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Cultural diversity in the USA, essay
Diversity and american culture essay
Diversity and american culture essay
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I [..] originally belong to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a country located in South Asia comprising the second largest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia. I had been living in the largest city of Pakistan, Karachi, for the past thirteen years until my dad, who's a U.S. citizen now, decided to call me over for a couple of years. I never bothered to offer my father's invitation a second thought and fled to the states like a dog chasing a bone.
The first impression i received after stepping my feet on to the American land was of heaven in disguise. The climate, the atmosphere, the surroundings, the lush greenery -evrything had a particular and a unique aura. Even though the people i had to live with then, were not really how i'd have wanted them to be, i could still feel my heart pacing with joy and glee.
Everything and evryone around me seemed to have a distinctive quality and my beady eyes refused to let go of any sight without being fully observed. The foremost thing that i felt was diffucult to digest was the cleanliness about; Although cleanliness is half of our Islamic faith and holds a great significance, my Pakistani fellows still tend to litter around which is why majority of the areas and roads in Pakistan are more occupied with garbage instead of flora and greenness. I liked the fact that the people who were caught littering had to pay fines which helped to maintain discipline and i'd have liked the Pakistani auhtorities to imply the same rule as well.
Enrollment in the last year of middle school was another factor through which i learned a whole lot.I remember i had to appear for a language test before my addimission took place and i did really well at it but i was still placed in the second ...
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...aught me so much that i returned back very smart. I started observing that Pakistanis identify the fellow Pakistanis on the basis of the cars they possess, the brands they wear and the schools they sends their kids to. People rarely cared about clothings in America but people here give you weird stares if you wear something worn out.
Enrollment in a school after coming back also got diffucult because i almost flunked the admission test as i had started stinking at Urdu and also the studies here were more advanced than what i used to study in AMerica. i was used to multiple choice questions but here i had to rote-learn, cram and write lengthy answers to every question which i really was not used to. I also became conscious of the fact that i could no more ride bikes on the raods as i was girl and i had to keep my head covered all the time which i never liked.
Many people are become and are shaped by their country, beliefs, and values. Zia is an international student from Pakistan who is studying to be able to join the civil service in Pakistan. His ultimate goal is to teach political philosophy. Because he is from Pakistan he has certain different beliefs and values, from Americans, that model his behavior and interactions with others, but I won’t be talking about the person he is in Pakistan. No, I will be writing about the person Zia is here at Concordia College-Moorhead and the impact he has had on those around him.
I remember the first time I came to America; I was 10 years old. Everything was exciting! From getting into an airplane, to viewing magnificent, huge buildings from a bird’s eye view in the plane. It was truly memorable. After staying few days at my mother’s house, my father and I wanted to see what Dallas looks like. But because my mother was working the whole day, it wasn’t convenient for her to show us the area except only on Sundays. Finally, we went out to the nearby mall with my mother. My father and I were astonished after looking at a variety of stores. But after looking at different stores, we were finally tired and hungry, so we went into McDonald’s. Not being familiar with fast food restaurants, we were curious to try American
Moving to America from Iran has certainly become a huge challenge for me. I have realized that there are some significant differences between these countries. Living in two different countries is an experience that opens people’s mind to a new way of thinking. In my case, I have lived in Iran and in the America, and now I understand better Iran than ever before. Iran and the America have differences in culture, marriage traditions, and economy.
For me adapting a new language was tough because where I came from we don’t verbalize English. So, before we move to the United States I had to get that primary knowledge of English in a short duration. At that time I consummated my one semester of 9 the grade. My parents thought of dropping me out school, so I can just focus on English. Since then my main focus was to learn English. I think that was the hardest thing I have done in my life. Day by day I was learning incipient thing, but I wasn’t quit understanding the language.
As a child, I was oblivious to why being independent was so important. I had never been exposed to a Pakistani woman who had a stable income and could support herself. I assumed I would eventually be an ordinary housewife like every other Pakistani woman I had seen.
Stepping out of my first plane ride, I experience an epiphany of new culture, which seems to me as a whole new world. Buzzing around my ears are conversations in an unfamiliar language that intrigues me. It then struck me that after twenty hours of a seemingly perpetual plane ride that I finally arrived in The United States of America, a country full of new opportunities. It was this moment that I realized how diverse and big this world is. This is the story of my new life in America.
