Cultural Identity paper - Essay Example

However, when you are a part of the majority, there is not a small community of people who share your culture. Rather, the community of people who share your culture is the larger part of the citizenry, and this makes life more isolated than if I was a part of a minority. Moreover, it seems that these individuals in the minority communities have more of a cultural identity, and this cultural identity is kept within the community, learned within the community, and spread through the community due to the tight-knit nature of their community.

On the other hand, when you are part of the dominant culture, there is not the same tight knit community, so it seems to be easier to lose one’s ethnic or cultural identity. This is in contrast, to say, the Masai, which is a tribe in Africa that have consciously rejected Western values and beliefs. They are a further example of the tight-knit community in which the individuals within the community share a commonality of beliefs, values, and a history. For instance, the beliefs that are generally passed on from one generation to the next is the value of having large, strong, families; the value of elders, who are believed to be the wisest of all tribe members; and a patriarchal hierarchy that is a source of pride (Samovar & Porter, 2000, p. 92). The world view and perceptions of the world are colored by their membership in the tribe, which means that they value nature to the point where they will not kill wild animals unless they pose a threat or there is a severe drought; they observe a specific religion with a god with two distinct personalities – benevolence and lightning; and how they deal with death – they leave the bodies of the deceased out for the wild animals to eat, because they feel that they are essentially returning the person to nature.

Where, in Western cultures, that last belief, especially, would seem abhorrent and disrespectful, because we bury our dead, for the Masai, this is the way that it is done and they do not mean disrespect at all (Samovar & Porter, 2000, p. 92). So, the Masai is an excellent example of a close-knit group that transmits culture, and this is the kind of group that I do not feel that I belong. It was therefore difficult for me to apply my situation to the readings that are in this course. This is because the key aspects of my identity are not necessarily derived from my cultural status.

The origins of my family are Germanic, but my family has been living in America for a number of generations, therefore the Germanic identity has been replaced by that of being an assimilated American, and this has been the case for many generations. And, since American is such a large country, with many different customs and is essentially a melting pot, it is difficult to describe how being an American affects my perceptions and so forth. As one of the major parts of our reading states that one’s culture affects how one sees the world (Samovar & Porter, 2001, p. 91) – for instance, a Japanese person will see a person being brash and bold, and find that person disrespectful, where a Navajo person will see that same person as being self-centered and mischievous (Samovan & Porter, 2001, p. 54) – it is difficult to discern exactly how my culture relates to the different parts of the reading.

So, the easiest way to approach this