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cultural diversity in 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.
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.
Major newspapers around the world wrote about Masih’s story, even though it was often demoted towards the end of the newspaper. It was not long before both the media and the public disregarded it. A little less than seven thousand miles away from Pakistan, however, another 12-year-old boy in Thornhill, Canada devoted Masih’s story to memory, an undertaking that signified the beginning ...
many complications and crimes within. I was happy that I grew up here because I
At first, the idea of my family and me moving to the United States was fun and exciting. I couldn’t wait for the time for my family and me to leave, get to ride an airplane, eat stateside food such as spam, corned beef, apples, and oranges, and experience the different seasons, especially winter. Because of the excitement of coming to America, I didn’t have the time to think and realize the effects of moving away from home such as missing everything, adopting a different culture, and being independent.
Writing a self-reflective tirade is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks to perform. I have found myself pondering this topic for an unusually long time; no one has ever asked me to write about my culture-- the one thing about myself which I understand the least. This question which is so easy for others to answer often leads me into a series of convoluted explanations, "I was born in the U.S., but lived in Pakistan since I was six. My brothers moved to the US when I was thirteen" I am now nearly twenty, which means I have spent half my life being Pakistani, the other half trying to be American, or is the other way around?
From ever since I could remember, I lived in Saudi Arabia. However, when I was seven, my family immigrated to Canada. Arriving in Canada showed me how the norms I was used to were completely opposite compared what happened in Canada. In Saudi Arabia, my family, which consisted of my father, mother, uncle, brother and I lived in an apartment.
When I first moved to America I had many difficult, but positive life changing experiences. My parents, five sisters, four brothers, and I were all very nervous and excited to start a new life. I had many life changing experiences when it was my first time in an airport, starting school to learn a new language, and moving to Lincoln, Nebraska.
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...
America was like a dream. It is a country where there are endless opportunities to make something out of yourself. However, despite that I was living in America I felt un-foreign and un-American. My first affliction was the language. Undoubtedly, my communication skills were nonexistent. As
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
... Aside from power, the recurrent leitmotif is the constant comparisons that Changez makes between America and Pakistan. (‘Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, home to as many people as New York...’) Also, he resents the grouping of Islamic identity as one by symbols such as the beard, burqa, etc. Yet, he too homogenizes the American identity to an extent. He frequently describes other Americans as ‘not unlike yourself’ and their actions as ‘just as you are doing now.’
I belong to a community of first-generation Pakistani-American teenagers. It's a unique community composed of kids whose parents were born and raised in Pakistan, while we were born and raised on the opposite side of the world. In my instance, my father came to America to get his masters in engineering at the University of Detroit, and my mother moved to Houston with her family when she was in high school.
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.
I recall my first time arriving on U.S. soil from the Dallas International Airport and absorbing as many sights, sounds, and aromas as my brain could process. I felt a sensory overload. Everything was big, loud, fast, and beautifully bright at the same time. My excitement surely played a role in the exaggerated effects of my surroundings, but I enjoyed every second of it.
At the time, I was still learning how to speak english, so participating wasn’t comfortable for me. I usually talked in an unorthodoxed way as I would use a mix of both Tagalog and English within my sentences. This was unusual because I did well in my special English-speaking class designed for foreign students. Although communicating the language was difficult, it didn’t stop me from excelling in school or making friends. Overall, the academic experience of American schools had a more relaxed and fun vibe in comparison to what I was so used to. It gave me more freedom for expression with myself which I think my old academic lifestyle