My Cultural Identity

Most people call me Colby, but on the field i'm know as number 40. Soccer has been a part of my life since I was 3, my 12 years of experience have influenced how I act, what I eat and most aspects of my life-like who I hang out with and what I dislike. In the United states especially, sports are a huge part of everyone's cultural identity. With all this in mind I would call my cultural identity a soccer game. It can change in a blink of the eye but is consistent through life.My family is like the other players, education is like the field and my hobbies are like the ball.

Charles F. Glassman once said, “In a few seconds, we judge another person and think we know them. When, the person we’ve lived with the longest, we still don’t know very well- ourselves.” Writing about my values has gave me a better understanding of who I am. I now understand the several ways my culture has shaped me to become who I am. My cultural autobiography will allow me to reveal who I truly am by understanding my cultural identity. My cultural identity is the combination of my worldview and values as well as my position in the eight microcultures.

Identity culture is a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality. My identity culture is i’m Native American my family traits it's different from other families ,my family gets together on holidays and we celebrate days that other families don't do. We like to party and have a good time and go out of town time to time . My family cooks different than other families. They don't cook pork chops, cowboy stew, chicken in a black pot when they on a vacation are on any outgoing road trip but we do. My family enjoys eating cajun fettuccine because we make it

When I think of the word “cultural identity”, I think of myself, and what makes up who I am as a person. My cultural identity influences everything about me, from the moment I wake up, to the minute I rest my head on my pillow at night. My culture influences the way I eat, speak, worship, and interact with people. However, I am not only affected by my own culture, but others’ culture as well. I am fortunate to have an extremely rich heritage, and I couldn’t be prouder of my cultural identity.

“Dale, dale, dale, No pierdas el tino; Porque si lo pierdes, Pierdes el camino”. The classic piñata song that is sung at parties. It translates to “Go, go, go, don't lose your aim; because if you lose it, you will lose your path.” The phrase ties in with my identity because of my cultural background and experiences at parties. Who am I? What is my cultural identity? The questions that have me trying my best not to have an existential crisis. I am a Mexican American, my parents were born in Jalisco and I was born in California. As for my cultural identity, I am a NSHS student that has been shaped by music, technology, and sports.

After countless tries by my ancestors to establish a life in the United States it seemed destiny had a place for me. Come to think of it, may it wasn’t destiny calling my family to cross the border, rather our native land was calling us home. Still how colonized have I become to accept my new identity. In the novel, Cruz comments that Esperanza changed her son’s name from Robert to Bobby. (Loc. 215) “Call him Bobby. In America, he’s Bobby, Esperanza said” (Cruz). My parents didn’t assimilate that quickly. My full name is Socorro Martinez, and I’m the youngest of eight children. My father came to this country during the Bracer Act Program, after it was terminated in 1964 he worked in construction. My mother followed six years later with three children, after losing her daughter to an illness. I was named after my mother but was given the nick name Suki. Growing up no one called by my first name. I built an identity based on my nick name, and slowly my cultural identity was diminishing.

What is cultural identity? What is my cultural identity? We can go into my mind to see what we can find. I am a calm, easygoing, relaxed, athletic,and a somewhat independent latin-american person. I believe this because I am easy to get along with, I sometimes want to do things on my own, and I exercise and play sports. Since I am latin, I have to speak spanish at home or around my family, but I speak english outside of home. My parents don’t speak english, so they use me as a translator wherever we go. This is a somewhat representation of my cultural identity. We will find out the rest of my cultural identity with a representation of my rosary, watching Remember the Titans, having some food.

As I was faced with the questions on what my cultural identity was, I started to question myself on what it really meant to me. Do I even have a cultural identity, to begin with? I started to think what I enjoyed most that has evolved me into the person I am today. Everyone seems to have their own cultural identity, some even based their cultural identity off of their personal interests. So I started to think of my own personal interests that would blend into my own cultural identity. Food is something in my life that resembles my culture as well as what I am like as a person. As a child growing up in America but is raised in a Vietnamese household, I was able to get a taste of many different cultures through food. With my culture’s food with a mix of other different cultures, I was able to identify who I really am as a person. The food from my culture really helps me learn more about where I came from and the family traditions that follow it. The foods that I eat show the different cultures that I have tasted in order to identify who I really am today and it helped me get closer to my cultural traditions as well as my family. My family takes food and cooking very seriously, especially for family gatherings because it helps brings us closer together and this side of my family also represents how I view the foods I consume as well.

“ I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact I am black: It means that I must . . . respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.”- June Jordan. As life goes on I am learning that we do not always get what we want. In my English class, we read two passages; one was a novel called “ Two Kinds ” by Amy Tan and the other was a poem called “ Legal Alien “ by Pat Mora. The text “ Two Kinds “ is about the conflict between a mother and daughter; her mother just wants her daughter to triumphant in the world, while her daughter wants to just be herself. The other text “ Legal Alien “, is about the speaker describing being bicultural, and how she is

¨Pereme-what? That is the weirdest and longest last name i've ever heard of! Where do people get last names like that?¨ My answer? Well, my grandfather is from Siberia, but my family just consider ourselves Russian. Actually not long ago my dad had told me about a city in Russia called Peremyshl, my great great grandparents, as I was told, are from there, Peremyshl is in the Kaluga Oblast near Moscow. And because of my ethnic background, I go to my church's youth, our youth really likes to go and hang out at the park or go someplace else and play volleyball.

My family’s Portuguese customs and my experiences living in the United States profoundly influenced the person I am today. The assimilation between Portuguese beliefs and living the American dream reshaped my self-concept and ignited my curiosity about diversity. The concept of acculturation summarizes my experience with integrating more than one culture and crafting my values. J. W. Berry states, “Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous, first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups” (as cited in Morrison & James, 2009). Appreciating my cultural background allowed me to develop my racial identity which brought awareness to my own privileges and biases. As I am furthering my education to become a counselor, I hope learning about myself will help me guide and empower clients to do the same.

Most people define someone’s culture by what they see on the outside, however what’s on the outside doesn’t always define who you are. When you hear the word culture you might think of someone’s ethnicity as a main factor. While most ethnic groups might have similar traditions among their people, individually, the people are very different. My cultural identity is like an iceberg, you may see a little bit, but there is still a lot to be discovered.

So what is culture? As a class we discovered that culture is your behaviors and beliefs of a particular age, social, or ethnic group. This relates to me because I have my own personal beliefs and my behavior reflects on my beliefs. My customs consist of what I personally like to do and what is personally significant to me like how I play basketball and use clothing to show who I am. My ethnicity plays the most huge part of my culture which is the

What are some of your family traditions? What is your favorite dish your family makes? What are some things you do at family occasions? These are all aspects of cultural identity. Culture to me is ethnicity, traditions, religion, and just stuff related to things like that. Things that have been passed down generations from your bloodline that represent who you are today and your family. My cultural identity reflects religion, food, fashion.

My Cultural Identity is my life, my life is more about what I do in my life. My cultural identity is about what I do in life like I love sports, and that in my cultural because everyone in my family played a sport in life. Baseball is my favorite sport because that’s something my pops taught me how to play. My family is raised in the country so we love to go trail ride and we love to ride fourwheelers and all. I’m from and was raised lafayette, louisiana. I was raised in the country but I have some city in me, but most is country.