How Does Culture Affect Us

How Much Does Culture Affect Us? Writer Tariq Ramadan once said, “Cultures are never merely intellectual constructs. They take form through the collective intelligence and memory, through a commonly held psychology and emotions, through spiritual and artistic communion.” This quote makes a valid point: culture has a major influence our opinions, art, and mind. Where we come from, where we live, who we’re around, and the values of the world around us shape who we are. In the stories Everyday Use, Two Ways to Belong in America, and Ethnic Hash, the idea of the influence of culture, whether it’s ours or someone else’s, is presented. In the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker it presents the idea of having a culture different than someone else’s. The main characters, Mama and her daughter Maggie, are expecting Mama’s daughter Dee. When she arrives she is much different than when she left. Arriving with a man named Hakim-a-Barber, she was wearing “a dress so loud it hurt my eyes” and greeted her mother and sister with a foreign phrase. She even changed her birth name to Wangero and asked if she could take their grandmother’s old quilts. This made Maggie

Williams. She outlines the life of a person who comes from all different backgrounds. She has Scottish, Cherokee, French, and African ancestors that all influence her life and culture. The author embraces the foods and traditions and of all of these places that, true to the name, could best be described as an “Ethnic Hash.” Two quotes from the story that emphasize this are “I have worked to broaden my horizons” and “I have learned to love my inner ethnic child.” Even though some would say that a melting pot of cultures like Patricia has is not a real example of culture, it is. You don’t have to be from on ethnic group to have a culture, your culture is the ideas and views of the world that have been influenced by where you live and where you come