In 2009 I was privileged to take a trip to El Salvador with my family. I was there previously in 1998 and can barely remember anything about that trip when I was a child. The reason that I will be using this trip to El Salvador is because of the differences in culture between it and the United States. I really stuck out while visiting different places and was noticeably out of place. People would speak to me in English even though my roots are from El Salvador. It was extremely interesting looking at a completely different way of life. Checking out the places that my parents grew up in really changed the way I thought about my own life and how different it is to grow up in a completely different environment. This experience was unique and something I had never experienced before. I was able to learn a lot about my own culture. The most interesting thing to me was the way people approached me that were not my family. People didn’t expect me to speak Spanish and I felt as though I was being treated much differently then everyone else. From the way that I spoke to the way I looked, I completely stood out from the general crowd. Hopefully I will be able to travel there again in the near future.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
My Memoir Topic
For my memoir topic i wanted to write about my transition from private school to the New York City public school system. Although I changed from private school to public at a very young age, it was such a major transition in my life and for that reason I remember it very clearly. I was going into the third grade at the time and i was only 8 years old, leaving the only school that had known along with all of my friends and familiar teachers, was extremely difficult for me. To this day it stands as one of my hardest challenges that i faced. Along with my personal struggles, the transition also had a lot of cultural differences as well. Eventually i think the change was definitely for the better as i learned and grew from my experiences along the way.
Growing up in a francophone country where only Creole is understood by almost everyone
Reading Vassilis Alexakis’ Foreign Words, I got inspired to talk about my experience with a language similar to Sango : Creole, Haitian Creole precisely. Growing up, I have been taught to ban Creole, although it is one out of the two official languages of the country. In certain parts of Haiti, Creole was seen (is still seen) as a vulgar language compared to French. It was most preferable to express oneself in French in school, at Church, at social gathering, even at home. For many, Creole did not meet the requirements to be a language, many Haitians reprimanded the use of Creole. As I became more aware of the Haitian culture, I gained a deeper understanding of how the language is essential and central to both the culture and to the people.For example, telling a Haitian folktale in French seems absurd to me, and most people tell stories of the folklore in Creole. although most Haitian speak Creole and not French, Creole was never recognized as valuable language. Creole was a language that I grew to love passionately despite all of the society’s efforts in making me denying as a beautiful language. I wish to recover a lot of my childhood memories to tell this story, the story of a battle between two native languages that I particularly cherish.
Memoir Starting Point
For my personal memoir experience I want to talk about my trip to israel, that was 2 years ago. The reason why this trip was so important to me was because it was the first time I was in another country by myself, without knowing anyone prior to my trip. It was an eye opening experience and opened me up to world that i only heard stories about. Just learning the way people communicate and get around was something i had to adjust to coming from America/
Memoir Topic
The topic that I have chosen for my memoir is my experience growing up in a household of two religions; Islam and Christianity. When I was a child, my mother and I lived in my Nana’s (great grandmother) house. We shared this house with my aunt, my grandmother and her siblings, as well as their children. Most of the household was Christian, however, my grandmother’s sister had met and married a Muslim man. She converted to Islam soon after and raised her children to be Muslim as well, while still remaining under the same roof as the rest of the family.
Even as a child I could see the differences between myself and my Muslim cousins. Of course, a lot of my thoughts were minuscule in nature. They were the sort of thoughts a little girl might have upon seeing another child with a prettier, or more elaborate doll. I only saw the aesthetic value of the religion. Being quite young, that was one of the few things I had to concern myself with. As I got older, and began learning more about religion in general, as well as the rifts that religious tension can create, I started deeply contemplating what my family’s religious differences really meant. It made me question everything about religion; what was the right thing to believe in, and, if that’s right, then is everything and everyone else wrong?
Now that I’ve really thought about it, growing up in that household is probably the sole cause of my openness towards the unknown. The first answer I ever gave to someone who asked about me and my cousin’s difference in religion was, “There is only one God. He just chose to come to everyone in a different way. Maybe in a way that they would be more accepting of it.” I believe I was in elementary school at that time. From there, I have just been on a whirlwind of a ride trying to figure out what I really believe.
