Growing Up In California

For my ethnographic research paper I examined the culture of my roommate who is from and grew up in California. The United States is a country that is just one large melting pot for different cultures and ethnicities. It is a relatively young country compared to Europe and Asian countries but the US pulls from such a wide range of countries which brings different cultures to one large nation. I looked at what culture is like in California. With the east coast facing Europe and the west coast facing Asia it makes for subcultures to pop up around the United States. Depending on where you are from, people have a preconceived image of what you are like and how one should act. For example, if you are from Texas it is expected that you will be …show more content…
It might seem typical for a Californian to wake up late and not get the day started but Andy broke this norm of waking up at a reasonable time and getting the day started as to not “waste away the day”. However, on the other hand he gave me good insight to what their culture is like. Through waking up, heading to the beach, going surfing, going to the valley, or heading down to the Santa Monica pier he fits into the typical Californian. Not having a general plan for the day fits the image of people from California not having a plan and being …show more content…
It might seem funny that an entire different state would have a very different slang terms especially in the United States. California I learned, has a ton of different terms that are completely unique to California itself. The first term that stood out to me as being unique to California was the term “Hella” It means really cool or extremely. For example, “That ride down the coast last night was hella cool.” Another one that really stuck me was the term “finna” meaning “going to”. For example “We are finna to the beach later in the day.” These terms gives the outsider a view on a culture of the United states that have different types of terms. I think that it is very fascinated that and a entire cities in one state could have and use terms that are only unique to a certain area of a state. These terms are just cultural involved in life that it becomes normal for people to say these terms because of how its driven into the culture itself. Along the lines of this, Andy talked about for a little about the driving culture in California. He goes into detail saying “ People from California drive so aggressively and fast...I can not tell you the amount of time I have seen people get pushed off the road, but I think this is due to all the traffic in LA, with the roads only being so big and the population only getting bigger, and the city expanding, it is taking people longer and longer to get places