Dominican American Culture

Born and raised in the United States, I consider myself as an American woman. However, some people seem to question my culture and I would then tell them that I am Dominican and Ecuadorean due to my parents born in each of their countries of origin. It is interesting to see that my culture has a lot of different beliefs, values, and traditions compared to the United States. For example, in both my Dominican and Ecuadorean families, parents are expected to have their son/daughter be married by the age of 21. Being an American, I would view this as something impossible to achieve but knowing this would allow me to not react so shocking when approaching a client who is my age and married with children because that is expected in those cultures. There are many things I do admire of my cultural background such as the upbeat music, family oriented events, food, holidays, and the list goes on. It makes me very proud to be a part of both cultures and say that I am Dominican and Ecuadorean as that is something you do not hear all the time. It …show more content…
I may tend to place my own values, beliefs, and cultural knowledge and project it onto my client. In my practicum site, I am constantly working with new patients on a biweekly basis. Therefore, many different cultures and racial groups are being exposed to me. I had an encounter with one patient who came from a Nigerian background in which his culture raised him to have a sense of superiority and higher tone of voice when speaking to women, as a way of dominance. At first, I reacted very upset and found this extremely rude but I did not know much about my client at the time. However, after the session and speaking with my supervisor I became more knowledgeable on his cultural background and this made our future art therapy sessions go much smoother. He felt very comfortable in creating art with me and found a value of respect while we communicated