“Everything is a remix”
A terrific four-part series on Youtube called “Everything is a remix” provides a history of the cultural recycling we were discussing in class on Tuesday, in music, film and several other realms of contemporary Anglophone popular culture.
Here’s the link to the first installment in the series:
You can find lots more in this same vein at www.everythingisaremix.info
Foreign Students Friendless in U.S.
Here’s an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 14, 2012) on a subject that affects us all every day.
Many Foreign Students Are Friendless in the U.S., Study Finds
Frederic J. Brown, AFP, Getty Images
As the number of foreign students on American college campuses grows, a new survey has found that many have few close American friends. Students from China and elsewhere in East Asia reported the highest level of dissatisfaction with personal relationships.
By Karin Fischer
More than one in three foreign students in a new survey say they have no close U.S. friends, and many say they wish they had more, and more-meaningful, relationships with Americans.
Students from China and elsewhere in East Asia report fewer friendships and greater dissatisfaction than do other international students.
The study of more than 450 students at 10 public universities in the South and Northeast supports what educators have observed anecdotally: Many students from abroad, and especially the recent influx of undergraduates from China, are struggling to integrate in American classrooms and dorm rooms. That’s troubling, college officials say, for both foreign students and their American counterparts.
“Where else can people meet and have the time and the freedom to make friends across cultures than at college?” said Elisabeth Gareis, an associate professor of communication studies at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York, and the study’s author. “But we’re not fulfilling that promise.”
An article on the study, “Intercultural Friendship: Effects of Home and Host Region,” was published Thursday in the National Communication Association’s Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.
To survey students, Ms. Gareis, who came to the United States as a foreign student, from Germany, reached out to international-student offices at the universities, seeking volunteers to complete an online questionnaire. The participants, who included both graduate and undergraduate students and were evenly split between men and women, were asked to report their number of close American friends.
Although 27 percent said they had three or more close U.S. friends, 38 percent said they had no strong American friendships. Seventeen percent reported one such friend, while 18 percent said they had two.
Ms. Gareis found distinct differences in the number of American friends depending on the students’ home region. Participants from English-speaking countries were most likely to report having three or more close American friends, while more than half of the students from East Asia said they had no Americans in their circle. (Because of survey size, Ms. Gareis analyzed responses by region, rather than by individual country. Some 30 percent of the respondents were from East Asia.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, students from Anglophone countries and from Northern and Central Europe tended to be most content with the number and quality of their friendships; those from East Asia were the least likely to express satisfaction in their relationships with Americans. Half of the East Asian students surveyed said they were not happy with the number of American friends and 30 percent criticized the quality of their friendships.
Over all, 38 percent of international students surveyed were not satisfied with the number of American friends, and 27 said they were unhappy with the quality of those relationships.
Most of the students in the survey had been in the United States between one and three years.
Ms. Gareis also broke the data down by university location, in New York City, nonmetropolitan parts of the Northeast, and nonmetropolitan parts of the South. Students who attended college in Northeastern states were less pleased with the number and quality of their friendships with Americans than were foreign students attending universities in the South. Likewise, students in metropolitan areas had lower levels of satisfaction than did those in smaller college towns.
The regional differences may be attributed to Southern hospitality, said Ms. Gareis, who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Georgia. It also could be that international students at those institutions have fewer on- and off-campus networks of people from their own country or region to turn to, and thus are more likely to make American friends, she said.
Ms. Gareis asked respondents who expressed dissatisfaction why they had difficulties in forming friendships. Forty-six percent blamed an internal factor, such as shyness or poor English-language ability, while 54 percent said they hold American students responsible.
“I wish they were more open and culturally sensitive,” wrote one student of his American classmates.
Another said: “I didn’t expect that it is so hard to make friends with Americans. Usually I do not know what to say with them and I guess they do not either.”
More research needs to be done to better understand why some students struggle to make connections, Ms. Gareis said, but she hypothesized that cultural differences could partly be the source. For example, she said, the United States is a highly individualistic country, whereas other societies, particularly in Asia, put a greater emphasis on social relationships and community ties. These students may be unprepared for Americans’ independence and more relaxed attitudes toward friendships.
