...Growing Pains, The Cosby Show, or Family Ties are known as the classic nuclear family, or as you may know, the all American Family. As we can see from these TV shows, the classic nuclear family is a married couple with their children. Good Morning, I am Technical Sergeant Ramon Aguilar and I will be speaking to you on one of the 12 Domains of Culture, Family & Kinship, but more in-depth on Family Size and Structure and Marriage. I will now like to go into more detail on how the current family size and structure in American culture is evolving, followed by how those dynamics play a role in marriage today. Let me begin with family size and structure. 2. In 1960’s your typical classic American family consisted of...
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...lifestyle, Suki Kim and her family were forced to quickly adapt the American culture after fleeing their home country. In the biographical essay, Kim explained various inequalities of her new American lifestyle and the difficulties immigrants face when adapting the American culture. Kim specified that were once affluent Korean lifestyle drastically changed. Not only because her family moved to America, but also because her family’s social status changed. Korean Immigrants considered to be “well-off” in Korea were identified and held to a different standard than those in Kim’s new social prominence. Although Kim’s essay is very informal, the information included is extremely informational thought provoking. Overall, Kim’s essay on her transition to America gives a detailed description on how troublesome, yet rewarding an abrupt innovation of American can be. American culture is known for its disparities to other known and unknown cultures around the world. Not only is the American culture divergent, it can also be abrasive to those unknown to its cultural beliefs. For example, Suki Kim and her family were forced to grasp the harsh languages of American society at an early age. In the American culture there is a popular phrase, “Kids can be cruel!” In the essay, Kim described an incident of name calling; in which a peer described her as “Fresh off the Boat” or “FOB”. Not only can children use very harsh language to communicate in American culture, unfortunately, those harsh...
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...These immigrants are slowly but surely turning America into a culture melting pot, giving it the most diversity people have seen in a lifetime. Although it is a common misconception, these people are not just looking to live in America for working privileges. Their real desire is to become something that depicts pride and honor, an American. Being an American in a country as diverse as ours means more than just living on American soil, it has endless benefits that allows one to feel free. Unfortunately, the rapid flow of immigrants into America has led to many issues. One of the main ones is the concept of assimilation, which has been disputed for years due to the capacity of the incoming immigrants. Jay Nordlinger, in his essay “Bassackwards: Construction Spanish and Other Signs of the Times” notes that not “everyone who comes to America is dying to melt into the pot”. Yet he stresses, as does Linda Chavez in her essay “Supporting Family Values”, the need for immigrants to assimilate to American culture. These two concepts have been floating around America since the first illegal immigrants started to show up and they’ve been controversial ever since. Everyone is looking for a happy medium for the issue but can’t seem to find it. Recent immigrants are being expected to trade their ethnic and national identities for new American identities, and the concept of ‘Americanization’ commences. Is the idea of American culture as a “melting pot” still valid, or are immigrants becoming ‘Americanized’...
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...because two cultures disagree and choose to settle it, and the strong culture prevails. African American and Caucasian people used to be exiled for getting married, because they were different. There are millions of different cultures in the world today and every day is an example of how they clash. An author, Mary Louise Pratt, wrote an essay referring to these conflicts. Her essay made it possible to further examine these struggles. In works such as The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and “Family Stories From the Trail of Tears” Pratt’s essay makes it possible to deeply examine the clashing culture and gain insight into how it impacted the world today. Mary Louise Pratt’s essay is called “Arts of the Contact Zone”. She defines a contact zone as a space where two cultures wrestle with each other’s ideas and beliefs. She goes on to discuss how these contact zones have come to help shape society, and how the aftermath is world changing. Her essay provides an excellent analysis of what happens when two distinct cultures come into contact, and most importantly, how that affects others. She also examines the two phenomena that occur as a result of the Contact Zone. One sensation, authoethnography, gives the reader first hand insight into cultures. The other, transculturation, shows what happens after the contact zone. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao takes on an entirely new meaning with the help of Pratt’s tools of analysis. There are two distinct cultures, that of the...
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...Christopher Cox Patricia Huhn English 121 20 February 2012 Education and Language Education and its effects on the individual is the primary focus of the essays by Richard Rodriguez, Leslie Silko, Firoozeh Dumas, and Gloria Anzaldua. Rodriquez’s “Achievement of Desire” illustrates how education can take the place of one’s cultural tradition in pursuit of knowledge. The loss of language is the focus of Silko’s speech, “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective”. “The F Word” by Firoozeh Dumas shows how profound words in one language can be funny in another, as well as hurtful. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, she talks about how the education system tried to remove her culture by taking away her language. The two authors take opposite views on education and how it directly affected their lives. While embracing education by becoming a scholarship boy, Rodriquez shows how his desire for knowledge overcame his families’ desire for cultural tradition. Anzaldua expresses her feelings about how education continually tried to forcefully remove her Spanish heritage. The term “scholarship boy” came from Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy and means that the student must move between two culturally extreme environments during their progression of education. In Rodriquez’s account of his early educational experiences, he demonstrates Hoggart’s core definition of being a scholarship boy to the tee. While finishing his dissertation...
