Practicing Anthropology When I think of anthropology, in my mind I think of a researcher of different cultures or the study of people, places, and the historical life of others from around the world. Never, would I have thought that I practice anthropology in my personal life. This paper will describe situations in my life that led me to unknowingly practiced anthropology. I grew up in a home that was very much dysfunctional and full of hypocrisy. This was difficult for me because I was often confused about what was expected from me. The culture of my surroundings was that of entitlement, prejudism, racism, and ethnocentrism. They valued nothing and took whatever they could from government funding and from others while often put others …show more content…
As a parent, I ensured that my children were raised with the polar opposite of social structure that I had received. When my children do well, I praise them and display their hard work for everyone to see. As my children grew up, I taught them about my religious culture and allowed them to choose their own religious or non-religious path, (even though I may want them to have the same beliefs as I have). When I was eleven years old, my biological mother had requested I come live with her. Despite my excitement to go live with my mother, in my mind, I moved to a foreign country where I felt as if I were an alien. I moved from Eugene, Oregon with a population of mostly white Caucasians to Indio, California highly populated with the Hispanic culture. I was the minority in my neighborhood and in my school. Indio was a city full of enculturation, and the children practiced the same cultures as their parents and their parent’s parents. It was highly populated with the Hispanic culture. Everyone spoke both English and Spanish but Spanish was used most often. While I did not learn the language, I was intrigued by everything around me such as the primary religion most practiced (Catholic), the language, food, music, and the family values. The social structure of the Hispanic people was something I was not familiar with, these were very large families who cherished one another and their religion was taken serious. They valued hard work and play. I truly enjoyed living within the
My entire family was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. After three and a half years of living there my family decided to seek a better future in The United States. My father would go to the United States back and forth to work and earn money to send to us in Mexico. Eventually my mother was able to get a visa and my brother along with my little sister had an alternate way into the United States. We lived in Dallas Texas and Atlanta Georgia before settling in Howard county Maryland in a very small apartment. Luckily we were doing pretty well with my dad being the only one knowing English at the time. My father was working two jobs and I was getting ready to start kindergarten. I was very excited because the education we would have received in Mexico was nothing compared to the education in Howard County. I was excited for what was to come, but there were disadvantages of knowing only Spanish. Being bullied because of my poor English had an impact on me. I was in completely separate classes learning things that were simple compared to the regular course. I was excluded from certain activities, field trips and assemblies. I was clueless at first though as I slowly learned the language I understood things a lot more.
In society today, the discipline of anthropology has made a tremendous shift from the practices it employed years ago. Anthropologists of today have a very different focus from their predecessors, who would focus on relating problems of distant peoples to the Western world. In more modern times, their goal has become much more local, in focusing on human problems and issues within the societies they live.
My Mother and Father relocated from Costa Rica to New York City where they met got married and where I was born. When I was just two years old, always wanting the best for us, my father moved our family from New York City to Jacksonville, FL in search of a better paying job and the American dream so he could provide us with a better quality of life. To ensure we were always clothed and feed, my father sacrificed everything for us and worked long hours to do so. Though I did have a pronounced, safe and active upbringing the North Florida school system didn’t expect much from the Hispanics that were starting to move to the then small town; unfortunately since my parents worked so much they expected the school system
Anthropologist are known to play devil's advocate, to accumulate knowledge on a global scale and to ultimately make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. Their whole purpose is to study the language, traditions and customs of societies so knowledge on how humanity has developed over time may be advanced. Cultural anthropologists use a wide range of techniques in order to reach an insightful understanding of human behavior in a specific culture. Cultural Anthropologists play a vital role in spreading what knowledge is accumulated from other regions of the world.
Cold Water, directed by Noriko Ogami is a documentary from 1986 about cross-cultural adaptation and culture shock. It is about diving into a new culture and having it feel, as one foreign student puts it, like a “plunge into cold water.” Twelve Boston University foreign students express their perceptions of their experiences in the U.S. as each of them (plus one American student and three specialists) is interviewed about living and studying in a new culture. Initial focus is on the arrival and immediate post-arrival period and the culture shock which, for most of the interviewees, follows on its heels. It becomes clear that central to the problems encountered
My first language was Spanish. English was my second language, which I learned in school. My parents always taught me the importance of being connected to God and to the Catholic church, because our faith in God is what keeps us alive. Our house was located on a nice avenue. We had a school in front of our house, and the streets were always calm.We are five members in my family and lived in a modest, but beautiful, house. My parents are loving and have always been there in the most unfavorable moments that I have faced through my life thus far. I could not be more grateful with the life that I have thanks to them. When I graduated from middle school, everything shifted. Matamoros looked abhorrent; it was nothing comparable to what it was when I was younger. The aspiration of living and forming a family there slowly dissipated.