By contrast, European students and those from English-speaking countries may have more culturally in common with Americans and thus may find it easier to establish connections, she said.
What’s more, certain behaviors can be self-reinforcing, Ms. Gareis suggested. Students from cultures that value deep relationships may find American friendships superficial and choose to associate more with students from their home country or region. Students with poor language skills may be less likely to approach their American classmates, and vice versa. Even something as simple as unfamiliarity with small talk can hinder students from starting relationships.
As the number of foreign students on U.S. campuses swells, particularly from China and especially on the undergraduate level, these divisions are bedeviling many educators. At Kansas State University, for example, cultural tensions came to a head earlier this year when the student newspaper ran an opinion column calling Chinese students potential “enemies” and arguing that they and other students from countries with foreign policies unfriendly to the United States should not be educated by public universities.
In response, the university is rethinking its cultural programming, to find ways to reach both American and international students, said Marcelo Sabatés, the university’s interim associate provost for international programs. And some good has come of the incident, Mr. Sabatés said, because it has brought the two groups into conversation when they had not been before.
At Michigan State University, the increase in number of students from China alone has been “stunning,” said Peter F. Briggs, director of international students and scholars. Last fall, there were 800 Chinese students in the freshman class; this year, Mr. Briggs expects that number to be closer to 1,000.
The university has struggled to figure out ways to help Chinese and American students build connections, better educating residence-hall advisers to work with foreign students, setting up a system of Chinese and American “conversation partners,” and even recording a video on cross-cultural differences.
Still, Mr. Briggs said, “there is a lot of separatedness.”
Folktale of the lizard and the rock
This is one of the folktales that I remember from my Grandmother… She is Peruvian and of Inca descent. To clarify her side of the family speaks fluent “quechua” the native language of Peru. It is an oral language that uses folktales to convey the values as well as history of Andean Culture. This particular tale is not an old one, in fact my grandmother informed me that it’s origins derived from the extinction of a particular species of lizard about a two hundred years ago that was prevalent in the mountains. It was during that time that American mining companies started to destroy the habitat to get at rich mineral deposits. The people in these habitats that were used to seeing these animals who were used for rituals and for medicine, witnessed their demise and derived a story to maybe explain or justify their quick collapse.
The Lizard is always colorful, it is always fast, it is always happy. He knows that under the sun no other has as many colors, he knows no others that can run and hide faster, he knows that he is happy because he can see others look at him with envy. He would tell the turtle, he would tell the mouse, he would even the tell the hawk if he had a chance. “In my beautiful colors I can hide myself and blend in , with my fast quick legs I can run and hide from the heavens itself”. All the animals grew tired of his talk, all the animals grew angry with his walk. Finally all the animals said to him. “If you are so happy with yourself that you remind us every day than go and be with yourself see if you can get the attention we won’t give you” and with that all the other animals ignored the lizard.
The lizard did not care, he continued to tell everyone his gifts, continued to show his bright colors. After a while the lizard began to notice that nobody got mad , nobody scolded or chased him. As time passed the lizard was sad, how can he be happy, how can he be bright, how can he be fast if nobody cared for his plight. Then one day as he lay under the sun and sky, showing his colors in the bright he noticed a sparkle in the rock that caught his attention. He went and saw the bright and shinny rock, it said nothing but it sparkled bright, it did not talk but only dazzled. The lizard finally said ” you are like me bright and colorful but you say nothing and don’t move, are you not afraid of the hawk or fox?” The rock said nothing, it just shone and dazzled in the sun.
The lizard lonely and bored began to talk to the rock, after a while he found it pleasant for the rock did not get mad or chased him away but just sat there bright and gay. Everyday the lizard went to talk to the rock and everyday they both sat under the sun, but the lizards every now and then had to run and hide away. The lizard began to grow envious of the rock as it shone brightly but was not afraid, it never had to run and hide away. He said to himself ” The rock does not hide, he is not afraid of the hawk during the day nor the fox at night” Believing in his strength the next day, the lizard went to meet the rock and stay all day, with no fear and no running during his stay. Eventually the hawk came and looked for prey, the lizard saw this and with his many colors blended away in the mountains and rocks so the hawk could not see, the most slippery lizard in between the rocks. The Lizard now fell invisible and tall, for he had tricked the Hawk and even the fox. He bowed to the rock never to be afraid, that he would stay with him throughout night and day. They would together shine in the bright sun, sparkling their colors at the envy of all.
