My Family Culture

If I was told that I had to move to another country, the three things that I would bring with me would be a bible, my daughter’s photo, and a camera. These items all have very special meaning to me. The bible is representative of the importance of growing up in church and my dad always instilling in both me and my sister how important it was to carry a relationship with God and to hold true to the values that have been set before us. I think my daughter’s photo represents for me the importance of family in my life and what that means and how important it is to remind myself that going forward I still need to be the same mom/person that I would have been even if she were here. The last thing, a camera, is important because my dad used to always take pictures of anything and everything that we all did together and it was the best way for us to remember all of the things that we did together when we were younger and to think about all the things that he shared with us that he thought were important ways to show us just how important we were to him.

If I was told that I had to get rid of two of my three things I think most of all my initial reaction would be nothing short of anger having been “tricked” about how many items I could bring with me. I think that my anger over this thought would stem most from a feeling of being heart broken over losing something that is an integral part of who I am. As I think about this in terms of cultural diversity, I think that a person who has to give up their own cultural identity that they have known and have lived everyday in order to assimilate into a new cultural identity is so unfair because you don’t want to lost that which you know and that which is important to you and has become who you are. I think this was such a great exercise because it really makes you realize and understand the crisis that young children may be going through in terms of identifying who they are in their families and in the world and trying to find ways to fit into both without letting one be the lesser of the two.