The Dominant White Culture In America

Moving to an unfamiliar country during my teenage years is a big dramatic change for me. I dealt with a lot of anxiety and insecurities on how different I am from everyone else. To help me get started, I registered with just one class at my local community college. Living with my mother and to someone, I now call my father, I was

1. How can an understanding of the complexities of culture help us make sense of the day-to-day world which we live? Give an example from your life to illustrate your answer.

Before describing the dominant culture in the United States, we first need to know what culture is and what a dominant culture is. Culture is the life style people choose. This includes language, religion, values and norms that a group of people accept without thinking about it. Now that we know what culture is, what is a dominant culture? The dominant culture in a society is the established language, religion, behaviour and norms that are proper to a certain culture. This is the dominant culture. Most often, dominant culture is the most powerful culture in a country and has the most powerful people or the most people associated to the culture.

There are many significant parts of my life that have had a huge impact on my personality, but there is one that has not only affected me, but has changed me for the better. My personal life changing experience was coming to America. For me, this bridge between my old life and new life is a shaky bridge that I attempted to cross and entered a whole new realm of life which changed everything. The decision about coming to America has taught me how to respect other people, be more responsible, and be more loving towards various friends and families. It has also helped me adapt to the new life that I’m about to begin. It was so unexpected. Out of nowhere my parents broke the news: “We’re going to America!” Living in a big town of Bhopal,

American culture has been referred to as a “melting pot.” Different cultures have added their own distinct aspects to society, making America a diverse country. Despite the plethora of cultures, certain norms, mores, and folkways are evident in American society. These ideas are vital to the function and stability of America. They provide guidelines for what is acceptable and not. In virtually every society, there are people who engage in deviant behavior and do not abide by the values that the rest of society follows. Theorists have debated if people are socialized into acting this way and if it is a social or personal problem. The sociological study of culture focuses on norms, mores, and folkways.

At first, I was resistant to change but now I am glad I became open-minded and adapted to the new way of life. It was not an easy transition for me, however, I have faced every obstacles head on such as learning a new language, graduating from high school, and attending college. I can honestly say my mom was right I have made new friends and have grown to love and appreciate my family members that I have met. I know there will be more awesome moments in my life that can have a major impact, but I truly believe they will never be as big as me coming to

An ideology is a group of ideas (social, economic, culture, etc) about life and accepted as reality by the majority of people in a society. These set of ideas are used by different organizations in the society such as: school, and government, among other, to reinforce such ideology. In a society an ideology serves as means to perpetuate and justify the power of the dominant group.

“Well, it’s a bit of a foreign idea to me, really. The town I’m from, my school was 99% white. Literally, we had two black girls and a half-Peruvian guy in my class of 140. So the emphasis on diversity is interesting to me, more than anything. Because I can’t relate to it. I’ve never seen it in action, as it were.

The Unites States is a true melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. For many members of minority groups a certain hybridity is readily adopted, but for others, cultural assimilation can be quite difficult. Chicana author, Sandra Cisneros described this phenomenon as “always straddling two countries… but not belonging to either culture” (Doyle. 54). African American author, Alice Walker shared Cisneros’ sentiment, but focused her attention on the assimilation of black cultures and subcultures within the United States. Cisneros and Walker make the same poignant statement about the strains of cultural assimilation, with reconciliation of split identities as the goal, in their respective works, 1991’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and 1973’s “Everyday Use,” yet their unique ethnic perspectives allow them to make it in surprisingly different ways.

In response to the student’s question, where she asked about the strategies white people use to cope with the issues they face in America, I agree with the responses provided by Professor Fouron and Professor Ruth Frankenberg. I believe that the United States it structured to look out for the best interest of white Americans and immigrants alike. Being white in America means that your concerns will be heard and addressed by elected officials and our society in general. As Professor Frankenburg states, I believed that the ideas of “whiteness” and “Americanness” are closely connected; a white immigrants’ legitimacy in America, even marked with an accent, will not be questioned, whereas the same has never been said for other immigrants. In fact,

Within two centuries, America advanced as the land resonating with freedom and home containing the brave. Yet many years prior to ideal freedom, women and other minority group faced an inability to bask in the glorious freedom. Society chained many people not under the classification: Dominant White Man. The patriarchal civilization made women unable to receive education or a job early in America’s development. Women followed a domestic lifestyle while minorities faced discrimination. Minorities fell face-first on society’s foundation, as sexuality and religion also encounter a societal norm - heterosexual or beliefs in God, society established anything else as disgraceful. However, through the last 150 years, American wars result in the most important social and political gains. War marched through the land bringing death, not only to American soldiers, but to other nation’s warriors as well. Wars reaped innocent

Black and White, two words that are immediately recognized as opposites. Black is wicked, white is virtuous. Black is evil, white is holy. Black is dark, white is light. Black represents the devil, white represents God. White is worn at weddings, black is worn at funerals. There is black magic and white magic. There are little white lies and there are blacker than night hearts. There are Black people and there are white people. There are Black Americans and there are White

“By erecting a slave society, American created the economic foundation for its great experiment in democracy.” From the beginning of America’s profound search for human equality, tyranny trampled on the dream of those who helped make the system prosper. The long perilous search of escape from the oppression of the iniquitous proved insufficient. Economic prosperity was deemed the foremost priority, rather than the equal representation of voices that America was supposedly found on.

I will admit that being in college has opened my eyes a whole lot more in regards to my culture and my past. Before, I would never even ponder over how me speaking Spanish or my mom coming to the United States already pregnant with me from Mexico would affect anyone, and I certainly never questioned that there were stereotypes for me, a female, Mexican-American teenager in high school. Now that I am older I look at how sickening the things that people do are and how unaccepting people can be. I know there are people out there in this country that are genuinely bothered by the fact that I speak Spanish with my family in public, that I am a female, and above all that I come from two immigrant parents who have done nothing, but work their butts

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