I am someone who has struggled to find their cultural identity. I used to consider myself the cliché “white person”, which I know now is ridiculous because everyone has culture. Everyone has some sort of identity to them. My family does not have a very strong heritage. There are some Germans and English people on my father’s side of the family, and Italians on my mother’s. My great»grandfather moved to America from Italy, and my grandmother grew up in an Italian neighborhood. She never learned to speak Italian even though her parents both spoke it fluently, and today my family does not have any traditions from our Italian side. So my family does not have a rich heritage with traditions, though I wish we did. | related best to the narrator of “Ethnic Hash.” I would not say my heritage is very much of a hash but I struggle to find a cultural identity. I understood in the text when she said ”I always thought of myself as just plain black.”
Until I think about my heritage the way she did in the story, I did not think I had any culture at all. It was difficult for me to find objects I figured represented my culture, but I found ones that had a lot of good history to them and represented who I am. I chose two objects to write of, my hiking boots and my laptop. I chose to write about my boots and my laptop because they represent my beliefs and where I have come from. The hiking boots I own now are nothing very special. I just bought them at an REI a few years ago. But I have had great memories in them, and they also represent my love of hiking and the outdoors. My father has been taking me hiking since I was too young to remember.
He is someone who loves hiking and camping. Hiking has been one of the ways I have connected well with my family. I am very close with not only my parents, but also my aunts, uncles and cousins. All of the adults on his side of the family enjoy hiking and camping as well, so throughout mine and my cousins’ lifetimes we have been going on camping and hiking trips. Last summer we all went to Mt. Rainer and hiked. The hike was beautiful. There are too many good memories to list for all the times I have been hiking with my family. It is because I have all of these great memories that now I am someone who enjoys the outdoors more. When I was younger, I hated doing these types of activities. But as l have grown older I am now appreciating more of my family’s traditions. A laptop does not seem like an object that is not very unique, but to me it is something that represents what I consider my culture.
My laptop represents my love for computers and technology, and can also be used to explain more about where I have come from. For a long time I have been someone who loves computers and plays video games. All of my life l have been someone who is interested in computers and technology. I insisted that ourfamily purchase a computer when my cousin showed me the old video games he would play on his computer. Around 4″1 grade, I had an Xbox 360 and I found out a few my friends at school also had them. These few friends and I would play video games almost every day together online. I made a lot of new friends through playing games online. Throughout the years I kept in contact with my friends through our Xbox’s. Around 7m grade my friends started moving towards gaming on computers. I would play with them on my family’s old 2004 PC which ran these games so poorly I could barely play them.
Sol began to look for a computer that was good for gaming. I found Alienware. Alienware makes high end PCs for gaming and looking back, are overpriced. That Christmas | asked my parents for an Alienware M17x Laptop and i ended up getting one. I waited eagerly for a few weeks after Christmas for it to arrive. From then until now I have been using this laptop for gaming and it works great for playing games. My laptop is very important to me because it is my most valuable possession and I use it nearly every day. Whether it is for school. or for entertainment computers are the most useful tool in my life. My personal cultural identity is one that represented by who I am.
Because my family does not have any long lasting traditions, our culture comes from who we are and what we have created as culture. My family’s appreciation of the outdoors is an example. I use it to represent my culture because it is something we value and appreciate. The only other text about culture that l related to was “Reality a matter of perspective.” | related to it because I see myself as having been influenced by my family in who I am now. I greatly appreciate nature and the outdoors because my family does and I have grown up spending time hiking and camping. In “Reality a matter of perspective” it states that we “inherit and embrace the spiritual beliefs of our parents.” I find that to be very true in what my culture is.
