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For this cultural plunge assignment, I attended the Choma Food Festival hosted by the African Student Association here on campus under the Office of Multicultural Affairs. This event interested me because I have always been fascinated with the African culture, as in wanted to know more about it, but I was not able to fully discover what all it entailed. I feel as the African Culture is part of my heritage that I am most unfamiliar with. African culture is very different from the American culture, so even though I am African American, there is so much to learn about the aspect of African culture alone. People of African descent have a rich culture and I am glad that I attended the event, because it was like discovering a portion of my ancestral background that I wasn’t aware of. …show more content…
ASA is made up of students from Kenya, Congo, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, and many others, it was so cool to see them altogether representing the “Motherland.” Even though this was an African Food Festival they attracted in a diverse crowd, yet Africa was represented very well from beginning to the end. As it concerned to food, I was excited because I had never had African food. It was so delicious! They had dishes of food from various countries in Africa, it was amazing to try something new. All the members of ASA were also very welcoming as well. I think one of the highlights of my night is when one of the guys asked me where I was from. I believe that he was expecting me from a country in Africa. When I responded Dallas, TX, he said “Oh okay, you look African.” I responded back with “Okay, I guess that is a good thing.” I’m mean what can I say, Africa is in my roots somewhere. However, I pondered about which of my features gave him the impression that I “looked
Other cultures are interesting because they are different and we don’t usually understand the things that they do and why they do them. Learning about other people’s traditions from all over the world shows the diversity in people’s beliefs, habits and routine occurrences in everyday lives.
My cultural identity, is Haitian American. My parents come from a country of beautiful landscape and valleys of the hidden treasures of knowledge, diverse people, and rustic towns. My parents walked up steep plateaus for water, laid in grassy plains for peace, and dive into the sea for cooling in Haiti’s humid heat. Although, I come from a culture of deep history, the first country to gain independence in the result of a successful slave rebellion, my parents knew the plague of suffering Haiti’s battle with will not recover through the poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy. As Haiti fought through its demons, my parents fought to provide plentiful opportunity for their family and immigrated to the United States of America.
Michael Twitty is a food writer and culinary historian best known for preparing, preserving and promoting African American food ways and its origins in Africa. He emphasizes how African food culture has made a great impact on the American South. His cooking helped him to learn about his identity and culture. He describes “identity cooking” a way to better understand him and his culture as a Jewish-African American. A project he developed called “The Cooking Gene” is what he explains as a means of “exploring my family history through food, from Africa to America, from slavery to freedom.” Race, food and ethnicity all have a more complex and cultural meaning especially when fused together. Different
Africanisms in America are a highly surveyed topic for the black community. Joseph E. Holloway describes Africanisms as “those elements of culture found in the New World that are traceable to an African origin” (Holloway 2). I believe, that africanisms are the traditions and cultural behaviors of African Americans that resemble the some of the same traditions and cultures in Africa. Which makes you ponder about what current elements does our culture use that ties back to Africa. Which in fact there are several africanisms that still exist. African Americans have retained an essence of Africa in their speech, hair care, clothing, preparation of foods, and music by over centuries of separation from the Dark Continent.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern for the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as remembered traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art of the cuisine so treasured and carefully transmitted to their daughters has become part of the great culinary classics of these lands. But seldom are the African blacks given that recognition.
I had always heard people talk about people they knew with disabilities as “the sweetest people you will ever meet,” but that phrase meant nothing to me until I met this group. I honestly could never have imagined the impact that they would have on my life. The next time that I went back after my first session, I had participants say things like, “You came back! Hi!” or “Look, it’s Megan! Megan everybody!” As an introvert, it is sometimes difficult for me to approach new people and immediately build relationships with them. This group of people has absolutely no issues waving at strangers to making friends effortlessly. They made me feel appreciated and loved having only been with them for one session, and this feeling grows each time I
The museum I attended was “National Museum of the American Indian” (The George Gustav Heye Center.) This historical center offered a superlative perspective of the social legacy of the Native Americas. There were displays that present famous items chose for their aesthetic quality and power as emblems of Native beliefs. My experience in this museum was very quiet and lonely, but I made the best out of it. When first entering the museum, I was lost as to how I would be able to connect any of the information to this class. It took me a while to get an understanding of how the information I collected could be relevant to this class. The concepts and theories I will be using to analyze my museum visit is race and ethnicity, commodification, theory of domination, and hegemony. The authors I will be using are Stephen Steinberg, Vine Deloria, Jr., Charles Fruehling Springwood, C Richard King, Harry Kitano, Nathan Glazer and Ronald Takaki.