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...Cultural Identity Essay All of my cultures are being a student, being African American, being an aries, being a friend to others, being a daughter and a sister. All of my cultures are great but, the culture I’ve decided to write about is being an African American. Being African American is simply about how close our families are. My family is super close. The reason why I say this is because every year we have parties. For example, every July we have a party for all of my family members that have a birthday in July. My aunty buys all of the birthday people a bouquet or a gift card for food or something like that. That’s what the July parties are for. We also have Christmas parties every year at the same house. There is also a Thanksgiving...
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...1 POPULAR CULTURE ESSAY Popular Culture Essay Racquel Gibbs English 101-142 Prof: Marten – Miller 2 POPULAR CULTURE ESSAY Racquel Gibbs English 101-142 Prof: Marten – Miller In society today there are many forms of popular cultures that have a compelling impact on our ideals, norms, attitudes and values of the world. Childhood obesity is a major contemporary epidemic in low-income communities. Some reasons for this infectious disease are lack of essential resources in underprivileged communities, unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise, and Lack of education and healthcare. These are some of the struggles that neighborhoods face today. Many neighborhoods are lacking essential resources that contribute to living a healthy life. A large percentage of low-income environments are suffering from deprivation and unfortunately they are overeating. In addition, people have limited access to healthcare where they can learn through literature and professionals about children being overweight and the proper steps that need to be taken to correct this matter. Due to economic strain these families are struggling to provide food in general, but because their funds only allow them but so much it cause worse eating habits, plus there is lack exercising too. The underserved communities have a variety of fast food restaurants to eat from however; they do not have a variation of fresh produce markets available. If there are available retailers, the price for 3 POPULAR...
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...Like Mexicans Gary Soto The essay “Like Mexicans” by Gary Soto describes the similarity that people have, no matter their origins. Soto explains in this essay how a specific race does not describe how people are. When Gary was younger he received two advices from his grandmother. A Good Advice and a bad advice, the bad was to be a barber to work less and earn money and the good was to get marry with a Mexican girl, advices that he always remember. In this story the Soto’s family expect that Gary gets marry with an Mexican woman, when he gets older, because they think Mexicans are better wives for their behave and how they treat their husbands. They assume that people should get marry with people equal to them, meaning same culture, nationality and economic status. At the age of 20 when Gary was older he met a Japanese women with who she felt in love and thought she was the one to be his wife and make a family. The new was not accepted immediately for his family and friends, his best friend Scott disagree with Gary’s decision of having this relationship with the Japanese women named Carolyn. The argument Scott use to disagree this relationship was that Carolyn was too good for Gary, for her race. Once Gary visited Carolyn’s home he saw her family and the way they live, he realized that race does not define your economic status or your intellectualism. No matter what race people are: Black, Asian, Mexican or “OKIES” (a name his grandmother used to call people whose were different...
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...Anthropology is the study of different ways of life, both past and present. It is comparative and cross-cultural, combining elements form biology, sociology, psychology, and history into a grand synthesizing endeavor (Heider, 2007). The focus of this essay is to take a holistic approach to the culture of Bali. Bali is an island located in Indonesia. Bali is full of traditional culture, belief, arts and performance. There are five main topics I would like to cover in this essay. The first is Social organization, what kinds of structure to the Balinese have? The second two topics are family and religion, we will find out that the two go hand in hand. The fourth topic is food, or rice cultivation, which is an important staple in the country. Finally we will cover the topic of Art. Art is important not only to the culture, but also to its economy. Social organization: The way in which Balinese culture is subdivided into smaller groups whose membership is determined by kinship, age, location. Most of Balinese social organization starts with its religious community. Hinduism is the most common religion in Bali. Villages in Bali have many different kinds of temples, but they all have a pemangku (priest): the more important ones also have a klian (secretary) and a beddesa (calendrical expert). The klian and bedesa are elected; the pemangku may be designated by patrilineal succession, elected by the congregation or chosen by God through a possessed temple medium (Barth, 1993). There...
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...Inevitable Transition from Vietnam to America The aftermath of the Vietnam war was tremendous. Many Vietnamese were relocated, some South Vietnamese generals taking refuge in America. Andrew Lam was the son of one of those generals and he and his family were refugees in American when Lam decided to adopt the American way of life for better or worse. In his essay, “Notes of a Warrior’s Son,” Andrew Lam uses an anecdotal style coupled with reflective diction and symbolism to justify and express his uncertainty with his own cultural transition from a Vietnamese culture, to an Americanized one. Lam began his essay by using anecdotal style, narrating the story of his father leaving Vietnam. He writes that, “he folded away his army uniform, changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt, and, now a stateless man, tossed his gun into the water” (24). By beginning his essay with an anecdote from his father he sets a more personal tone. This tone help the reader feel more sympathetic to Lam’s struggles. In this same quote he began using the...