Then one day the other men came, the ones who hunt for rock and not prey. They did not care for potatoes or meat, all they cared was the bright gleam. They began to carve out the mountains looking for shiny rocks, all the animals began to go away all except the lizard who vowed to stay. They said to him ” Don’t be a fool, run and hide so you can shine brightly in the sun while on the run”. The Lizard responded ” I do not care for your fears, I vowed to stay by my rock for she did not turn on me and my colors” . So the animals left and yelled at him ” you fool, she does not love you, it is a rock who does not console you” The lizard stayed as the rocks were turned and broken, he hid and tried to scare the men with his hissing and bright colors. But all the men saw was a colorful little creature, they tried to catch him, but he was fast and agile , he could run and hide under the rocks. In the end they could not catch him, but the rocks he hid they all were turned and destroyed. The lonely lizard by his vow died, beautiful and bright by his rock never to be seen by man in the earth or stone, but shinnying brightly in the heavens were there are no rocks.
Terrible Things
When I was trying to recall folktales or family stories from my childhood one of the first things that popped into my head was a story I remember hearing in Hebrew School when I was probably eight or nine years old. After all these years I couldn’t remember the title but after a quick search I found Eve Bunting’s Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust. From what I found the book is based on a quote by Pastor Martin Niemoller about the inactivity of some Germans during the Nazi rise to power in the 1930’s and 40’s. The quote is as follows:
“First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”
There is a longer version of the quote that mentions other groups, including Jews and Catholics, and there are slight variations of it that exist in the U.S. and other countries. The book that I remember from my childhood adapts this quote through the use of different types of animals living in a forest that are one by one taken away by the “Terrible Things.” This story clearly resonated with me because I remember the impact it had on me to this day. The quote itself may not be a folktale but I think that the many variations that have been told at different times and in different cultures could be.
When I first heard this story I was too young to really comprehend what had happened in the Holocaust but I was able to understand that when the animals were only concerned with protecting themselves and the other animals like them then the entire forest ended up suffering in the end. The story stays true to the form and intent of Niemoller’s quote, but by using birds and rabbits instead of communists and socialists it conveys its message in a way that children can understand. Looking back I think that this story is not only an effective way to introduce children to the concept of the Holocaust but also to teach them to stand up for what they believe is right, even if it means putting themselves at risk for the sake of someone different from them.
folklore
My mother’s version of the story was same as to the one we have read in the class except she didn’t knew what bhand was because she never heard of that word. So when I told her about the story, she had recall the word “bahurupiya” which means the same as bhand. But as the author define in the text that bhand can do more than bahurupiya can. So, according to my mother, bahurupiya does a lot of characters too because it is consider as art since ancient time and in order for someone to be called bahurupiya, they have to get into the character so much that one person can’t tell the difference from what that person was before or what they going to be after just like the story. There are many more stories just like this in india not only the scary one like this but some nice ones too which are use for religion purposes. As not only coming from indian background but the minority religion group too(jainism) have bunch of stories like this one to tell to the children about the past history about the religion.
Three years ago, I have read a story from a book which has many stories about my religion. This is how I remember the story which took place in india long long time ago. There was a king and he like to turn (bahurupiya) himself into a animal to go in the forest. Everyday, he would be something different, one day a lion the other snake but one day he saw a jain muni (philospher) and he told himself that he would become a jain muni. The day he turned himself into a muni, he liked it and he stayed like that ever since. In order for him to do that he had to leave everything behind from his kingdom to his wealth to meditate in the forest and that was the biggest sacrificed he had made in his entire life just to become a muni and to reach nirvana.
Even though true calling was little scary and sad at the end, parents wouldn’t tell their children this story. But in my religion usually all of the stories are to be told to children since they are being told generation to generation for religion purposes.