My Family 's Heritage By Lev Vygotsky

Individuals should learn to accept themselves for who they are, not what society wants them to accept. As we continue to evolve, we build up our own characters, and they are typically a mix of the ethnicity and culture we inherit from our family, various encounters in our life, distinctive identity and personality we have. Our character and identity is not something that we get easily, it's an intricate process. The story “The Other Family” by Himani Bannerji is based on a mother and a daughter who immigrates to Canada. They belong to a black family, but after the immigration they are living in the dominance of the white society.The school is considered as the hegemony of Canada and teacher is considered as the mainstream, it is a sort of social institution that a hegemony shape but they does not know the awareness of marginalized groups. The mother feels anxious when she sees a drawing of a white family by her daughter. It was the misperceptions of the kid that lead to forget her identity or she was too small to identify it. So to examine about the identity of the marginalized individual the beginning is to focus on the quality of the education. It is necessary for every school system to teach equality and inclusions of every group status so that the marginalized group are not left isolated from the society. Secondly, the fear of the marginalized parents from losing their kids in the mainstream society shows their lack of confidence in their own cultural pride. Since

What Is This Thing Called Family is written by Lee Herrick, who was born in South Korea, adopted at eleven months, and raised in California (Herrick). This article states author’s perspective on the notion of family, based on his own experience. Herrick used to be laughed at because of his race when young. For the reason that certain Americans look down on Asian, little Herrick felt difficult to get on well with some local kids, even could not understand why these peers treated him like this. Herrick’s sister always acted as a “defender” and “protector”, she came to Herrick and intervened the conflicts between them, according to the author. One day, an incident happened, Herrick was attacked by his “flat face”, which was so hurtful and made little Herrick cried heavily on the long walk home after the bus dropped him off(Herrick). Herrick’ mother noticed that Herrick had cried when he walked in the front door. Mom comforted little Herrick carefully and gave him much power to face these difficult times in the future. In the process of growing up, Herrick gradually realized how much support had his mother and father gave him.

Through learning, families values, community relationships, and the willingness to achieve. Culture can be easily seen - the behavior of people – is the smallest part of culture. The greatest part, internal culture is inside people’s heads. It is our way of thinking and perceiving. Most importantly, it includes the values and beliefs unconsciously learned while growing up. The collision of two cultures as people come together causes us to become more aware of the differences and similarities between cultural values. By understanding the internal culture and significant values, we have a system to analyze and interpret behavior. People from around the globe bring their cultures here to American and institute them into society. Although, the United States is a culturally diverse society, there is a dominant culture and others give up their culture (depending upon where they may live) so they can fit into mainstream society. My family as other African American families changed their ways to fit into society hoping to become socially accepted because of not being members of the dominant culture. As with most societal trends, family values in all cultures are in constant motion; the list of American family values is always evolving. African

One big part of my cultural is our history. As may of us know some things about our culture's history, we are looked upon to know as much as we can possibly find about ourselves. Our parents and grandparents say this because they don't want any part of our culture to fade away. This is represented everywhere I go. In our church we have greek school where we learn about how the church came about, customs, and ancient greece, even sometimes how to speak greek. This is also encouraged outside of the church just in our homes. This was extremely important when I was little. We would frequently watch what seemed to be very boring ‘greek history’ shows that made my 5 year old self wonder why we watched them. This was ‘fun’ for my grandparents but now I realised the reason why we watched them was because they were proud of who they were. All this sums up into how education is so important to everyone in our culture.

Individuals coming in the U.S. have experienced a graduate deculturalization process as the country's majority assimilated them. Even with the fact that many communities struggle in order to preserve their cultural values, it is extremely difficult for them to do so in environments where they are being bombarded with cultural values belonging to other groups. While the U.S. has recently appeared to have adopted a more positive attitude with regard to other cultures, the matter is still problematic. The fact that many cultures have been gradually assimilated by the majority practically means that many traditions have been abandoned in order for people to develop interest in other concepts.

