Culture

One of the prompts for my family relations class is: What are two aspects of your own culture you'd like to perpetuate, and two you would like to set aside or improve? How can you do that? 

This is the prompt that I am going to talk about to day. Growing up I had the best of both worlds. I had my father’s culture and my mothers culture. My father is from Lima, Peru and my mother is from Ohio, USA. Two very different parts of this planet. It amazes me that the two of them were able to create a family and blend their two cultures together. Two aspects of my culture that I loved were that: 1. Peruvians like to party and 2. Education is priority. I loved the parties from my fathers family because it brought a sense of unity into all of the homes. It was also a great way for me to get to my own culture even though I was born and raised in Idaho. I appreciate education being a priority because it is what brought me to where I am today. I can’ imagine my life without education. Education opens the doors to so many opportunities and I am thankful my parents were able to take that part of our culture and instill it into each one of me and my siblings lives. Two aspects of my culture I would like to change is 1. Always being late and not being strict (my father’s culture). 2. Working too much. In my fathers culture everything is laid back (which is nice) but it can be too much sometimes. I can see the flaws in my fathers family where they were not that great at making rules for their children due to their leniency. I want to change that and I want to allow my children to have that freedom but to also know what the rules are and why they are there. As for my American culture I see a lot of burn out in families. I see people working and working. After living in the Bay Area for 18 months I came to the realization that I would rather be poor and have more time with my family than be rich and never see them. 

In my class we talked about a story where a father crossed the border in order to find a better job for his family. We had different students represent different members of the families. These students were able to express how it would feel if they were that character in that story. After hearing everyone’s thoughts it became apparent that all that truly mattered was that the family was together. A lot of times when families are separated they are left with emotional baggage that they were not anticipating. After reading this story it motivated me to continue to try and change the true cultural issues I shared earlier. I want to have rules and boundaries. And one of those boundaries is that my family will always stay together and that we will be there for each other. This will help my future family be more united. I also will make sure that my family will be provided for but never at the cost of a job. These things are important because our families need to stay together and if they can’t stay together many essential parts of family development will be missed. I hope my insights have brought you some new knowledge today. Feel free to comment on my blog and share some of your favorite cultural traditions!