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...Differences In Conversation Between Vietnamese And Americans Cultural Studies Essay Conversation is a dialogue using all the possibilities mentioned. The purpose is to reach highest degree of communication, understanding, and, where necessary agreement. Disputes may occur, but they have only the purpose of classification. The leading purpose must be mutual understanding and, in some cases, the attempt to reach agreements if possible and to create pragmatics solutions for conflicts in case of disagreement. (Anindita Niyogi Balslev, cross – cultural conversation, pp 166 - 167). As we know, conversation is communication between two or more people. It is a social skill that is not difficult for most individuals. Conversations are the ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed at a group. For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions. Find out more from UK Essays here: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/cultural-studies/differences-in-conversation-between-vietnamese-and-americans-cultural-studies-essay.php#ixzz3LvVR2EAQ The subject matter of a dialogue has influence on its formal structure. There are some fields in which disputation and argument will be an essential part of the argument, and in which procedures for compromising are most lawgiving binding all partners involved. (Anindita...
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...odds with a new culture for these two writers, both of them tried to assimilate into the American culture which they immigrated to and longed for getting involved with, by overcoming the inability of fitting in the society while struggling with their own particular difficulties, emphasizing that sometimes you have to do something against your original heritage in order to achieve the assimilation. The author, David Jacobson, of the essay “Reflections: Growing-Up Grown” expresses how grateful he was for his non-English...
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...(writer and title of essay) and state his or her most important point in your own words. Suki Kim is the author of the essay “Facing poverty with a rich girl’s habits” which is contained in her autobiography book, namely “Interpreter”. The origin of this title was stemmed from her real life experience. The most important point in this essay is her life changing. Suki Kim emphasizes that she was grown up in the rich family. Unfortunately, her family suffered from her dad’s bankruptcy which was considered to be criminal problem, causing of going to prison in Korea. In order to avoid this legal responsibility, her dad decided to move the whole family to New York, United States. The story of her life changing is an interesting experience for Kim when she was transformed from high class person to lower class as a poor kid. In this circumstance, she began a trip of new life forever. Her essay points out the way of handling to the life differences and what was called new generation, namely 1.5. Also, it emphasizes that transferring to new life circumstance is not easy for teenagers in 1980s. 2. Summarize the other main points and their supporting details in separate paragraphs. One of the important points is the difficulties Kim met in new life. As she mentioned, adapting to US is not easy when learning English is always her big trouble, especially for her case of confronting “poverty with a rich girl’s habits and memory” (Kim, 2004, pg 63). The essay points out that...
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...Essay #1 ( One objective of the state stipend program is to recruit students who know and understand the underserved communities served by the public mental health system. Explain how you meet this objective) I understand the struggle underserve communities, such as minorities face because I am part of that population. I grew up in a poor neighborhood were resources were limited and we struggle to get access to government health agencies. There is a need of competent counselors who are able to understand underserve communities especially, professionals who are able to speak another language. I have seen the struggle my clients have finding a therapists that speaks Spanish. As a Latino professional, I understand the barriers underserved communities face, specially when these communities do not have the knowledge or strength to look for mental health resources because of stereotyping and lack of information. As a Spanish speaker, marriage and family therapist, I have the power to make a difference and serve people who need my services. It is extremely important to help underserved communities obtain access to resources that can help them live a healthier life. Essay #2 (One objective of the state stipend program is to recruit students with the capacity to serve the culturally diverse needs of persons in mental health care. Explain how you meet this objective) By having knowledge of diverse cultural groups we can help others more effectively. The needs of a person from one...
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...Facing Poverty with a rich girl’s habits is an essay written by Suki Kim. This essay is about a young girl and her struggles to be accepted in the American culture as a Korean immigrant. One would view the most important point of this essay is understanding the shock Suki kim and her family went through adjusting from their extravagant life style, to working class, even being considered lower class family. Suki kim had to realize what life would be like living in America without the comforts of money, maids, chauffeurs and tutors at her side at all times. Suki Kim was thrown into a world she had never known before, coming to America in 1983, a teenager that had lived in Korea until that point. She was facing and seeing things that would be hard for her to understand and she would face challenges that she would work hard to overcome. One of the important facts of this essay about Suki Kim is the complete difference in culture she faced. She came from a country and a world of luxury and wealth, to living in a two-family brownstone house in Woodside, NY. Kim herself said the house was a “crammed, ugly place”. Suki reflected on the differences she saw in her school in Korea and the new school she went to in America. She said the children in Korea were taught to bow at their teachers to show respect, they would wear slippers in the building to keep the floors clean, a big difference from the graffiti filled walls and policeman guarded gate of her new school. As Suki Kim didn’t...
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