Personal Narrative: My Surface Culture

I was thirteen when I moved to the United States. July 7, 2007 was the day my brothers and I packed up our belongings and left Haiti. It was a very exciting day because I got the chance to be on an extremely large white and blue airplane for the first time, and most importantly, reunite with my parents, whom I did not know because my father left Haiti when I was three years old, and my mother left a several years later. As a teenager, I had the mindset of living in a fairytale land. I did not think about the possible challenges I might encounter after leaving my homeland. The idea of adjusting to a new culture, learning a new language, and socializing with others that do not have the same tongue as me never ever crossed my mind. Little did

The artifact represents personal objects and meaningful moments, person influence on our own life. This is one of the assignment in our program to share our artifacts toward our colleagues and professors. This will take in more about different culture, uniqueness, identity and values of our schoolmates and how they reflected in their life.

The final object I chose to describe my culture is my Christmas stocking. To me this stocking represents my traditions and faith in an elegant little display. Within the first few months of my birth, my parents had me Baptized as a Roman Catholic and that has been my faith ever since. We as a family celebrate the story of Christmas every year with prayer and festivities to go along with our

What is culture? Culture is the idea of what is wrong or right, the concept of what is acceptable within our society. Culture serves us as a guide, taking us to the "right way" and helping us to make sense of things that surrounds us. There are many different cultures around the world. A lot of them are similar in specific ways and others are just completely different, this difference explains why we think that people from different backgrounds are "weird".

I experienced my pop culture moment when I was a senior at my high school. My transportation to go to my school was buses. I took the same buses to school from freshman year, but I have never noticed what I notice in my senior year. Every morning I wake up to go to school at 8 a.m. I would see people going to work, schools etc. but one day I notice there was a group of white women who is going to their work wearing sari (sari is a garment which is long and usually it’s draped around women’s body. Asian women mostly wear it). I found that very odd because they didn’t look like to me that they would know anything about the roots of sari or the culture. I thought they were mocking the culture because the saris that they wearing weren’t 100% correct. I used to see them wearing traditional Indian cloth and I

It all began on July 5, 2015, when my family and I traveled back from Fort Davis, Texas, to our home in Gardendale, Texas, after visiting our family for a Fourth of July celebration. As we entered into Odessa, we noticed vehicles stranded on the interstate that impeded our progress. Irritably, we were forced to stop in the middle of the road. Instantly, the music paused. In frustration, I started switching the stations; nevertheless, all remained silent. After several minutes of scanning dead air, finally the radio connected to the station, 93.3 FM. An emergency broadcast announcer alerted the entire Permian Basin area that a group of oil drillers, near the Meteorite Crater, struck a barrel, buried twenty-two feet under the ground.

I think that my family realized that I had crossed the threshold between childhoods when I began to form my own opinions. This first took hold when I took part in poverty stimulation at my local shelter. I was giving a character and a story behind the card I was given; the story made me become emotionally attached to this name I had been assigned and the family in which I came from. The experience made me question the prejudice of the society I was living in. How many times had I avoided eye contact with the people on the side of the road begging for money? I began a long journey of soul searching and questioning the beliefs my parents had raised me on. My thoughts were continually brought back to a book by C.S Lewis, it was called Out of the Silent Planet; a character named Weston believed that individual human lives don’t matter, they must be sacrificed to save mankind.

My “outside” cultural influences I have: America is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world culturally. We have German-Americans speaking German, Filipino-Americans speaking Tagalog, Irish-Americans speaking Irish, Scandinavian-Americans speaking Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, etc., Welsh-Americans speaking Welsh, Japanese-Americans speaking Japanese, Iraqi-Americans speaking Arabian, Mexican-Americans speaking Spanish, and all Americans united in the common goal to create the best possible nation in accordance with our Constitution.

On March 24, 2017, I went to Evangeline Downs in Opelousas, Louisiana. I arrived there at around 12:30 a.m. Before I was able to get there I had to meet my boyfriends cousin at Walmart. I met him at Walmart because I was not allowed to get in the race track side of the casino where all the horses are without a racing I.D. The only way I could get through the security gate was by my boyfriends cousin.

There are seven billion people in this world. Those of us who come from second generation families often find it difficult to have a sense of cultural identity because they don’t quite fit in as Americans whose families have lived in the U.S for generations. First generation families, like my siblings and I, also struggle to fit in. To illustrate, we come from a very diverse background involving Swedish, Arabic, English, and Somali culture. This upbringing has shaped my beliefs, view of the world, and morals to make me the person I am today.

Post WWII in 1957 my great Grandad left their homeland of England to immigrate to Canada by plane which took 10 hours to fly from --------- to New York City. The ride was stressful and sickening, my Papa, Colin who was only _ remembers puking on the plane.

The first object that represents my identity is my cross. The cross I wear is special to me because it was given to me by my Grandmother when I was 10 years old before I left Eritrea. It doesn’t just represent my religion, it represents who I am and where I came from. It helps me to not forget my identity as a person. Every time I’m about to give up or do something bad, I look at it and reminds me of my past and all the thing I have gone through to get to this point of my life. Essentially, you can say that its part of me and represent my past.

I experienced my pop culture moment when I was a senior at my high school. My transportation to go to my school was buses. I took the same buses to school from freshmen year but I have never notice what I notice in my senior year. Every morning I wake up to go to school at 8 a.m. I would see people going to work, school etc. but one day I notice there was a group of white women who went to work wearing sari (sari is a garment which is long and elaborately draped around body. Asian women mostly wear it). I found that very odd because they didn’t look like to me that they would know anything about the culture that the sari is originated from. I used to see them wearing traditional Indian cloth and I used to wonder how did they get interested

How many different “hats” do we each wear on a daily bases. From our careers, to our family and friends we all have different identities that we claim and live out day to day. These identities help us define who we are. “When we identify ourselves, we draw on a host of different characteristics associated with various social groups to which we belong” (King 2012, pg. 429). My ornament is explaining the social identity through a snow-women and her many hats.

I couldn’t just draw one image to represent my culture because I believe one’s culture entails a variety of different aspects. I drew a cross because a cross represents Christianity. Religion is a big part of one 's culture because it represents one’s beliefs. I then drew a dictionary to represent language becauses language gives culture meaning. Lastly, I drew the symbol for recycling, police officers, and peace. To some, these symbols mean nothing because of the culture they grew up in, to others these symbols have an important meaning to them. Every culture has its own set of symbols that each have different meanings.