Cultural Reflection

Many people “characterize cultures”, in order to seek differences instead of finding similarities and assimilating peacefully. Some might think it’s best to keep everyone separated because we are all so different. But I believe the best things come from sharing with others, belonging to a diverse community, and gaining a variety of perspectives on life.

The theme in my painting is the obstacles people face when trying to achieve a goal. The message my painting communicates is to be weary of the unseen dangers when attempting to reach an objective. My intention was for the viewer to see an image that seems simple but in reality contains a story that is up to the interpretation of whoever is looking at it. In my painting the seagulls are intended to represent a plan or a vision, the person on the boat is supposed to represent the person viewing the painting, the wind blowing the boat represents destiny, the animals and coconuts on the island represents wealth, the anchor represents doubt, the ocean represents life, the island represents success and the giant shark represents failure.

My culture is pretty close to the average human I guess. For example, when I see my family everyone gets excited and start talking about what’s new and what we’ve done. Sometimes my family talks about some stuff that doesn’t even matter but they make a lot of jokes.

I am enjoying the class so far and like the fact that some of my classmates are willing to openly express their opinions of the readings, both positive and negative. Taseem brings a cultural perspective she is willing to share. Even when others do not share, there is knowledge to be gained, as it drives my curiosity to understand those who are different than me.

During this class, Ministry, Culture, and Contextual Analysis we were instructed to observe a faith tradition unlike our own, to expose ourselves to a cross culture awareness and experience, and interpret what we observe.

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.

(Origin) When thinking about my family and our roots I identify my family’s places or origin as Germany and Ireland. A majority of my family is of German ancestry and the one exception is my grandmother and she is Irish. I identify these too places as where my family came from due to stories that I have hear from family members and to the traits that each member of my family carries. A majority of my family are all blonde hair, with blue or brown eyes which have a lot of similarities to people from Germany. My family as very few of the traits from the Irish side but the only ones the I have been told are that some people in our family freckle a lot

Upon completion of this course, in additional to all of the life experiences I have been involved in over the semester, I have gained valuable insights in regard to my cultural background. While gathering information for the ancestor writing assignment, correspondingly choosing Ikebana as the topic for an occupation evidence paper, I discovered how and why Japanese culture has influenced over my family’s cultural identity. By reason of my mother's side of the family whom resided in Taiwan during and likely before the period between 1895 and 1945, while Taiwan was under Japanese rule and was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. This was a new discovery which, given a fresh perception on my own cultural background as a whole.

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

From the essay, saying that, “The hero in a work is a result of not only the culture from which the hero comes, but also the culture of the author,” shows the relationship of how a hero is perceived and created by means of relating one’s culture in the creation of a hero. All around the world, we are guided with different beliefs, religion and values. Some may think that a hero is someone who believes that he must die for freedom or who believes that a hero is someone who could live out the teachings of their religion or any other beliefs that one is cultured with. An author’s perception of a hero unto which his character would be based upon would depend on his own culture/beliefs and also unto the setting of the current character’s culture from his/her surrounding environment.

The sounds of my grandmother's voice caused me to gravitate toward consciousness on the long

Prior to taking this course, I had put very little thought into my culture – let alone grappled with the fact that culture is far more complex than something that we simply have. Early in the semester we touched upon the fact that culture is, in actuality, much more nuanced and is something practiced and experienced differently on every scale and in every interaction throughout every person’s lifetime. Upon completion of the course, an investigation into my own culture will exemplify just that. First, looking at historical, cultural and family background, I will examine how my position within my unique family has shaped how I approach the world around me. Here I will tie in an especially personal element that I feel shapes many parts of my cultural identity – being the fact that I am adopted. Next, an examination of the significance of travel, migration, and languages in my life builds on tradition, but reflects an identity that I have recently taken on as an independent young adult outside of how I was raised. Then, I will touch upon how nationality and religion have been significant in my cultural socialization. I will look at how I grapple with my nationality, and how generational pressures have led to conflicts resulting in growth, development, and meaningful choices. Finally, looking closely at some of my most valued friendships, as well as the nature of my broader social life and life goals, I will argue that they largely reflect elements mentioned earlier, especially

I was born as a bicultural child to a German mother and an Arabic father. When I was a child, I had spent the first three years of my life in Iraq. When I came back to Germany, I faced the challenges of isolation. I remember that my overall language development as a young child was delayed since I spoke Arabic as my primary language at home. I did not look like the rest of the German children, nor could I talk like them. These differences made me insecure and shy, with very little self-confidence; as a result, I felt isolated. When I was about four years old, my life changed for the better, because my mother enrolled me in a Kindergarten in my community. I believed that I was in a secure, safe, and nurturing environment, because there were other children of different cultural backgrounds whom I could relate to. I was finally able to play and to engage with them. My Kindergarten teacher made sure that I felt welcomed and included. Today I know that being able to play was an important vehicle for my social, emotional, and cognitive development.

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

I come from a multicultural family, with two cultures that are very different from one another, Cuban and German. Being exposed to such diversity I feel that I got a head start on understanding that people’s culture shapes who they are and how they think or behave. Growing up, I remember thinking to myself the different ways in presenting a topic depending on which family member I was speaking to, and even the conversations were different, because each culture valued something different. And even when the values were the same, it was expressed in different ways. So, when the mini ethnography project was assigned I started to think of all the components of my culture and thought it would be interesting to experience a culture that was