Sierra Amundson Cultural Autobiography Narrative Throughout this autobiography I want to go through everything in my life that has changed me because of a cultural influence. I will tell my journey through growing up and trying to get a grip on and understand my heritage and make it to present day where I experience culturally different individuals daily. So, to start off I would like to talk about how I see myself culturally. Discussing my grandparents background information all the way to my sisters and mine. I will talk about my individual identity and the process to who I am culturally today. On my fathers side my grandmother is half Norwegian and half Danish, while my grandpa was half Norwegian and half Swedish. My mothers side is very different; my grandma being one hundred percent German and proud of it. On the other hand when I asked my grandpa what his heritage was, when I was little, for a school project …show more content…
Phinney, he states that there is a “Three-State model of ethnic formation.” The first stage being an, “Unexamined Ethnic Identity.” This entails that the individual has a lack of exploration of ethnicity. They may be feeling curiosity, detachment or ambivalence. The second stage of his identity development model is “Moratorium.” In this stage, one has an initial feeling of ethnic identity and will continue to explore their family history and questions that they may have. In this stage, people may feel confused about who they are culturally. Finally, the most important step and the last step is “Ethnic Identity Achievement.” In this stage the individual has a clear and confident idea of his or her own ethnicity. As I learned about Phinney’s model I have decided to place myself in the middle stage. I am aware of some of my culture but I do not yet feel confident in my knowledge about my ethnicity. Hopefully, by the end of this class I will be able to say I have a clear and confident view of my own ethnicity and
“Our own culture is often hidden from us, and we frequently describe it as “the way things are.”” People do not even realize their own cultural identity, so then how do people know what shapes it? A person’s identity is shaped by cultural experiences that make them into the person they are today. Some of these experiences include someone’s parents, the media, and where they grew up.
I believe that my cultural identity is something I must preserve. I realize now that my culture is what sets me apart from others. The struggle of learning to preserve my identity as a second generation Nepalese- American will be one that I will have forever. However, this does not prevent me from finding a balance between the two worlds that I am apart
One’s cultural identity consists of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, religion, and so on. Being aware of your own cultural identity is just as important as being aware of other’s. People’s cultural identity defines who they are, the privilege (or lack of privilege) they receive, and how society views them. It is important to understand that White individuals have more privileges than individuals of color. White individuals do not experience detriment and difficulties due specifically to their skin color and instead receive advantages. White privilege is defined as benefits that white individuals have that people of color do not (Kendall, 2012). The following walks through my personal cultural background, how it was shaped, defined, and developed, and limitations to my personal competencies.
. Describe your culture. Include things like place of birth, where you were raised, family structure, educational experiences, and career history. What else needs to be included?
After reading different articles and learning more about African American culture, it made me want to find out more about my own family culture. There are different traditions that are pasted down in generations, which could have been a part of African culture that we don’t realize such as parenting styles. I don’t remember hearing too many stories about my past relatives growing up, so I had to find out more on my family experiences in the south. Also, I wanted to see how spirituality played a roll in my family choices. My goal in this paper is to show how I got a better understanding of the reason my family could be structured the way it is now.
I was born and raised in Vietnam, so I naturally observed my culture from my family and my previous schools. I learned most of my culture by watching and coping the ways my family do things. My family and my friends all spoke Vietnamese, so I eventually knew how to speak and understand deeply about my language as I grew up. At home, my mom cooked many Vietnamese foods, and she also taught me to cook Vietnamese food. So I became accustom Vietnamese food. I also learned that grandparents and parents in my culture are taken care of until they die. At school, I learned to address people formally and greet higher-ranking people first. In Vietnamese culture, ranking and status are not related to wealth, so they are concerned with age and education.
