in and around Virginia and the Carolinas. Do you agree with her comparison and the idea that white Americans of all social/cultural status were
In the essay “The End of Spam Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat,” Sylvie Kim, the author, argues that no culture or person should be judged based on what foods they eat. Kim argues this by using her love for spam to explain the cultural difference and judgement she has experienced being an Asian-American consumer of the “pink gelatinous pork” (3). Sylvie explains personal shame and fear of judgement when eating spam to her audience, Asian-American readers of the blog “hyphenmagazine.com.” She elaborates on her disgust for judgement by using the argumentative writing style of repetition. She continually reuses the word love. This writing style is crucial
Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.
One of Beverly Tatum's major topics of discussion is racial identity. Racial identity is the meaning each of us has constructed or is constructing about what it means to be a white person or a person of color in a race-conscious society. (Tatum, pp Xvii) She talks about how many parents hesitate to talk to their children about racism because of embarrassment and the awkwardness of the subject. I agree with her when she says that parents don't want to talk about racism when they don't see a problem. They don't want to create fear or racism where none may exist. It is touchy subject because if not gone about right, you can perhaps steer someone the wrong way. Another theory she has on racial identity is that other people are the mirror in which we see ourselves. (tatum pp18) 'The parts of our identity that do capture our attention are those that other people notice, and that reflects back to us.'; (Tatum pp21) What she means by this is that what other people tell us we are like is what we believe. If you are told you are stupid enough you might start to question your intelligence. When people are searching for their identity normally the questions 'who am I now?'; 'Who was I before?'; and 'who will I become'; are the first that come to mind. When a person starts to answer these questions their answers will influence their beliefs, type of work, where they may live, partners, as well as morals. She also mentions an experiment where she asked her students to describe themselves in sixty seconds. Most used descriptive words like friendly, shy, intelligent, but students of color usually state there racial or ethnic group, while white students rarely, if ever mention that they are white. Women usually mention that they are female while males usually don't think to say that they are males. The same situation appeared to take place when the topic of religious beliefs came up. The Jewish students mentioned being Je...
The inherent desire to belong to a group is one that is fundamental to human nature. In his article “Evolution and Our Inner Conflict,” Edward O. Wilson writes, “A person’s membership in his group – his tribe – is a large part of his identity.” Wilson explores multilevel group selection and the proclivity for people to define themselves based on their belonging to the group. He goes on to say that people often form these groups with those who look like them and belong to the same culture or ethnic group. In the novels Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick, the identities of the protagonist are predominantly shaped by the ethnicities and heritages that they identify with.
Four people sit kneeling around a small table in a small room laden with food. A room where a serious man in a black box holds out a can of something altered and edible, and a young girl perched near her mother clutches a bag of potato chips to her chest as if claiming it as solely her own. This is the scene depicted in a photograph of the Ukita family in Kodaira City, Japan as part of a series taken by Peter Menzel for the book “What the World Eats”. This series of photographs illustrates not only what people eat in different parts of the world, but also how their families, and lives as fellow humans can so closely resemble our own.
Identity is 'how you view yourself and your life.'; (p. 12 Knots in a String.) Your identity helps you determine where you think you fit in, in your life. It is 'a rich complexity of images, ideas and associations.';(p. 12 Knots in a String.) It is given that as we go through our lives and encounter different experiences our identity of yourselves and where we belong may change. As this happens we may gain or relinquish new values and from this identity and image our influenced. 'A bad self-image and low self-esteem may form part of identity?but often the cause is not a loss of identity itself so much as a loss of belonging.'; Social psychologists suggest that identity is closely related to our culture. Native people today have been faced with this challenge against their identity as they are increasingly faced with a non-native society. I will prove that the play The Rez Sisters showed this loss of identity and loss of belonging. When a native person leaves the reservation to go and start a new life in a city they are forced to adapt to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. They do not feel as though they fit in or belong to any particular culture. They are faced with extreme racism and stereotypes from other people in the nonreservational society.