Now going back to people not identifying themselves as Hispanic/Latino(a) because they are different they don’t carry the exact same meaning. In the article “Allá en Guatemala” by Lucila, she mentions how religion can influence identity and the importance of its existence. I find these very believable since we go to church we can relate to the fact that we have pride for our culture, language, and religion. Being bilingual can be also a way to feel motivated in over achieving things because for those people can be easier to learn other languages than a person who is monolingual. “The girls’ trips to Mexico also helped them develop a deeper understanding of the difference between the U.S and a developing country” (Lucila). This means that going back to Central America, you start to value more the things you have. Amalia was able to see that perspective in developing countries, but
To start, since I come from a heavily Hispanic culture and family I have grown to be accustomed to Mexican culture. However, there is still the slightest bit of ignorance on my part due to the fact that I was born in America and live in a well-off family. Whenever my dad mentions his childhood back in Central America I feel genuine curiosity towards the conditions he grew up in. He tells me of his life as a poor child with his family living in the streets of El Salvador. Listening to these stories make me wonder how it could have felt living in those same conditions when I was his age.
Anthropology, as a discipline in the field of human sciences, is based on certain ethical principles to guide its practitioners through their research. This creates a stable framework on which to start any research project. Avoiding deviation, however, can be complicated. Anthropologists have a responsibility to their field,
As a forensic anthropologist working on the “fox hollow murders” and examining the heavily fragmented and commingled remains that were found burned, different strategies and forensic methods were employed in recovering and identifying the victims. Some of the remains retrieved showed significant burns making it harder for forensic anthropologist to distinguish between the remains. Nonetheless, forensic anthropologists noted that there were two distinct types of states in which the remains were burned, a green state, and a dry state. The bones that were burned in a green states were easily recognized by the pronounced attachment of flesh to the bones and the fresh appearance of the remains, whereas the dry state didn’t have
Anthropology encompasses all of the major fields that America focuses on such as Biology, Medicine, Computer Science, and so much more. Anthropology studies the processes of these major fields, their development, and the involvement of humans in these fields. I have concluded that Anthropology is the five W’s of human existence, it is the, “Who, What, When, Where, and Why.” It explains every aspect of human life, yet the field is still on the backburner. As my mother and I continued our conversation, I realized that if society paid more attention to Anthropology we could use the research to explain many of the issues that plague society
children as a form of religion. Parents at times try to accomplish goals thru their children; that
What Is Anthropology? How Is It Done? People enter the field of anthropology for a variety of reasons. Some people enter the field by accident.
When I was seven years old I came to the U.S. from El Salvador. El Salvador is in Central America, it’s a country with poverty and no justice. It’s not a safe place to be at, kidnapping, robberies etc happens frequently it’s rare when something gets done about it. When I first got here to the U.S. I was clueless, everything was different the language, the food and the culture. Don't get me wrong, I was pleased with the differences of the Hispanic and White culture. It was the start of something new. When I started first grade and it was difficult, the language was a barrier to start with. On the bright side, I made a couple of friends, one of them was Josh, he helped me learn a few words. Time went by, nevertheless it was still a little hard to communicate. I have to admit something foolish did happen in the third grade due to the lack of communication I had with my teacher. I remember getting F’s for my homework which was writing a vocabulary word five times, back then I did not speak much English, so I had no clue that’s what we were supposed to be doing and I wondered why I got that, now I know.
There are many specific tools available to help understand evolutionary theory in a biology context, but not for an archaeological context “Applications of evolutionary tools outside biology raise methodological problems which have been largely ignored by philosophers of science.” (Houkes 2010: 3) This has recently changed as archaeologists have started to manipulate these applications for the use in an archaeological context “archaeologists and anthropologists have recently started using phylogenetic analysis to reconstruct tool traditions.” (Houkes 2010: 2) Through phylogenetics anthropologists have been able to take data sets and use them to understand the evolution of certain cultural phenomena “To date, the use of cladistics has centered almost exclusively on organisms, but there is no logical reason that phylogenetic systematics