I would like to consider my cultural heritage as diverse, but this is far from reality. Over the years as I matured through my teenage years, I was exposed to different cultures by life experiences and travel. I struggled to create both a personal and cultural identity while trying to adjust to my sight loss and with the support of my family I traveled overseas to experience other cultures for the first time. My family opened up their home to a foreign exchange program in turn allowing me the opportunity to travel over to Europe at the age of 16 years old. This opportunity started the slow progression of experiences that would open my mind to others who are unlike myself, especially traveling to a strange place and feeling different in a mainstream culture. It was not until the past 5 or 6 years until I fully accepted my disability that changed my view on being different, whether it’s race, class, gender or disability. Before this time period, my own fear of being different was so intense that I thought my weakness (disability) made me inferior of not only other cultures, but also my own family members.
In conclusion, this book gave me a whole new view on life and how we can interact better with different people. The book emphasized that culture is key to understanding people. Sometimes it is hard to connect with others because they are indicated as different but in due time we can adjust. Every culture has their own traditions when it comes to what they eat, what to wear, dating, various ceremonies, holidays and more. Reading this book helped me become more accepting of who I am and where I come from.
What is culture? Culture is the idea of what is wrong or right, the concept of what is acceptable within our society. Culture serves us as a guide, taking us to the "right way" and helping us to make sense of things that surrounds us. There are many different cultures around the world. A lot of them are similar in specific ways and others are just completely different, this difference explains why we think that people from different backgrounds are "weird".
I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. My mother was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States to continue her education when she was in her mid- twenties. My father is from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. My parents have different cultures, and as a result they have completely different backgrounds. When I was growing up, I had a hard time reconciling these different cultures. It was difficult for me and my sister to know what to do in many social situations because our primary schema (our parents) would act completely different in similar social situations. When I would ask my parents for advice, they would give me contrasting suggestions. As I grew older, I started to realize that both my parents were right, even if they acted like opposites.
My personal cultural identity is a lot different compared to the society I am surrounded by. I am considered an outsider in my society. I am an outsider living in a constantly changing environment where there are many different kinds of people and many different cultural identities. In my culture we know how to respect people and their belongings, know how to work hard, use what we have while being thankful for it at the same time, and last we know how to stay true to ourselves in this very fast pace world of ours. I am a cowboy.
Who am I; my beliefs, values, morals, and views on society have assisted in molding me into the person that I am considered to be today. I was raced with specifics values, traditions, and norms. Being raised in a small town made being socially aware very easy. I was raised under the southern Baptist Christian religion. Church was always the same and it had a majority of women in attendance although the men and elderly people ran the church overall. It was always the same, repetitive habits and events that occurred in my town but after a while I became accustomed to always being near or known by others.
During this class there was a great deal of exposure to essays written by people from different cultural backgrounds. These essays tell the stories of these people over the course of their lives and occur at different times in our society. The essays are used as teaching tools to convey different ideas and facts about other cultures. They were all taken from the book “Among Us Essays on Identity, Belonging, and Intercultural Competence” by Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester. This is the second edition and was published in 2006. The textbook Intercultural Competence also by Lustig and Koester helped to bring a better understanding of the essays.
Cultural identity defines an individual and how they interpret society; however, my cultural knowledge is limited and has remained static due to the consumption of environmental influences. For a long period of time, I did not know why I was culturally disconnected, since I had a hard time grasping my family’s religious practices of Buddhism. This resulted in my inability to interpret my culture and religion. Individuals within society ask, “What are you?” I would like to answer that question myself if I could, so the real question is, “How does one define cultural identity?” My cultural identity is defined by my interpretation and knowledge of how my family responds to American culture versus how I am influenced by the sociological norms of American culture; however, my sense of cultural identity contrasts differently to that of my family in which results in my cultural displacement in society, conflicting me internally.
My family, friends, food, and race impact my cultural identity tremendously. My family is the most important part in my life that build me and their cultural helped me to be the person I am today. My friends are my comfort the person I can go to when I’m in need, the most part we have in common is the Louisiana style that only we know how to wear and to impress everybody. For the most part others think that we are country and have a crazy style but that’s how we were brought up in our cultural and we love it. Plenty of years I thought that I was different thinking I didn’t fit in with the right crowd until my parents told me my specific cultural identity.