The Complexity of My Culture

“Culture encompasses the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation” (Santrock).

Culture is the overall moral belief, customs, language, and attitudes a person is brought and raised into. Daily, we are exposed to diverse and different cultures everyday which allow us to learn the different values and traditions each culture possess. The importance of observing and learning different customs is beneficial because it can help us better adapt and prevent misunderstandings when we communicate and interact with others. Hispanics and Americans are two huge cultures that have been sharing the same living space for years but are an example of two different civilizations. While both, Hispanics and Americans, share many similarities they both differ in recognition of religion, language,

Culture is a behavior that consists of several critical elements, such as language, religion, race and ethnicity, clothing and politics. Culture is what one does in his/her daily life. In order to understand others, we must first keep in mind that every culture carries its own set of values and assumptions. Culture is an evolving, ever changing civilization, which includes several different groups people. For immigrants, America is a land of opportunity; for others it is just the best country in the world because of its economic success and/or its democratic political system. Americans usually value independence a lot, believe in equal opportunity, and have a direct communication style. In exploring the

Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.

Family, heritage, ethnicity, beliefs, values, knowledge, experiences, attitudes, religion, education, roles, language, and cuisine are all items encompassing culture. Culture is what influences your outlook on life itself as well as behaviors and rituals. Culture is the way different groups of people do things. While some cultures have overlapping cultural behaviors or aspects, most cultures vary significantly. Culture, for the most part, is something you are born into, your innate programming, however, it some aspects can be changed or evolved. "Only part of culture is conscious" (Spector, 2013).

Traditionally we might see culture as evolving ethnicity but it involves all sorts of factors like language, sexual orientation, disability, gender, age, class, education level, where you grew up, religion and other cultural dimensions.

Arriving at a foreign country at the age of eleven years old was and exiting and yet intimidating experience. High buildings, wide roads, newer and nicer cars on the streets were some of the first things I noticed when I arrived to the city of Los Angeles CA. Living in a country where you were not born in could be difficult some times. Although Spanish is spoken at a grand scale in CA, it was difficult to communicate with and understand the teachers from my classes at the elementary level since all they spoke was English. Los Angeles is a city of great diversity, therefore it is believed to be the perfect place for any person arriving from another country to not feel like a foreign, such believe

Culture can be defined as the behaviours and belief characteristics of a particular social, ethnic,

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

When comparing cultures, one must form a definition of what culture is. Culture can be easily defined as the social behavior and normality’s found in human societies. It can also be easily made up of a composed arrangement of educated conduct and thought designs. Culture is a sorted out framework since it includes many parts. Throughout the world, there are many cultures that are both very different and also very similar. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at table, how we greet visitors, how we behave and one million other things." (Cristina De Rossi.)

It would be in order to first examine the connotation and exact meaning of culture. Sociologists differ wide in their perceptions in explanting culture and its inter-related concepts. The best definition from the military view point is given by Leslie A. White, who quotes famous sociologists Frank Boas and Melville J. Herskovits. He writes “culture may be defined (as per Boas), as the totality of the mental and physical reactions and activities that characterise the behaviour of individuals composing a social group….”. He further quotes Herskovits and says, “When culture is closely analysed, we find but a series of patterned reactions that characterise the behaviour of the individuals who constitute a given group. Another writer Sapir quoted by Leslie white classified culture as the mass of typical reactions.’ Culture is best summarised as a way of life of the people. It is manmade part of environment. Cultures includes beliefs, ideas, religion, art, customs and other habits which the people acquire while living in a society. Another very important aspect of culture is that it is ever changing by learning and transmitting from one generation to other through a

Stanhope defines culture as a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions about life that is widely held among a group of people that is transmitted across generations (Stanhope 2014). These ideas influence populations greatly in terms of food they eat, the people they associate with, how they associate with others, what they wear, and how they care for their body and mind. I was born in a South American country called Guyana. The people there are known as Guyanese but more specifically my people are known as Indo-Caribbean people or West Indies or West Indian. The West Indies people are generations of children that came people who migrated from India to Guyana many years ago.

Culture is defined as “The ideas, attitudes, customs, beliefs, values and social behaviour of a particular group of people or society that are passed on from generation to generation” (Brentnall, A., n.d.).

Fundamental beliefs surrounding the very idea of culture separate the cross-cultural and sociocultural approach, which may seem to suggest incompatibility. Sociocultural psychological understanding of culture is that it employs a “mutually constitutive” or “cyclic model”. (Eom & Kim, 2014) The idea of culture in the sociocultural model is that culture influences people on a

Culture and ideology allow the separation of the distinguishing aspects of these societal groups. The shared misconceptions these groups are commonly aligned with are the stereotypes, the broad spectrum of cultures is not about just nationality or the language you speak. Subcultures