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Upbringing In The Essay An Indian Father's Plea

Decent Essays

Culture and it’s Effects are Inevitable

Culture is universal and inescapable. Its expressed through different beliefs and ideas. It follows someone through their ethnicity and communities. The cultural impact is inevitable and permanent. Someone’s culture has a significant impact on the way they view the world and others. This influence is communicated through the individual's upbringing, their culture, as well as their current environment. Situations are perceived differently by those with different values. The fairly full extent of one’s cultural impact is clear.
Someone’s upbringing and background definitely has a huge influence on the way one views others and the given situation. For example, in the essay “An Indian Father’s Plea”, by …show more content…

Compared to his classmates, Wind-Wolf’s different upbringing affected his thinking process. His father writes a letter to Wind-Wolf’s teacher explaining this, “If you ask him how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell you 13. He will respond this way...because he has been taught by our traditional people that there are 13 full moons in a year” (77). Wind-Wolf would respond to the question the way he was taught, not because he couldn’t count properly. This demonstrates how one’s upbringing can affect them even in their current environment. Wind-Wolf had a difficult time grasping the new methods and tools used in the classroom because he hadn’t been educated that way in the past. His very distinct and different ethnic cultural system conflicted with his new academic culture in a classroom. In addition to this, the essay, “Where Worlds Collide”, by Pico Byer, depicts what people experience as they enter a new environment. People are welcomed to a Los Angeles airport, where announcements are constantly being made in the …show more content…

For example, in the short story, “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, one of the main characters, Dee, chose to neglect her immediate family’s culture. Dee, ambitious for a higher social status, was one of the only characters to receive an education. Her mother describes Dee by stating, “She used to read to us without pity, forcing words...other folks’ habits...she washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious ways she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand” (60). This quote shows how Dee changed after receiving an education. The difference between her attitudes is clear. The beliefs and behaviours Dee was taught in her past community were not valued in her new environment. Dee’s drastic change demonstrates how little her initial culture affected her current life. Nonetheless, an individual's family culture can have the same leading potential on one’s perspective of the world. For example, Maggie, Dee’s sister uses her family culture and values to define family heritage differently. There’s a dispute between which daughter should get the family quilt. When it’s suggested that Dee would not receive the quilts, Dee and Mama discuss how Maggie would use the quilts, “‘She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use’...

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