What happens during the clashing of two or more cultures? I identify with two different cultures, Mexican and American, that are constantly clashing in almost every aspect and have clashed throughout most of my life. This consistent clash has conflicted with my own identity. This creates complications growing up because identifying with more than one culture cannot be considered a codominant identification but rather, one is always dominant and the other is recessive. Growing up, the expectation of conforming to a specific culture or culture appropriationthe contact zones become hazardous zones when it comes to whether these conformities are essentially a positive impact on members of a very mixed community. Through the short stories of Reading
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In school, the usual dominant culture that thrived within me was the American culture but was not from choice; society was the one that chose my culture for me, trying to push any Mexican stereotype out of me and filling it with what Americans wanted to see, an assimilated Mexican American; in the short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, the same conflict was portrayed in the perspective of a Hispanic that has dealt with the same kind of struggle, “If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” (Anzaldua 521). But as time changes, expectations change; when going into middle school, my conformity to American culture was quickly subdued by the lack of appreciation from my peers and the atmosphere of culture appropriation was starting to weigh in on me. I was constantly teased for not knowing what my Mexican culture practiced every day, the Spanish language. And because of this trend of hatred for anyone that didn’t appropriate to their culture, I realized that not one person can have two cultures thrive within them at same levels, rather one is always going to be more …show more content…
The overall values of the cultures change to conform to what another culture prefers or what society prefers, resulting in a change of purpose within these communities; as Kitwana has stated, “. . . hip hop’s lyrical descendants of the ‘fight the power’ golden era today are booking concerts in record numbers- far beyond anything imaginable by their predecessors. Problem is, they can hardly find a Black face in the audience” (Kitwana 239). The singer of the group within the short story came to the realization that their overall purpose and values adapted to the changing crowds, the same concept correlates to the adaptation of values to satisfy either another culture or societal
In school, the usual dominant culture that thrived within me was the American culture but was not from choice; society was the one that chose my culture for me, trying to push any Mexican stereotype out of me and filling it with what Americans wanted to see, an assimilated Mexican American; in the short story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, the same conflict was portrayed in the perspective of a Hispanic that has dealt with the same kind of struggle, “If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” (Anzaldua 521). But as time changes, expectations change; when going into middle school, my conformity to American culture was quickly subdued by the lack of appreciation from my peers and the atmosphere of culture appropriation was starting to weigh in on me. I was constantly teased for not knowing what my Mexican culture practiced every day, the Spanish language. And because of this trend of hatred for anyone that didn’t appropriate to their culture, I realized that not one person can have two cultures thrive within them at same levels, rather one is always going to be more …show more content…
The overall values of the cultures change to conform to what another culture prefers or what society prefers, resulting in a change of purpose within these communities; as Kitwana has stated, “. . . hip hop’s lyrical descendants of the ‘fight the power’ golden era today are booking concerts in record numbers- far beyond anything imaginable by their predecessors. Problem is, they can hardly find a Black face in the audience” (Kitwana 239). The singer of the group within the short story came to the realization that their overall purpose and values adapted to the changing crowds, the same concept correlates to the adaptation of values to satisfy either another culture or societal