Defining Culture Essay Research Paper How to

Defining Culture Essay, Research Paper

How to Find Culture

Do you have culture . I always thought that people act and behave the way they do because they were born that way. It never occurred to me that their beliefs and actions could be caused by an external stimulus that makes them who they are. All this time and it was right under my nose. They were not born this way at all; they were brought up this way. They are all products of this thing called culture. But what is culture. What is this invisible force that has affected every person that has ever lived. Take a step back and look at yourself for a moment. Every little activity you embark on during your life is influenced by this entity named culture. It constantly surrounds you in a silent cloud that does not quit till the day you die. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the language you speak, the movies you watch, they are all traits of the subject. Your entire lifestyle has formed around a base of a culture that you probably didn t even realize is there, but it is. Wherever you go, it follows. But, again, I ask, what is culture. How do you put a label on something so abstract, without definitive lines to measure. To understand culture, one must learn about his or her past, present, and foresee the future.

The first step in understanding culture, one must flip back through the pages of time, and gaze into the past. This is where it all begins. The day you are born to be exact. You are a blank canvas and are very receptive. Your first relationships are created at this stage, and by the time you are five years of age, you are self-aware. You know you are alive and exist, but only because your parents have told you so. You look up to your

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parents and try to mimic their actions. You think that they are perfect and know all. You strive to fit into their image as much as possible, but sometimes it is very difficult. This is shown in M.H Kingston s essay, The Woman Warrior, in which China s cultural norm is to shun daughters. Being a female, the character has great difficulty pleasing her parents no matter what she does. In one instance, the character gets straight A s in class and when she brings home the good news to tell her mom, she replies with, you can t eat straight A s (190), implying that her work is worthless. But as one continues to grow, the parents become less important, and the peer group becomes the primary source of contact. This is one of the most important aspects in understanding ones cultural foundation. At this point, you are picking up talking styles, language, fashion, eating habits, and building upon what the household has already instilled into you. This is where inner conflict can occur within a person, for the newer taught cultural norms might not be the same as to what mom and dad had been preaching a few years earlier. An example of this came about in the short writing by J. O. Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman. This story was about a young Puerto Rican girl growing up in the United States. This passage effectively shows the conflicts that can take place:

But it was a conflicting message I received, since the Puerto Rican mothers also encouraged their daughters to look and act like a woman and to dress in clothes our Anglo friends and their mothers found too mature and flashy. The difference was, and is, cultural; yet I often felt humiliated when I appeared at an American friend s party wearing a dress more suitable to a semi-formal than to a playroom birthday celebration. (178)

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It s easy to see how one can be torn between the family and the peer group. The character has been taught the ways of presenting ones self as a proper Puerto Rican woman. The environment she lives in, however, has a totally different cultural norm attached to it. This can make growing up a very difficult process. As a person approaches adulthood, he or she is bombarded with many influences from the outside world, and it can be an all out struggle between one s self image and how others perceive them. Many stereotypes float around for just about every type of person on the planet, and for a growing child on the verge of coming of age, not falling into the cultural stereotypes is important. Another example of maturing alongside a cultured environment came, again, in the same writing by Cofer. This time the character describes some of the stereotypes she encountered in her past. She says, Mixed cultural signals have perpetuated certain stereotypes – for example, that of the Hispanic woman as the hot tamale or sexual firebrand. It is a one dimensional view that the media have found easy to promote (178). I m just trying to illustrate that there are many aspects that determine cultural traits in a person. In short, searching into the past is a great way to understand culture because you can learn what attributed to the outcome of ones personal diversity and social background.

The second step in understanding culture is to analyze the present, the here and now. It s important to look at ones self and to see the many cultural traits that lay within. The society you live in molds your thoughts and actions on a daily basis. The career you have or leisure times you spend on the weekend are completely dependent on your social

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surrounding. For example, if one lives in a large urban population, he