I walked around unsteadily all day like a lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather, I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home. This was my first day in the United States of America.
many complications and crimes within. I was happy that I grew up here because I
National unity and ideology are the major political concerns in post colonial societies, that is why they used to apply assimilation strategy. This strategy is applied by the dominant groups. These groups might not hesitate to use state force in their own favour. So the state’s policies favour the powerful and dominant group. Pakistan is also one of the examples of plural societies. Here the state used to adopt assimilation policies to create national unity. Resultantly, the state has lost its Eastern Part. Still, various ethnic groups off and on show their resentment and different ethno nationalist movements are in the struggle to preserve identity. Following table is also helpful to show how the state of Pakistan
In Pakistan, people are stricken with poverty, the economy is unstable, and there are no opportunities to fulfill one’s goals. The U.S. economy is abundant and ripe with jobs. The only attribute is that one has to go out and want a job. Pakistan is more of a follower than a leader. It essentially adopts America’s ideals, but does not attain them. The poverty and unemployment rates are increasing daily. In many cases, one person works in the family and rest of the individuals sit back and play cricket or watch movies all day long. There is no hope of becoming a self-made person. The system is backwards and I think it requires a change. In contrast, living in Ameri...
However, the difficulties I was experiencing during my first year of high school made me realize that it was imperative to meticulously scrutinize the way I studied in order to ameliorate and become the student I used to be. Additionally, I became aware that my ability to speak English was affecting me, but later I came to the conclusion that if this was a determining factor in my performance in class, I had to challenge myself by engaging in more rigorous courses. As time went on, however, due to the fact that I was surrounded by students I considered to be far ahead, I felt very intimidated by my advanced classes. Furthermore, I became aware that some of my teachers from the advanced placement classes seemed to doubt my ability to perform at the level expected, just by hearing my accent. To be condemned to failure simply because I did not speak English the same way my fellow classmates did, was a terrible sinking feeling. Nonetheless, this circumstance made me very diligent in all my classes, for it made me very attentive to the topics discussed, and it made me evaluate the extent to which I studied. As a result, with my grades and work ethics throughout the year, I proved those teachers wrong and received an apology from the one I came to admire
America, Almost every single person on earth has a dream of living in a country full of freedom, liberty, and opportunity. The United States has been providing these benefits ever since it was founded a few hundred years ago. So when I found out that my family would be coming to America, I had already started planning my future of growing up here. Just like any other person, I was feeling enthusiastic and a little nervous of leaving my native country and coming to America to start a better life. I was completely lost in my thoughts of happiness, that I became unaware of all the difficulties that my family and I would face once we step into our new lives. Among these difficulties were the change of language, change of system, and the variety of different cultures.
About 9 years ago on July, 2008, my family moved to America to reunite with my grandfather, and to seek better living opportunities. That day was the beginning of a thrilling but equally terrifying journey for my family. That day I made a conscious decision of making my living experience in America a positive and rewarding experience for my parents and their hard works.
Coming to America, by far was not what I expected. However, after living here for four years, I have learned to adjust to the surroundings. I was not mentally prepared for the culture change that I was exposed to in the beginning but as days turned into months and eventually into years, I realized that I grew accustomed to the culture and eventually became a part of it. I have gotten accustomed to calculating distance by miles and not kilometers, temperatures by Fahrenheit not Celsius, weight by pounds not kilograms. I have also been influenced to see beauty in different content unlike home where thick women are considered beautiful, healthy and happily married unlike here where everyone is trying to lose weight to enhance their beauty and health. However, not even a decade in America can make me forget the extremes I experienced when I first arrived.
In “The Arab World” (1966), Edward T.Hall the American anthropologist explains the difference in behavior between Westerners and Arabs and the miscommunication between the two great cultures; he says that “Americans in the Middle East are immediately struck by two conflicting sensations. In public they are compressed and overwhelmed by smells, crowding, and high noise levels; in Arab homes Americans are apt to rattle around, feeling exposed and somewhat inadequate because of too much space”(Hall, 1966, p.94). Hall used ethos, logos, and pathos to describe clearly the behavior in public between the two cultures, and how Arabs are being pushy and rude, then he described the concept of the privacy and Arab personal distances, he also mentioned how Arabs talk to each other and how they feel about enclosed places, finally he talked about boundaries . Although Hall does not seem to persuade the reader to a certain point of view, it appears that he unintentionally made some of the Arabs beliefs and actions seem impractical and in some cases he was quite exaggerating. Moreover; I disagree w...