My cultural values & identity

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Characteristics everyone see

BASIC ELEMENTS

What is culture?

My Culture-bound & communication styles

- Language:Spanish


- Gender


- Age


- Personality


- Appearance


- Cloth


- Attitude


- Physical characteristics (brown hair, white skin color, wight, height)

Non-verbal communication: the way we communicate with each other without saying something directly


Examples:


  • Gestures: saying "yes" or "no" using the hands or the head


  • Body movements: we hug each other to show love & we jump when we are happy


  • Facial expressions: sad face, happy face, eye contact, angry face

Verbal communication: the way we communicate through specific words or phrases


Examples:


  • Conversations between friends: screaming, laughing, giving opinions


  • Saying specific phrases: say "good morning" to the professors when the teacher enters to the classroom. Say "toy cabriada" when you are angry. Another common phrase in my culture is "man que xopa" which is another way to say hello (in my country)


  • Written phrases: texts of love, memes, emails, books..

My Culture-bound Behavior can be explained as:

Dominant groups

  • Politicians
  • Rich people
  • Telecommunication companies
  • Business Men

Values:

  • Empathic
  • Loyalty
  • Patriotism
  • Competition

Practices:

  • Pray in family before the meals


  • Go to church every Sunday


  • Say "hello" and "good bye" when you go to a place


  • Greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek or shake hands

Symbols:

  • The flag
  • National anthem
  • National Emblem
  • Molas

Heroes:

  • Cristobal Colon
  • Omar Torrijos
  • Pope Francisco





We are used to screaming and talking a lot with everyone. Most people in my culture are used to have long conversations; we like to interact a lot with each other. Most people in my culture like to talk a lot and we are also very expressive, we used exaggerated (hyperboles) phrases to express ourselves such as "I am dying with this hot weather". One perfect example for one of these characteristics is the long conversation; when I was a child and I accompanied my mom to the supermarket, my mom kept talking to the cashier for a long time without even knowing her (every time, different cashier). It is very common to talk a lot in my country.

INTERSECTIONALITY

My intersectionality:


  • Woman
  • Latina
  • White
  • Heterosexual

Food:

  • arroz con pollo (rice with chicken)
  • sancocho
  • Tamales

What is intersectionality?


According to Hopkins (2018) intersectionality is "The way of understanding social relations by examining intersecting forms of discrimination"


When "sexism, racism and ableism combined → transform the experience of oppression"

Subcultures from my culture

Example from Crenshaw's TedTalk:


Emma DeGraffenreid:
-African American Woman who applied for a job and she was not hired. African americans that were hired where all men. The women that were hired were all white .


Result = Double discrimination

  • Natives
  • Jewish
  • Catholics

Jewish & Catholics:


high, middle, low class

Low context culture

For me, my culture is a "low-context culture".




According to Meyer (2014) Low context cultures:


  • "communication is precise, simple, explicit and clear. Messages are understood at face value. Repetition is for clarification, as is putting messages in writing."

  • "people express their ideas by giving specific details, and being direct. They want the listener to understand clearly what they are saying."

Emotional Expressive: means to be expressive during negotiation. Some cultures use this skill to have better interaction with other negotiators through their emotions, laugh, or showing trust and friendly relationships. (Hall, 2016)

According to Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minko, Culture can manifest in many ways. "Symbols, heroes, rituals, and values, describe the manifestation of culture and where differences between them can be found."

Changes in my cultural identity since moving to the USA

I was not conscious of how bad Latinos have been excluded and discriminated in the US and I felt very uncomfortable at the beginning


  • Example: El Paso attacl against Latinos, Lulu Garcia said that Latinos’ information is “walled of”

I passed through "culture shock" (Irwin) phases:


  • First: I was very excited
  • Second: accomodating umconfortable
  • Third: Adjustment

I understand the word stereotype more than never and I realized how constantly people are creating stereotypes


As Vahabzadeh said: stereotype is a cycle where people only judge and divide

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I realized the power that pronouns and words have; as Meier states regarding inclusive language "Learn about why pronouns matter: don’t be afraid of asking someone’s gender, so to be clear how they prefer to be called (they, she, he, zem them, etc)"