This model examines the relationship between the dominant culture and one with minority status, such as Latinos. Attitudes towards self, same minority group, different minority groups, and the dominant group are examined through five stages within the model. These include conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, and integrative awareness. The stage most pertinent to Antonio at this time is the Dissonance stage. During this stage, one starts to acknowledge the existence of racism, that he cannot escape his own heritage, and experiences conflict between shame and pride felt for his culture. This same shame versus pride conflict is also extended to members of his own minority group. Held stereotypes about other minority groups are now questioned as well. One in the Dissonance stage is also starting to realize that not all beliefs held by the dominant group are valuable or even accurate (Sue & Sue, 2003). Because of the two incidents Antonio endured during his freshman year and their emotional impact on him, he is becoming aware that even though he has “assimilated,” others of the majority group will still identify him as different. Antonio is also experiencing conflict between what members of the minority group (his parents) and the majority group feel are important; his parents believe he
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
Ruth Ozeki’s novel explores numerous relationships: human and animal, human and human, man and wife, and many more. An important relationship investigated is the relationship between truth, authenticity, and consumerism, and is depicted in many ways throughout the novel. One approach being through the criteria that the Japanese network wants in every featured wife that is on the show. For example, the mold that the wife should fit is described as being, “attractive, appetizing, and all-American. She is the Meat Made Manifest: ample, robust, yet never tough or hard to digest”(8). The description provided by the network simplifies and ojectifies both the female body and mind, as well as the meat, almost boiling them down to nearly just matters of sex. Jane pushes for real and genuine women that do not fit the 1960’s housewife mold, but the network demands for the Mrs. Flowers
A television show can be a source of entertainment, information, or even advertisment. However, the written perspective have a narrow focus and only appealing to an ideally, similar audience. “My American Wife!” portrayed the daily aspects of an American housewife and her signature “meat-featured dish”, although the show was constructed for the content of Japanese’s culture. The entanglement of meat, race, and gender became significant in the media, as it exposes the delicacy of one culture attempting to fabricate the reality of another.
Times are changing and I feel like I am forced to conform to the everyday social norms of America, which makes me feel impuissance. Racial identity, which refers to identifying with a social group with similar phenotypes and racial category, is the only experience that I have with life (Organista, 2010). Racial ethnicity was used to build my self-esteem and to keep me in the dark when it came to how society treats individuals of darker complexion. However, once I left the confines of my family and neighborhood, I was forced to befriend and interact with individuals that had different cultural values and beliefs than me. This experience caused me to learn how to appreciate other racial and ethnic groups and their cultural values and belief. This is an accurate definition, of acculturation because I was able to understand and fit in with individuals different from me, while maintaining my own culture and ethnic identity. Therefore, knowing the importance of my ancestry, while acculturating and developing my own identity was all used
Cooking shows are great entertainment for food lovers, but these shows often display two types of culinary personas: the female home cook and the male chef. Although more women are being recognized in the world of professional cooking and more men are cooking at home, there is still a portrayal of women in the home kitchen and men in the restaurants on popular cooking shows. Food Network and Cooking Channel are the two largest cooking networks and displays the greatest number of food personalities. By examining the different gender persona of the hosts on Food Network and Cooking Channel shows, this study aims to see if there are any divergence to the traditional feminine and masculine culinary persona.
As a direct object, the concept of dinner is routine, habit, sometimes mundane and possesses a feeling of familiarity. Dinner is such an ordinary event however means so much more than the deed of purely eating. It has particular significance by virtue of the fact that in one fashion or another, we all do it, usually daily, while rarely considering the often invisible dynamics that can differentiate it. Additionally, the meal we consume, our food choices, preparation and consumption, is a point of connection to our everyday bound up in cultural markers of gender, ritual and class. This essay will discuss the role of gender in relation to the “cooked dinner” (Murcott, 1982, p. 679) and how the media reinforces our perceptions of gendered roles in relation to food. Secondly, the role of ritual in cultural value, as an ideal and as a reality and thirdly, how our food preference and consumption is a statement of an individual’s class.
American culture is changing dramatically. In some areas it’s a good thing, but in other areas, like our food culture, it can have negative affects. It is almost as if our eating habits are devolving, from a moral and traditional point of view. The great America, the land of the free and brave. The land of great things and being successful, “living the good life.” These attributes highlight some irony, especially in our food culture. Is the American food culture successful? Does it coincide with “good living”? What about fast and processed foods? These industries are flourishing today, making record sales all over the globe. People keep going back for more, time after time. Why? The answer is interestingly simple. Time, or in other words, efficiency. As people are so caught up in their jobs, schooling, sports, or whatever it may be, the fast/processed food industries are rapidly taking over the American food culture, giving people the choice of hot