I’m a twenty-three year old African American male from Chicago. My great great grandparents were slaves in Mississippi. Sometime during the slavery days a slave owner had sex with one of my grandmothers, which I have lighter skin than most African Americans. Since I have slave ancestry, I have no idea which part of Africa my forefathers came from. Another reason I know that I am African American is because my phenotype matches that of people from African descent.
The first cultural immersion activity that I participated in was going to St. Charles Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday (March 5, 2014). I had a friend who was catholic attend the church with me so I would have a better understanding of what to do and not stand out so much. In addition, I asked my friend to attend with me so I would not do anything in church that was disrespectful. Before going to the church, I thought that I would have to dress up in dress clothes but my friend told me that it is not necessary to dress up for a catholic church, which surprised me. When we first got there, my friend used the holy water and kneeled before entering the pew. I did not do these things because I felt like I would mess up and it would be disrespectful to the religion to mess up those things. Another thing I noticed was when everyone was entering after they have found their seats they would kneel and pray. Later I asked my friend what everyone was doing and she said it was praying to catch up and talk to God about things that has happened since the last time you talked to him.
Another cultural and historical aspect brought up in “A Modest Proposal” is the attitude the public held for landowners. Swift writes, “I grant this food [children cooked] will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for Landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of their Parents, seem to have the best Title to the Children (12).” Here, Swift is implicating that Landlords consumed the funds and livelihoods that parents had to support their family. This line condemns landlords for the oppressive actions they practice, like charging high rent fees to impoverished families, without any regard to the family. Finally, Swift refers to the tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, when he ironically suggests, “....there
There is no art, music, and literature like here in sub-Saharan Africa. What is important to Westerners, such as the artist, label, and static-like wall hanging, means nothing to us. African art is living, spiritual, and meant to go back to the Earth once the soul of the item has run out. As the Bamana of Mali say, the art are “things that can be looked at without limit”. Our artwork has changed, emerged, and survived eras of turmoil and inversely, hope. I have found passing through the global gateway into Africa has made me appreciate this culture more, and appealed to me on a level that made me choose being a part of it.
One way that I’ve celebrated and tried to connect with what I know as my culture is to attend Juneteenth Festival of the Carolinas. “According to Welcome to Juneteenth, “this is an annual four day event celebrated in the month of June at Independence Park, in Charlotte, North Carolina, hosted by Pape Ndiaye, proprietor of the House of Africa located in Charlotte, NC since 1997” (Juneteenth, n.d.). This family event unifies Africans, African-American, and non-African people and is celebrated with drummers, dancers, faith communities, local talent, special guests, and vendors that sell clothing, jewelry, food, books, art, music, furniture, purses, and much more. One may say we already have a day set aside to celebrate freedom. The Junete...
Music played a very important role in the lives of people is diaspora communities. It served as a reminder for the immigrants of their homeland, which allowed them to proudly express their national and cultural identities. Diaspora refers to an international network of communities linked together by the identification of a common ancestral homeland and culture. People in these communities are no longer living in their homelands, with no guarantee of a return either. (Bakan, 19). Music played a large role in African diaspora communities. This was first started by the slave trades many years ago when slave traders traveled to the coast of West Africa to capture Africans and brought them back to the United States to be slaves on plantations. Slaves were more prone to loose a sense of their own culture because every new aspect of their lives was forced upon them, therefore they were undoubtedly forced to abandon their n...
I met this "different person" at the periodical section of the Good Library of State College. After asking the person for my article that I had requested I ask his name, he answers with his Indian accent, "Ajai Ahulalia." I say, "What?s that?" "Ajai Sanhi," he responds back. "What?" I say, being embarrassed because I cannot understand his name. "Ajai Ahulalia" he tries for the third time. "Oh Ajai," finally I understand. I ask, "Were do you live?" "Yoder First" he answers, then I fell a fool again, "Really, me too." What has happened to Ajai?s life when he lived in India and now here in the U.S.?
South Africa is a nation with a wonderful and varied culture. This country has been called “The Rainbow Nation”, a name that reflects the diversity of such amazing place. The different ethnic and cultural groups of the South Africa do, however, appreciate their own beliefs and customs. Many of these traditions, besides African culture, are influenced by European and Western heritage. The complex and diverse population of the country has made a strong impact to the various cultures. There are forty-five million people; about thirty million are black, five million white, three million coloured and one million Indians. The black population has a large number of rural people living in poverty. It is among these inhabitants that cultural customs are preserve the most.