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The african american experience essay
The african american experience essay
Cultural identity of African Americans
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What am I? People ask me this all the time by just looking at my tight curly hair! For example most people believe that I am mixed with white but I am truly mixed with African, white, native american, and Indian.I for one never let my cultural identity define who I am as a person because I know that I am a cheerleading, dance loving, crazy sensation, R&B passionate, energetic person who was born in Opelousas Louisiana but grew up in Carencro
When I was a toddler, I had blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin, and still presently do. My parents are Guatemalan, however they fit the stereotype of a Guatemalan, small, a bit chunky, and tan. My siblings also carry the same genes as my parents, but yet I stand out like the moon in a night sky. But just like the moon, the public looks at me different. Growing up in a hispanic community and having a Latino family I gained numerous titles for my abnormality. “Canche” is the George Clooney of my nicknames, it means white boy.
Our identity has a great influence on how we are perceived and classified by others in society. Some ways we are usually identified are gender, race, and ethnicity. I am a white, male, of Italian decent. I was born in Arezzo, Italy and moved here when I was seven. I am now nineteen years old. Often times in society based on our social location people believe they know who we are and how we should behave.
I live in this huge mix of culture. Culture is personal. People can have many cultures especially in America and because of globalization. Cultural identity is not one or the other, it is not Mexican or American. Cultural identity is an individual relevant thing.
I definitely identify most with modern American culture. Although I am half Hispanic and half white, I was raised more “white” than Hispanic (e.g. food, language, holidays, music, etc.). On the surface you can see a white American, English speaking, femininely dressed young lady, but I am much more than what is on the outside. Like I stated earlier I was raised more “white”, but I still identify a little with my Hispanic culture. In this paper I will be addressing 10 surface and 10 deep aspects of my cultural identity.
Describe how you learned about your heritage, family ritual, what growing up was like, relevant demographics, family held worldviews, and familial experiences with privilege/oppression.
One’s cultural identity consists of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, religion, and so on. Being aware of your own cultural identity is just as important as being aware of other’s. People’s cultural identity defines who they are, the privilege (or lack of privilege) they receive, and how society views them. It is important to understand that White individuals have more privileges than individuals of color. White individuals do not experience detriment and difficulties due specifically to their skin color and instead receive advantages. White privilege is defined as benefits that white individuals have that people of color do not (Kendall, 2012). The following walks through my personal cultural background, how it was shaped, defined, and developed, and limitations to my personal competencies.
I’m one of those people who look racially ambiguous. There are a lot of us: Tiger Woods, Barack Obama and Steph Curry, to name a few. Aside from exceptional athletic and speaking abilities (and obvious sense of sarcasm), another thing I believe I have in common with those three is that we were all asked at one point, the infamous question, “What are you?”. Though to some it may be considered an intrusive or patronizing question, I do not mind it at all. As it allows me to discuss my ethnic background in such great detail that the listener often has to feign interest all throughout my spiel, which can be quite amusing. In short, my father is a white American and my mother a black Brazilian, which makes me a latino, biracial African American.
My personal cultural identity is a lot different compared to the society I am surrounded by. I am considered an outsider in my society. I am an outsider living in a constantly changing environment where there are many different kinds of people and many different cultural identities. In my culture we know how to respect people and their belongings, know how to work hard, use what we have while being thankful for it at the same time, and last we know how to stay true to ourselves in this very fast pace world of ours. I am a cowboy.
I'm Latina, but I don't look like it. Whenever I tell my friends they are always surprised, or confused. A girl once asked me if I could be both Jewish and Latina, something I used to question myself. Growing up in Tennessee, going to a majority white school, and coming from a wealthy family sometimes makes me question if I am truly Latina. Yet, every time I have these doubts, all I have to do I looks towards my name to remember who I truly am.
Who am I; my beliefs, values, morals, and views on society have assisted in molding me into the person that I am considered to be today. I was raced with specifics values, traditions, and norms. Being raised in a small town made being socially aware very easy. I was raised under the southern Baptist Christian religion. Church was always the same and it had a majority of women in attendance although the men and elderly people ran the church overall. It was always the same, repetitive habits and events that occurred in my town but after a while I became accustomed to always being near or known by others.
My culture identity, as I know it as is African American. My culture can be seen in food, literature, religion, language, the community, family structure, the individual, music, dance, art, and could be summed up as the symbolic level. Symbolic, because faith plays a major role in our daily lives through song, prayer, praise and worship. When I’m happy I rely on my faith, same as when I’m sad, for I know things will get better as they have before.
Someone’s cultural identity is evolving like a piece of clay; it molds and shapes based on the experiences they encounter. The way we have been raised and what our background is makes us who we are. As individuals, we developed around this understanding, which can lead to different perceptions in a variety of situations. A person's cultural background does affect they way he/she sees others and the world.
My parents have always tried to make sure that my siblings and I had a strong understanding of our culture, ironically I have never really thought about my cultural identity and how it has shaped me as a person. I also did not think about my definition of cultural identity until I was in this class. To me cultural identity are the sub cultures that create who you are, some cultures you can choose to be apart of such as religion, and region and others you can’t change because they are either physically or biologically apart of you but you can choose whether to accept them or not. I also feel that becoming aware and accepting is an important part in understanding your own cultural identity.
Culture is defined as “the way of life of a people” (Hall, 1996; Mathews, 2000). Culture will be developed over period of time as society keeps learning their culture; they will silhouette their behaviours and characters (Mathews, 2000). Culture is profound, common, un-stated experiences which group members of a given culture share. The member communicates with one another without knowing, and which form the surroundings against which all other events are judged in order to provide the approach in which a group resolves dilemmas. According to Hofstede (1980), “Culture is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment, which is where it was learned not distinctive.” Furthermore, culture is not uniform which enable us to access to different cultural meaning and amend between different culturally relevant behaviours depending on the context.
My ethnic identity is considered French, but I myself do not consider myself to really belong to this ethnic group. As stated in "On Being Different" page 12 Chapter 2, "Each of us grows up in the presence of a set of rules and expectations that have been both transmitted and transformed across the generations." I never grew up learning my heritage or culture, but instead learned the culture of my friend Terrence Smith. I lived with Terrence and his mother for years and I learned a lot about African-American culture from his mother. She taught us a great deal about the Harlem Renaissance; mainly her favorite poet Langston Hughes. I consider myself part of this ethnic group and some things I would say about this group in particular