Inclusion of other cultures is a result of marrying into another culture, children become independent from the family, language barriers between the parents and children, distant from family left behind in old country, etc. Virtually every ethnic group has planted its footprint into the history and daily life of the United States (Times – News, 2008). Due to the geographical proximity of Latin countries, Hispanics have played a vital historical role in the development of this country (Times – News, 2008). The way to ensure that the family retains and remember their culture is to maintain their cultural heritage through the knowledge of one’s cultural history and how the people in that culture dealt with struggles and how they handled difficulties in life to know how their source of strength is sustained. History informs us that societies are the result of collective contributions from the various social and ethnic groups (Times – News, 2008). The United States contains the most diverse combination of cultures in the Americas, due to the contributions made by all the native and foreign cultures embraced within this nation (Times – News,

What does the word family mean to you? In my opinion, family means everything to me. It’s the people I knew since I was born, who I know I can turn to anytime needed. Everyone has their own definition of family, it can be positive, negative, or even both. In the world’s society everyone is born into a family, it can be a traditional, a un-blood related, or an extended family. No matter how well a family relationship can be there is no such thing as a perfect family. In many classic pieces of literature, many writers’ use themes of conflict between the children and their parents. It can be conflicts towards each other or conflicts the family experiences together. In many well know novels, many characters from tragic events of abuse, cruelty, and negligent events kept their courage to survive through terrible events. The story of “Ellen Foster” Kaye Gibbons takes a reader inside a story of young orphaned girl, who is passed down to every family until the she is able to find the perfect one she fit into. In the classic novel “Night” author Elie Wiesel writes a historical piece about a young boy’s experience in a concentration camp. Losing half of his family the young boy Eliezer has to fight with his father through suffering tactics from the Nazis. The classic play “Romeo and Juliet”, William Shakespeare writes a tragic piece about two young lovers being forced to disobey family orders to be with each other. In all three pieces of literature, the characters struggle

Essentially, every culture has a specific basis, native language, religion and custom that reflects its history, values and beliefs. These conceptual constructs represents the total reality of life within the community of which is commonly known as “Culture”. Culture is not only a race, but is a way of life. In the United States, there are many different races that integrate with the American race and culture. However, these individuals often times may have difficulties adjusting, adapting or maintaining their heritage. How well they acculturate and adapt to the process can have an impact on how well the individual is able to integrate or engage to one or another culture.

Culture influences people’s perspectives of the world and others through their childhood and how, when, and where they were raised. In the essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” Robert Lake writes about how his Indian child’s traditional way of learning is different from those in western education systems and that he's not a “slow” learner but learns in a unique way from his peers. In the personal essay, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee describes her differing views of living in America with her sister, despite both being raised in India. In the poem, “My Mother Pieced Quilts,” by Teresa Palomo Acosta, Teresa how this quilt that her mother made for her incorporates all these pieces of her past that are stitched together. In the short story, “Everyday Use,” a mother describes the effects of living in a low income community and a certain style of parenting that shaped the way her two daughters view their past and their heritage and how both views are completely different. In all these pieces of writing, they all illustrate the effects of beliefs, heritage, and symbolism within a culture and how it molds the way people interpret others and the world.

Interesting information: I attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey while I was in the

Studying the histories of cultures that are different from ours gives us a frame of reference that can lead to better intercultural communication. It is not only important to study the histories of other countries’ cultures but our own American subcultures as well. We need to understand

As I entered the home to conduct my interview, I was immediately greeted by very soft spoken female. She’s a 42 yrs old African American female, who’s married with two children. She migrated from the south 30 years ago along with her mother and sister. She’s currently working for the Department of Education as a substitute teacher with aspiration of becoming a child psychologist. The subject was eager to be interviewed. She thought it would be great to sure her views and perspectives of her culture. Culture is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as , the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action. To me culture is rich and fascinating filled with family, traditions, memories, and many dialects.

“Although dominated by white Anglo-Saxon sociocultural patterns, American culture is in fact a tapestry woven of diverse threads that include Native American, Hispanic, Asian and African traditions, as well as those of European origin” (Craven, 2003, p. 529). America is often described as the melting pot; the concept of culture is formulated around the notion of many subcultures inside one larger nation in which, “the melting pot has not merely melted; it has cooked a broth with an unmistakable favor of its own” (Perry, 1949, p. 357).

Growing up, it never was as apparent that the families and friends that you associated with shared different beliefs, were from different cultures, and were just different from you and from your family. Children do not tend to recognize such differences, but as growing adults it becomes ever apparent that being “different” and accepting these differences is just a part of life. Perhaps kids just do it without thinking about it? Heritage assessments promote understanding of another’s beliefs, traditions, health practices, as well as helping to better understand one’s own heritage. This paper will address and

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.