Cross-Cultural Introspective

Cross-Cultural Introspective

Culture is the customs, institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or group. My culture has influenced me in many ways. Being an African American woman, I have to strive to the best I can be. My ancestors died, so that I may live a full and wonderful life. I have to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way. I believe that I am black first and a woman second. As an African American, I feel that I have to prove myself to the world. I fell that I have to show them that I can make it. I am not a lost cause. My ancestor have taught me that my values and beliefs does matter. Family, education, and religion are the three most important things in my life.

My family is the most important thing in my life. Everything I am, is because of my family. In a African American family the mother is a lot of times the strongest figure. They are equal to their husbands, they share work responsibilities inside and outside the home. My parents stressed morality, the value of labor, and education, and racial uplift. My mother took my brother and I regularly to church. My mother was very strict with us. My father insisted that we work hard in order for the us to be successful. My grandmother is considered our strong figure. Strong religious orientation has been a factor in African-American culture for many years. My grandmother learned to read and write at church. As a little she went to Mount Calvary Baptist in New Iberia, Louisiana. Her churched formed schools for free blacks, as well as for slaves; created institutions, such as banks, hospitals, and homes. My grandmother said church and religion was a way to bringing a positive outcome to her life. My grandmother, Dorothy Harding, was an astonishing woman. My grandmother was a strong, proud, beautiful black woman. She was the rock of our family. I can remember when she would sit all of us on the floor and tell us about her childhood. She would start off by saying

"You'll never know what it was like growing up in 1940," then she would continue with "all you do is complain, but let me tell you, you have it very easy."

Then she would go on to say how her family had no money and that she never had her own pair of shoes. My grandmother said she used to hate her self, because everything around her told her to hate herself. She would explain