My Typical American Family

My Typical American Family

What is a typical American? What is generally viewed as a typical American is that your family has lived here for years and years and you don't personally know who immigrated here. Along with this, your family has molded into this typical view with no "foreign" traditions and things. A lot of people in my class can talk about their relatives that speak another language or have immigrated here. I don't have anything like that so I'll tell you about mine.

According to Blauner:

Members of an ethnic group hold a set of common memories that make them feel that their customs, culture, and outlook are distinctive.

My family doesn't pass down stories or anything. No real passed on customs, no immigrant stories. Takaki thinks everyone should be educated in all culture that makes America so diverse. I don't really have a culture. My family more or less assimilated to the traditional mainstream American. AS far as I know, I am Irish, German, and Native American. Where or when each came together, I don't know.

Randall Bass says:

Individuals derive their sense of identitiy from their culture, and cultures are systems of beliefs that determine how people live their lives.

Well I have my own story. I'll start by talking about my mother's side of my family. As far as I know both my grandparents grew up and lived in Detroit. They raised my mom and Uncle there too. My grandma stayed at home while my grandpa fixed airplanes. It's kind of cool because he was in WWII also to fix the fighter planes. They were fairly well off and had a boat on the river. They're background is Irish and German. Although they never personally told me there was German,I'm taking an educated guess because the last name (Volkening) looks really German.

My dad's side is German and Native American. I've been told I have relatives in Germany with the same last name although I've never met them or know their names. My grandma also stayed at home and my grandma worked in a factory. They too lived in Detroit and raised my dad and my two Uncles in a two-bedroom house. My dad slept in the laundry room next to the water heater because there wasn't enough room in the other two rooms.

My parents both met in Detroit and lived there for about twenty years. Both my parents worked through college to help pay for each other's tuition.