Developing a New Cultural Identity

 

 

What is Cultural Identity?

 

Cultural identity is your own sense of your culture. Especially in America, which is truly a melting pot of ethnicity and cultures, it can become difficult to maintain your knowledge of your heritage. When you are in an environment that is outside the culture you identify with, you may feel awkward or alone. You can find more information here: http://www.digitrends.com/crossingcultures/iden.htm

reference:  http://answers.ask.com/Science/Psychology/what_is_cultural_identity

 

How to Express Cultural Identity

By Myles Ellison, eHow Contributor

Cultural identity is a feeling of inclusion to a certain cultural group. According to the 2010 "Social Report of the Ministry of Social Development" in New Zealand, cultural identity is "important for people's sense of self and how they relate to others." Ways to express cultural identity include: dressing in specific clothing; eating or preparing food a certain way; participating in rituals, traditions or rites of passage; playing music and sharing information about a culture with outsiders.

 

Instructions

    • 1
       

      Educate yourself with books, videos, photographs, trips to your cultural homeland and passed-down knowledge from elders. Arm yourself with accurate information about your culture before fully expressing it.

    • 2
       

      Dress in your culture's clothing. Outwardly showing whomever you come into contact with your culture's clothing will tell people you identify with a specific cultural group.

    • 3

      Cook your culture's food. Eat it and share it with others to express your cultural identity through your dietary choices. Find grocery stores, local markets or street vendors that sell your culture's food and frequent them.

    • 4

      Participate in your culture's rituals and rites of passage. Express your cultural identity robustly by following cultural traditions. One example of a cultural tradition is the Quinceañera for Hispanic girls. This celebration of life and rite of passage marks a young woman's transition to adulthood.

    • 5

      Share your culture's stories and customs with friends outside your cultural group. Educating outsiders of your culture's ways will create a greater sense of understanding and respect for you as you fully express your own cultural identity. Tell the stories of your ancestors, your native land and explain your culture's world view.

    • 6
       

      Learn how to play your culture's music and dance to it. Music is a staple of any cultural group, and by taking the time to learn to play your culture's music, you will be proving your commitment to cultural expression.

Some Thoughts on Cultural Identity

 

Cultural identity may be clearer to some people than it may be to others. Although many Americans, for example, identify with their Irish, West African, Chinese, or Mexican roots (among many others), they may still know themselves to be American.

In this article, as in the magazine Crossing Cultures, the issue is more one of the present experience of identity confusion due to integration into more than one culture and/or language. This is a common occurrence, but rarely written about. As I have started looking at cultural identity in my own life, I have been able to discuss this topic with others of mixed cultures and have found some common ground that has lead to discussions:

1. a feeling of being an outsider
2. a sense of cultural schizophrenia
3. an enhanced cultural perception
4. not knowing for certain where the home country is

Once we haved moved away from the place of our original culture and begun the process of adapting to another culture, we broaden our perceptions, noticing things that are done differently or similarly between the two cultures. We learn a whole new set of culturally and linguistically defined rules and value systems with the result that our own perception of the culturally induced life experience is expanded.

After speaking with many people on this topic, I have found that once people have started to adapt to a second culture, they are able to adapt more quickly to a third culture and begin to feel more part of a multicultural construct than citizens of only one culture. Exceptions to this rule have been found in people who have not yet returned to live in the original country; the country that they still feel a complete citizen of. If they do go back and stay long enough, they might notice that they are no longer the same person culturally as they were when they left originally and they also might notice that people are seeing them as being influenced by the other culture in some way.

These returnees can sometimes feel like outsiders in the country that all along, they may have felt was home. Atsushi Furuiye the founder of a club that supports Japanese people who have returned to Japan after living in foreign countries, tells his own experience of being culturally confused after growing up in Mexico, attending an American school there, and returning to Japan after many years. This topic actually refers in part to the phenomenon of reverse culture shock, another experience shared by those who have felt cultural confusion.

Lastly, the feeling that I like to refer to as cultural schizophrenia is especially strong among those who have had to learn a new language along with the new culture. It seems that there is a feeling attached to  speaking one language that is slightly different than that which is felt when speaking the other. In those who have emigrated while still quite young, speaking the original language may make one feel more like a child for example. Unconscious reflexes may be attached to the speaking of one language as well. For example, I find myself kissing people "goodbye" if I have been speaking French with them, and hugging them if we have been speaking English and I am often surprised to see that I might have done this completely unconsciously. Between bilingual people, there is often the question of which language is primary. Most people can identify which language is the most dominant, and can say which one they dream in. Some people might dream in whichever language they have heard during the day. Whether these language experiences are purely linguistic or whether they are a clue to understanding the complexities surrounding cultural identity could well be an interesting investigation.

http://www.digitrends.com/crossingcultures/iden.htm

 

How to Maintain American Indian Cultural Identity

By Claudia Stanic, eHow Contributor

Instructions

    • 1

      Learn an American Indian language by taking a class or speaking with members of the tribe who know the dialect. More than 800 American Indian languages exist, and new generations must learn the dialects to ensure the speech's survival.  [OR ESTABLISH ENGLISH AS YOUR NATIVE TONGUE] ed.

    • 2

      Talk with tribal elders about their memories related to the tribe's cultural identity. Record the conversations on audio or videotape, or write it down to preserve it for the future. Recording the knowledge of elders is important.

    • 3

      Talk to tribal storytellers and listen to them unfold American Indian mythology. Tribal mythology can range from Navajo stories about spirits that delivered them water during the summer, to the Abenaki people who developed myths about spirits who delivered firewood during the winter.

    • 4

      Visit a sweat lodge, which is like a church for American Indians. Many tribes believe you can sweat out your spiritual impurities in sweat lodges and connect with the higher power. Learning about and experiencing this tradition can help you maintain the tribe's cultural identity.

    • 5

      Find and start attending community fires. Usually available as full community and men's and women's fires. Become a member of the sacred fire community.

      •  

http://www.ehow.com/how_8466774_maintain-american-indian-cultural-identity.html