Cultural Reflection

There’s various things that describes everyone, but there’s only a few things that make each and every one of us unique, which is, our cultural background. As far as cultural background, it defines the individual’s upbringing. The cultural background includes ones religion, race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, linguistic and values. These values can be shaped by family, friends, society, or authoritative level. This paper is a great way for one to define my identity or at least understand who I am.

Culture definitely plays a role in who I will become and my values show how different I can be from others; I hope when writing this cultural autobiography to help understand myself better. My cultural identity is a combination of my worldview and values combined with my position in the nine microcultures.

A part of what constructs an individual’s identity is defined by the culture they are a part of. Culture consistently informs the way one views the world and others, therefore it becomes an influential and defining characteristic in the daily lives of many. Many authors have expressed the belief in this through various mediums, such as memoirs, biographies, and poems. Due to there being a direct correlation between the self-identity of a person to culture, a person’s view of the world can alter as a result.

In order to truly understand the culture and various lifestyles that envelop American society today, one must learn to appreciate and understand their own cultural heritage. Lev Vygotsky, a psychologist in the early 1900’s, simply put it, “Language and culture are the frameworks through which humans experience, communicate, and understand reality.” Therefore, culture determines more than merely our origin or family; culture shapes the structure of our lives, and greatly impacts our future perspective of the world. As I began to explore my family’s history and lineage, I developed a sense of pride as I was exposed to the endeavors my great-grandparent’s underwent. Whether it was struggling to enter a completely different culture,

Children’s emerging cultural identity, is an essential and complicated task for all young children. One that primarily develops within the child 's own family, and then extends out to the broader community and culture (Goleman, 1995). Children develop a sense of ‘belonging’ within their own community, which allows them to develop an understanding of, and harmonise other individual’s beliefs and cultures. The practices and understandings children have will fluctuate according to traditions and beliefs, backgrounds and values, of their specific family identity (Dunn, 1993). Child socialisation ideals may alter across different humanities, as well as across individuals (Hong Xiao, 2001).

At the beginning of this course if I were asked to write a cultural biography within the first week I would have not known where to start. Through the extensive discussions online and in class I have been able to recognize more about my own culture in ways I had never thought about. Through my past experiences up until entering university, culture had never been a topic of interest or seen as a necessity in my life as there were not many differences both culturally and racially around me. However, through analyzing the readings and my own experiences I have been able to take a deeper look at my life experiences as well as my own views and how it has impacted who I am today.

I love working as a wedding and engagement photographer. Have I mentioned that before? Anyway, the enjoyment factor goes up at least a notch or two when the couple is fun, and they are themselves during their engagement photography session. I just love working with genuine couples who aren’t afraid to let me get to know them and who really want their personalities to show through during the session. That was definitely the case when I recently worked with Mindy Nicholson and Riley Webb during their engagement photography session.

Since my Summer semester is coming to an end and I am moving forward with my field, I feel the class has helped me evaluate situations with a deeper meaning and not what meets the eye. With the degree I am majoring in, I will come across a lot of people and since more cultures are coming to the United States I now know what to do if I ever get the chance to assist someone with a different background than me. There were many things I had to learn when I started taking the class one of them was, Religious Diversity, and that was difficult because I do talk about my beliefs and having to take these classes I realized there is nothing wrong with anyone’s belief system (Martin & Nakayama, (2013), p 15). I have learned that we all have a different upbringing and living in today’s society is already hard enough and I need to be open minded because I am their advocate and being able to learn this concept through the semester I feel I am capable of putting my upbringing to the side and learn about their way of life and making sure they have a sense of comfort whenever they need me.

This paper is written as a presentation of my own cultural background and identity. What I hope to reveal, is where I come from, how I became who I am today, and how my culture helped to develop me into that person. My background has never really seemed interesting or particularly pertinent to who I am, until I began this course (HSC570); now, I actually am acutely aware of how important it is to my present life. It is with excitement and expectancy that I write this paper; based upon my memory of tales told to me by those that I consider to have been our family historians. Sadly, they have all crossed over from life to eternity.

The cultural assignment allowed me to gain a new perspective on the differences of others. I have grown up in a household of dissimilar belief systems. My mom is a dedicated Christian while my dad is unassociated with any religious beliefs. Though, he grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness. There differing belief systems have been the cause of various conflicts within their relationship. I often wondered if people with contradicting beliefs could effectively and peacefully discuss their belief systems. This cultural experience showed me that a peaceful discussion is possible between individuals of dissimilar beliefs.

In this day and age, everyone feels attacked for what they believe in or what they do not believe in, attacked for what color their skin is, their sexual orientation, their religion, and so much more. Watching this video, I felt and noticed many things. It is easy to say “oh, they are a just a bunch of entitled brats” and if I am being completely honest, I do agree to a point. But that is not the full answer. The future of our country resides in the hands of our great nation’s youth, yet, they are fighting for what our constitution promises them: freedom to be who they are and to be just as equal as the person standing next to them. Despite the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs and more.

Understanding our personal biases and acknowledging our own intersecting identities is a powerful tool in the counseling world. Through exploring the four developmental domains laid out by the multicultural and social justice counseling competencies (MSJCC) counselors are able to better identify their own identities and those of their clients resulting in a stronger client counselor relationship.

I have seen this video a few times and my initial reaction was not this documentary again. After watching this video again, I remembered the importance of it. For me, it is an eye opener because every time I watch it I am in awe of this conversation being more than 20 years old and still relatable to today. I also think it would be valuable to film another documentary like this again today to see what changes have been made in our society. I felt that this documentary lines up with the section we are reading for class currently. I would love to be a part of a documentary like this and think it would be beneficial to also have women in the group.

1. Culture is perceived as a way of thinking that influences the behaviors of a group of people.

I started this lesson off by activating their prior knowledge by bringing up the activity I had them do on Wednesday. This activity was for the students to write about a place they would love to travel to and to provide three reasons why they wanted to travel there. I allowed three people to share their responses. After listening to their responses, I used this opportunity to help them identify/explain what an opinion was. I prompted the students by asking them “why didn’t we all choose the same place to travel too?” this question allowed students to really think about why each person’s answer was different. Next, I asked the class what is an opinion? I asked them this question to see if my students understood what an opinion was and if they had any prior knowledge of this term. After the students explained what an opinion was I then provided them with the definition of an opinion and an example. Next, I asked them “why didn’t we just simply say I want to go to California?”. I used this question to help the class understand why opinions needed to be supported by reasons. After the students shared their response I then asked the class “why do opinions have to be supported by reasons?” The class then explained that without reasons we would all wonder why this person would want to travel to California over another state. After, I explained to them why opinions needed to be supported by reasons. After, my explanation introduced my lesson about immigrants in America at the turn