I’ve kept my rhetorical situation unchanged over the last few weeks: “Migration from one’s homeland can have diminishing effects on cultural identity. What are these regressing effects and how do diasporic communities retain their ethnic heritage?”
My rhetorical situation is something I think about very often. I am a second generation immigrant. My parents and two older siblings were all born in Bangladesh. Only I was born here. As a result, I grew up in a bicultural setting, having to balance American and Bengali culture. Even that is leaving out the ethnic diversity of New York City which has also influenced the makeup of my identity. But these facts alone are not what ties me down to my research question; it is actually the fear I have that from one generation to the next, my people will lose their heritage and adopt a diluted identity. Many would see my thinking as problematic, but I believe cultural dilution is the “bad ending” of diversity. The concept of diversity is to have distinct cultures interact together. But it is not ideal for any one of those individual cultures to break down over time. For this reason particularly, I found it important to understand how migration can influence cultural identity and by what means we can preserve our unique cultures.
I have two ideas for where my writing would exist. One is probably YouTube. Personally, I find that videos and podcasts make digesting anthropological topics such as mine easier. Rather than getting looped up reading black characters against a white page, video-form allows for both visual and auditory learning. But also, I’ve considered keeping it readable online. This form is most easily accessible.
My target audience is made up of migrants, especially the children of migrants, from teen age (16) to ~34 years old. For many people, around age 16 is when they start consciously choosing what surrounding factors influence their identity. This process continues into a person’s thirties. But I would assume into and after one’s forties, cultural identity is often sealed and cannot change drastically.
I would probably maintain some of the research paper format. I’m not quite sure about this yet. Revision: I will be formatting my piece as a story.
The new age of digital communication is huge on video. Even if I were to visualize snippets of my essay onto the video at a time, the fact that I am talking over it (with illustrations and further explanations in my own words) just helps a younger audience understand the information more effectively. Revision: I am writing a narrative. It will be a short story, so it avoids the limitations of boring, “archaic” long-form readings. Because it is a story and not a scientific article, it will appeal to all age groups. Moreover, it will not bore younger audiences like teenagers and younger adults.
After hearing out my research, I would want my audience to reflect on their cultural identity. If they have any love for their ethnic heritage, they will realize the need to preserve it. Perhaps they will consider learning to better speak their language. Perhaps they will learn writing in their language from scratch. Perhaps they will participate in more ethnic community events. Hopefully, they engage in reconnection privately and then expose their findings to the public realm. This is the end goal.
