Cultural Identity and Personal Perspective Essay

S. without fluent English language skills.

I have always felt that my upbringing allowed me the maximum possible benefit of American society without detracting from my ability to appreciate my culture of origin. In that regard, I have always felt very confident in public and in my interpersonal relationships; I have never felt like an immigrant or a foreign national and part of my personal identity definitely includes "American" components that are less often shared by those who were not born in this country. On the other hand, I have also always maintained strong ties to my culture of origin, particularly within my extended family relations and in our respective homes. Especially during Hispanic holidays and other social occasions, the events taking place in my parents' home could easily be envisioned as occurring in another country.

While all of us sometimes converse amongst one another in English, particularly important (or difficult or excited) conversations often revert naturally back to Spanish in our family. My mother has always considered it important for us to learn how to prepare all of the traditional cuisine of our culture of origin. Both of my parents have always been especially concerned with our performance in school and they both have always expected all of us to take full advantage of the opportunities available to us in the U.S. And to appreciate how much easier our lives are today than either the previous generations of Hispanic immigrants or our ancestors, many of whom never traveled more than a few miles from where they were born, much less had the chance to emigrate to another nation of economic opportunity.

My father may have certain conflicting expectations in relation to the clash of modern American social norms and traditional Hispanic values. For one example, it was very difficult for my father to become comfortable with the knowledge that his daughter has lived alone without being married and that she maintains a private social life, or more particularly, an adult dating life. On one hand, he has fully embraced Americanized values, such as in terms of women in the workplace or female engineers and physicians; on the other hand, my father admits to still adhering (at least to some degree) to traditional expectations within Hispanic social cultures such as those pertaining to the "proper" conduct of unmarried females.

Undoubtedly, my father would have been more comfortable having his adult female daughter living in his home until she got married. On an intellectual level, he realizes that this is an unrealistic expectation and that educational and professional opportunities for females naturally go hand-in-hand with the transition of other elements of traditional values to the more modern values and expectations of American society. On an emotional level, this is one element of traditional Hispanic cultural values that he has a much harder time relinquishing. Similarly, my father understands intellectually that I am interested in relationships with like-minded, progressive-thinking prospects; yet, on another level, he may hope that I meet a man with a more "traditional" cultural perspective. I expect to retain certain aspects of the traditional heritage of my culture of origin; however, I realize that I am likely to retain less than my parents' generation and that my children are likely to retain less than my generation. Ultimately, this is another predictable feature of human social culture and the changes that result from multi-generational cultural assimilation.

References

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Macionis J. (2003). Sociology. Princeton, NJ: Pearson.

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