Cultural Experience Analysis

The cultural interview is to invite someone different culture than themselves and to prepare questions to talk about the differences and similarities between the two participants. The person I chose to interview is my boyfriend David. The reason why I chose to interview him because of his status he is an immigrant in this country. I would like to know the consequences of being illegal immigrant and what's the reason behind he came to this country. I told him I was going to interview him but he didn’t know I was going to ask him questions about his status which was for me was a bit frightening because I know many people don’t like talking about their status and now more because of our president. David came to my house on November 1st around 5 o’clock while waiting for him I made a cup of coffee to take to the park. Once he came to my house we walk to my neighborhood park to do the interview. We sat down at a bench and he thought I was going to ask him basic questions tell me about yourself but never knew they were going to be deeply personal questions.

Arriving at a foreign country at the age of eleven years old was and exiting and yet intimidating experience. High buildings, wide roads, newer and nicer cars on the streets were some of the first things I noticed when I arrived to the city of Los Angeles CA. Living in a country where you were not born in could be difficult some times. Although Spanish is spoken at a grand scale in CA, it was difficult to communicate with and understand the teachers from my classes at the elementary level since all they spoke was English. Los Angeles is a city of great diversity, therefore it is believed to be the perfect place for any person arriving from another country to not feel like a foreign, such believe

In this Ethnographic paper, I will be interviewing and discussing the differences between my culture and that of another. My culture consists of two-parts, one being Puerto Rican and the other being Caucasian. I will be interviewing my best friend’s mother Cristina Carlesso Dager, who is from Venezuela. South American culture consists of many influences due to the arrival of the Europeans; Europeans cultures brought a mix of Spanish, Portuguese, and French creating what we know today as Latin America. This paper will highlight key topics discussed in class like kinship, political and social organization, food, clothing, religion, etc. From this interview, I want to gain a new-found knowledge of what is like to be from a different culture then my own. I will interview Mrs. Dager with no bias and will cover every subject to my capability. I am interested in discovering the differences between our cultures, so that I can be aware of this diverse world that I live in.

This is my first interviewing anyone regarding their culture solely, and I interviewed my friend Jennifer on Skype. I have known Jennifer for a long time, and Jennifer is 27 years old. Jennifer is of African American descent. Jennifer’s parents reside in from Houston Texas, and they have lived there all their lives. Jennifer had Cajun roots, and her grandmother is white and her grandfather is Black. Her grandparents had an interracial marriage at a time when it was not acceptable. Jennifer’s grandfather and grandmother were born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and they experienced discrimination and unacceptance form others. Jennifer’s great-grandparents came to term with their relationship, and they were supportive, but not at first. Jennifer expressed being extremely proud of her Cajun, Anglo-Saxon, and African American ancestry. Jennifer comes from an upper middle class background, and it is a firm believer in working hard to achieve your goals.

My cultural immersion focus is on the religious war in Nigeria. One of the interesting things I found in my research was that, in Nigeria the Christian faith and the Muslim faith represents the greatest percentage of religions. I also learned that the Christians and Muslims pray every day several times a day. With that being said, I wondered if they believed in a higher entity prayed every day, who they are praying to? And what is their belief system based on? (question 1) Since their Christian faith seems to be divided into Catholic, Protestant or some other, I decided to attend a typical Catholic Church service and a Friday mid-day Muslim prayer service. Maybe I should not have used the

Magic has been incorporated into many cultures and stories throughout history. The idea of magic has gone from being scary and misunderstood to be wonderfully interesting. This class focuses on magic and how it has been incorporated and portrayed to the world for centuries. The art paintings and sculptures I saw at the Houston Fine Arts Museum had perfect representations of the influence of magic on different societies. Each artifact and painting had its own magical feeling to it that left an impression on me since I could see the effect magic had on the creators as well as on the society. Every piece told a story in some way and I found them to be great illustrations of the magic during those periods of time.

Working environments mostly operate from within the specific cultural parameters of the dominant cultural group. This can be confounding, conflicting and result in ineffective service provision. There are examples where employees working from within their own cultural practices could provide a better level of professional care but are denied the chance to do so because they have to operate in alignment with the cultural practices of the dominant culture.

After reading the four types of cultural boarders, I took a closer look at type IV “For students the values, beliefs, and expectations are so discordant across worlds that border crossing is resisted or impossible”. (Gorton & Alston, 2012, pg. 135)

For my Cultural Encounter project, I visited the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA). The museum hosts an exhibit called “Art of The Ancient Americas”, which consists of remnants from the indigenous peoples of North, Central, and South America. These artifacts showcase the unique styles, intricate technique, and profound symbolism prevalent in indigenous American artwork, and give valuable insight into the culture and history of these ancient peoples.

To adapt a care for Jane in order to meet her cultural needs, I would need to be culturally competent this would include putting my cultural skill and cultural encounters into practice (Fundamentals of Nursing e-text, page 9). I would need to assess her cultural believes, practices and values. This would allow me to obtain accurate information necessary to establish a cultural care plan for her. By utilizing my cultural encounters skill, I would be able to interact directly with Jane through a verbal and nonverbal communication in order to get a valid response that will enable me to validate her beliefs, values, and practices. In addition, I would take note of her verbal and her nonverbal responses. Since Jane only eats traditional Vietnamese

Assuming that the visiting cultural anthropologist can speak English (and knows the appropriate distance and volume for standard conversation), and has at least a high school education and, some basics like clothes, toothbrush, soap, shampoo and, having a driver’s license would be even better, or some solution for transportation such as buses or have friends or family to drive the cultural anthropologist around or be part a tourist group that provides transportation and maybe a hotel, if the cultural anthropologist has friend or family in the US I would see about if they can help with housing. If you cannot find any housing, then you should use the money that you have brought over and exchanged to reserve a room at a hotel

Living in the United States has made me more aware of the necessity to know about and understand different cultural perspectives. This class is also helping me expand my mind and ideas about privilege, race, social identity and inequality. Moreover, we have studied the negative effects of inequality, making it more personal and easier to understand these big systemic concepts. Culture and privilege that group membership confers affects so many aspects of life and we can get into problems by not understanding or taking into account those differences in values, customs, and ideas and experience.

For my second culture immersion project I went to eat at a Mexican restaurant. I went with my group members Ryan, Brian and Brian's girlfriend. I went this pass Tuesday after we had our group meeting. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant but I know it was downtown Appleton near by the Walgreens. . This was good choice for the project because I never have eaten at an actually Mexican restaurant before.

The decision that was made to include this day for the Cultural Immersion assignment and not for the Faith Immersion was that the Jewish community is viewed as a nationality/culture and not a religion alone. Therefore, the understanding of this population was that they are considered a people not simple a section of religion. Another interesting factor that lead to this decision was that they are of the Jewish faith, however, they believe that Jesus was the messiah and did come and die and rise again for the sins of man. Consequently, I remembered a co-worker from several years ago that through conversation mentioned that he (Jacob) was a member of a Messianic Jewish congregation called, Beth Messiah Synagogue. Through countless discussions

Thinking back on my childhood, I would have to say that what I remember, my cultural experience was mainly positive. When I was a child, I was placed into a good private school, where I learned English early on, and where I didn't feel any judgement. Back when I was learning English, I used to hate it, thinking it was extremely hard. Gradually, as I made more friends and was able to grasp the language, I began to enjoy it. I believe that part of my experience has made me enjoy languages a lot more, due to always wanting to learn as many as I could.