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The importance of cultural identity
The importance of cultural identity
Impacts on america with african slavery
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Maintaining Cultural Identity in the Face of Adversity "At the turn of the century, Sea Island Gullahs, descendants of African Captives, remained isolated from the mainland of South Carolina and Georgia. As a result of their isolation, the Gullah created and maintained a distinct, imaginative, and original African American Culture. Gullah communities recalled, remembered, and recollected much of what their ancestors brought with them from Africa…" - Prologue to Julie Dash’s "Daughters of the Dust" The people who settled in the United States from all over the world built the rich history of the country. Indeed, the U.S. is a country that has been built on immigration. The first non-indigenous arrivers were European and with them they brought to the United States all of the western ideologies of their homeland. This is true of all of the groups that immigrated here over the course of the next several hundred years. However, the initial settling of the Europeans in America created a standard by which other immigrants would have to compete against. Once a particular group saturates an area, it is difficult for diversified outgroups to bring their own culture and belief systems into a society that has already established itself. This rift in cultures is evident at the turn of the 20th century. There are communities of like-minded people carefully segregated in New York City, for example. The Italians, the Irish, and the Jews and the Blacks all had their own niche carved for themselves in the big city. These pockets of ethnic groups are created for several reasons. First, people are most comfortable with what they already know. Imagine coming to a new country for the first time. If you can go to an area where you know they will... ... middle of paper ... ...o that fact. The only way balance can be achieved, though, is if the past is not forgotten. African Americans must "recall, remember, and recollect much of what their ancestors brought with them from Africa… ." Bibliography Online; Internet. available at http://www.lik.berkeley.edu/MRC/africanambib2.html. Pabis, Dr. George S. "Sub-Saharan Africa Under Foreign Rule." Online; Internet. available at http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~gpabis/lecdoc1503/lec23-Africa_Foreign.htm. University of Georgia Press. "The Gullah People and Their African Heritage." Online; Internet. available at http://www.uga.edu/ugapress/newsite/books/shelf/0820320544.html. Members of Honors Religious Traditions of the African Diaspora 1997. "The Gullah People and Their Link to West Africa." Online; Internet. available at http://dickinsg.intrasun.tcnj.edu/diaspora/gullah.html.
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. No. 3 (1965): 524-540. http://www.jstor.org/stable/612097 (accessed December 1, 2013).
Yahweh, B. L. (2013). Jewish and african affairs. In B. Yahweh (Ed.), Jews and the African
Islam is presented in the Epic of Sundiata in a way that encourages listeners to embrace Islam over their indigenous belief systems. The epic accomplishes this by incorporating elements and practices of the indigenous beliefs into Islamic tradition; and by adapting certain Islamic mythology — such as the Jinn — to the existing West African culture. It also asserts the superior power and strength of those who derive their power from Allah and the Jinn, to those whose power is based in ancestral worship and fetishes. Through conflict, adaptation, and tolerance, the Epic of Sundiata presents an accessible version of Islam to the people of the Mali Empire; and promotes the acceptance of this new faith over the indigenous beliefs of the area.
Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta, is well-known for being one of the greatest travelers of his time. Battuta’s descriptive account of his travels to East and West Africa in the fourteenth century provides important insight into African Islamic life at that point in time. Although Battuta and the peoples in black Africa shared the same religion, he comes to realize that sharing a religion is not enough to completely relate to a different group of people. The story of Ibn Battuta in Black Africa illustrates the difficulties he faced in relating to these peoples due to the non-traditional role of women, different religious customs, and frequent misinterpretation of situations.
McCutcheon, Priscilla. “Returning Home to Our Rightful Place: The Nation of Islam and Muhammad Farms,” Elsevier (2013): 61-70 doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.05.001
Khanam, R. (2005). Encyclopaedic Ethnography of Middle-East and Central Asia. A-I, V. 1. Global Vision Publishing House. p. 470.
Opala, J. (n.d.). The Gullah: Rice, slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American connection. Retrieved from http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/06.htm
The first thing people usually do when encountering or learning about a culture or civilization different from their own is to instantly begin comparing and contrasting the two, especially the family unit. The vast differences between Bambara, Fulani, and Muslim cultures in various parts of Afrca alone are great. When compared to a European style of living, it might as well be a whole other world entirely. A striking attribute of the Bambara people displayed in the novel is the size of their family units. A main character that a good portion of the novel surrounds, Dousika Traore, is father of twenty something children bore by legitimate wives and at least two illegitimate children bore by a concubine and another by a slave. On top of his own large family, Dousika lives in a compound with his own brothers along with their own individual families. The interconnectedness of the family and the ties between them are undeniably loyal, however the actual feelings they hold for one another are an entir...
The core principle of history is primary factor of African-American Studies. History is the struggle and record of humans in the process of humanizing the world i.e. shaping it in their own image and interests (Karenga, 70). By studying history in African-American Studies, history is allowed to be reconstructed. Reconstruction is vital, for over time, African-American history has been misleading. Similarly, the reconstruction of African-American history demands intervention not only in the academic process to rede...
Barret, Alice. "Garífuna Voices of Guatemala: Central America’s Overlooked Segment of the African Diaspora."Council on Hemispheric Affairs. N.p., 14 July 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
As a social group of African descent, they have common historical experiences, with a collective ancestry, a shared culture, which is what gives them a sense of uniqueness. But then again, this is a culture that, according to its geography and history, continues to develop features and builds their future in a social framework that not only derivative from the past, but, beyond the differences, that clearly perceived them as the "other". The Garifuna acquired a significant reputation in the current context of recognition of cultural diversity. They have played an important role in the politics of visibility of people of African descent via the strengthening of ethno-racial categorizations. This role has involved, with peculiarities in each country, the official characterization as 'ethnic group', incorporating their cultural expressions as part of national identity, and recognition of their culture and intangible cultural universal heritage of humanity. Supported by a discourse on their Carib-Arawak roots and permanence of some of their cultural expressions, the Garifuna have been identified and have asserted themselves at certain times in its history the status of indigenous people. Currently, the process of political mobilization of the Garifuna articulates a discourse of inclusion in national societies, while proclaiming their transnational identity as Garifuna and members of the diaspora of African Descent in the Americas. This feature differentiates them from other processes of identity claiming their ethno-racial basis in the Americas, such as indigenous peoples and other African Descent. These dynamics including the Garifuna coexist and interact with other factors, are also based on a structural racial system that has in its roots in the colonial traces that maintain forms of social exclusion and discrimination against these
...on American soil, they were treated with disrespect and forced into a life of servitude and pain. However, they were able to change adapt and find hope even when it didn’t seem as though there was any to be found. The African American culture has been greatly shaped around what their ancestors were put through and the struggles that they endured. The pain and suffering that was inflicted among them will never be forgotten and will forever be apart of the African American culture.
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). The adage of the adage. African American history plays an important role in American history not only because of the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one month out of the year to study African American history.
The presence of the Swahili is a remarkable achievement of interblending, broadmindedness and cultural acclimation. The Swahili, in fact, are not an ethnic group. They are a poly-ethnic society where the passing of time diluted boundaries between one group and the other. Swahili is the name given to the coastal people who could be found as far North as Somalia and as far south as the Mozambique. They share a common language called Ki-Swahili which is widely spoken by non-Swahilis . The Swahilis enjoy a city-based fusion of African and Arab culture. The contact between the African coast and Arabia, Persia and China, goes back to far before Islam came in the 8th century and shaped much of the language and culture in Swahili society today.