My Culture
1. Who do the members of your culture consider to be part of their family?
My culture considers my immediate family members and extended members to be family. At all of our birthday parties we have our immediate family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
2. What are some roles and responsibilities of specific family members?
The roles and responsibilities vary from person to person in our culture and also by the age of the person. I live on a farm so there are a lot of responsibilities and roles that everyone in the family has to do or take care of. My mother was the one that milked the cows and took care of the farm and my dad worked as a custodian. My mom was always busy so when I got my license it was my responsibility to drive them to school and pick them up from their practices. When we got older we gained new responsibilities we had to get jobs of our own so we could pay for our own stuff and we had to do more things around the house like mowing lawn, doing our laundry, and washing dishes.
3. Are family members encouraged to stay in the same house/area as their family after adolescence?
In my culture it is not a bad thing to live with your parents after adolescence. I am currently living at home with my mom for the summer. It is not looked down on to live with your parents while you are getting on your feet and finding a job or looking for your own place. Family is a big thing in my culture and I hope to live close to my family when I find my own place. All my family and extended family live in the same general area. So staying around the same area means staying close to home.
4. What are the cultural norms and taboos regarding dating and meeting people with whom to become romantically involved?
Having a close family life and living with my mother, two sisters, and my younger brother it is a dominantly female household. It is common around our house to be able to talk openly about the people we date and for them to feel welcome in our house. My boyfriend of 4 years stays at our house most of the time and he is part of our family. If my mom needs something to be fixed around the house she can count on him to get it done. I am close to my younger sister her being only 2 years younger than me we hang out with some of the same friends so if she would date someone that the rest of the family has heard bad things about or someone didn’t like than normally that person would not stick around too long.
5. How are marriage proposals conducted in your culture?
When a person wishes to marry someone in my culture it is common for them to talk to the parents first. The man my sister married asked my parents well before he proposed to her. Respect is a big deal in my culture and if someone did not give the parents that respect it would be difficult to gain it once you were a part of the family.
6. What is the typical wedding like?
Since we are Catholic we are known to have very long wedding ceremonies followed by the dinner reception and dance. There are always a lot of people that show up and are kind of like a family reunion with all the distant relatives. There is normally drinking involved for those who are of age and the dance goes well into the night.
7. How do members of the culture view divorce?
My parents got divorced last spring and my older sister is currently going through a divorce now. Getting divorced is not fronded upon in our culture. If two people are not happy with each other then they should live the rest of their lives stuck with each other and hating each other.
8. If divorce occurs, what are the rights of each partner?
When my parents got divorced, we kids stayed with my mother, we see my dad very often and spend as much time at his house as my mothers. My sister is going through her divorce and her and her ex husband get equal custody of their son. My parents don’t talk to each other much but when they do there are civil with each other.
9. What are the general opinions of the culture toward homosexuality?
In my culture being a homosexual is not looked down on. I have two homosexual cousins who have been dating their partners for many, many years now. I think since they are ten years or so older than me and growing up with them and knowing at a young age that they were gay I never knew them any other way so I always have openly accepted it. Even though some family members are very religious homosexuality is not something that is discriminated against in my culture.
10. How are the general perspectives of this culture the same/different from yours regarding gender roles?
Typically when you think of a famer you would picture a male, well in my case, my mother was the one who milked the cows and ran the farm and my father left for work every day. Since my brother is the youngest one in our family when we were younger my older sister and I where the ones who helped in the field and with the farm work and my brother stayed in the house and cleaned. Some of the similarities between my culture and the general culture are that my mother also cooked and cleaned the house and my dad was the main “bread winner” in our household.
After doing this activity it made me see that I am lucky to have such a close family where I can talk openly about anything and I know that I will be accepted for whoever I am or choose to be.
What was something that you noticed about your culture after doing this activity?
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I was raised Catholic, and I've always believed that my family members are pretty strict Catholics. Sometimes their rules drive me crazy! However, during this activity I noticed that some of my family's beliefs and practices aren't the same as the Catholic church's beliefs. For instance, the church in general is against homosexuality; however, my uncle is gay, and my family accepts him and his lifestyle completely. So in general, this activity made me realize that being apart of a certain culture does not mean you are a stereotypic member of that culture. It seems obvious, but I'd never examined my family in this way before.
ReplyDeleteI founf that my private ideas and general ideas were sometimes very different. Therefore, I thought perhaps many others think in same way as mine, then what is general idea? I was in puzzled after answered the questions. I think general idea is kind of stereotyped ideas for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI am also very lucky to be from a family culture that is open and honest with one another about everything. My mom and my sisters are my best friends; I know that any one of my family members would be there for me in a heartbeat for anything I needed. I realized after this activity that our family has grown and expanded their views of other cultures. My grandparents were raised in a culture that were less accepting of other cultures, race, sexual orientation and so on. As our family grew and we, individually, learned about other cultures we taught other family members to be more accepting. I had to teach my dad how to be more accepting of others that are not exactly like him--when I toured SCSU there was a college student working in the dorms and he had dread locks and was super nice to us; sprung up a conversation and told us about campus, a very nice guy. My dad stood there with his arms crossed and appeared very cold, and even said that he didn't want me to go there because he thought there were dangerous people there. I scolded him and told him to lighten up, and since then, he has been so open-minded about other cultures! He tries to learn on his own, it's great.
ReplyDeleteI noticed my culture was a mix of different cultures, to include the culture of Alicia. When I was answering the questions it was difficult for me to not infuse my ideas of what culture should be and what I would make of it within my own immediate family, versus what had traditionally influenced me. Towards the end of the questions culture really became pieces of all of it. What was, what is, what should or will be my culture.
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