Personal Narrative: My Family Paradigm

I have always been a woman with a diverse mindset. Always open to learning about other cultures. More specifically, this course has helped me realize the subcategories that influence a culture. Like death, aging, sexual orientation, religion, funerals, family paradigms, etc. Basically, it is not one concept, it is many concepts confined to one word, culture. This ideology has changed the rate at which I come to conclusions about another person’s opinions regarding race, politics, and religion.

In regards to religion, my family paradigm is mostly Catholic based. We believe in the ten commandments and respect life. From my family prospective, the social environment surrounding us should follow these principles. My family relationships stem from a patriarchal foundation. Among my siblings and I, the oldest is respected and is supposed to assume the responsibility of directing the family when the parents cannot do it. I am, for example, in charge of my younger siblings when my mother and their father are working. Overall, my family falls into the closed family paradigm. We are stable and delineative. My parents expect all of their children to follow a strict set of rules. However, we might depart from this paradigm because we are free thinkers. Each member of the family contributes his/her own ideas. Falling slightly into random

I grew up in a very standard American culture. However, I had not realized how influences outside my culture were present in it. For example, my great grandmother was Italian and my great grandfather was Mexican American. This combination set the foundation for my own family culture. For this reason, I was never into the sense of personal cultural superiority. I am very comfortable interacting with a variety of ethnic groups. I don’t relate to the idea of cultural superiority. I believe that all individuals have the potential to excel intellectually regardless of their