'An Indian Father's Plea' By Robert Lake

My culture comes from where I am from and where I was raised. I am Mexican. Every culture has a unique set of values, traditions and norms. The general culture of Mexican families has a strong foundation in unity. Family ties are strong in Mexican culture and have been for centuries. Culture is all about family. It is a family’s belief systems, the cultural traditions that are celebrated, and the special holidays and events that occur in the year.

Culture is defined as the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture) It is the history of the people; their reason for conducting themselves the way they do. The culture of a group of people is something they are proud of. It showcases the very things that make them unique and separates them from others. While culture does provide a uniqueness to groups and regions, all cultures do have similarities. Most countries, groups, and religions generally have one set culture, some may consist of many subcultures. While a country’s culture has deep roots in heritage, external factors may influence its growth and change; such as people, geography,

Bharati and Mira both have been living in the U.S. for 35 years and America is changing the way Bharati views her Indian culture and the world. She feels like she can express herself and be herself, Mira still stays true to her Indian culture. Mira told Bharati “she hopes to go home to India when she retires” (Mukherjee 70) Mira married an Indian man they had to get their labor certifications her sister Bharati married a man outside her ethnic culture he was a Canadian man. Mira and Bharati look at America differently, Mira doesn’t feel like America is where she belongs she wants to go back home and Bharati is just being herself living her life she likes her American life. Although Bharati and Mira have the same ethnic background, Bharati on the other hand, doesn’t let her cultural ethnicity affect her views on the world around her, showing that ethnic background doesn’t necessarily have to change your views all the time. But most of the time, it will have an affect on your

What is Culture? culture can be defined many different ways by many different people. There’s not a correct or just one form of of definition when it come to culture.All though they all come from different experiences and opinions, they all share the same structure and concepts. In the world today there are hundreds of different types of culture, such as, American culture, Deaf culture British culture, Mexican culture,Arabic culture, African culture , Indian culture , Pop culture , Modern culture , Japanese culture , Chinese culture and so on.Culture is a group of individuals that share the same Behaviors, traditions, faith, heritage, traditions and self values and beliefs. The beauty of culture is the fact that it is ever growing and constantly

Lachlan Pettigrew Max Yelsa Blake Zimmerman A Cultural Synthesis Essay Have you ever thought about the love and culture your family brought you as a child? What they give you lets you develop a sense of identity in our changing world. In the following essay you will read excerpts from two pieces of writing that show how a child develops with and without their cultural identity. A child is lost without their heritage, and strives to find it, whether that be as an adult or when they are still young. In An Indian Father’s Plea, and essay by Robert Lake, the father writes a letter to the teacher speaking about his son. His son had a different sense of cultural inheritance and he was bullied for his actions. “Yesterday, for the third time in two weeks,

A person grows up surrounded with culture at a young age. This can affect how they learn and what they learn. In the text An Indian Father’s Plea, a man writes a letter to the teacher explaining why they are wrong for calling his son a “slow learner” and to help him adapt to their classroom culture. The father persists, saying, “If you ask him how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell you 1. He will respond this way not because he doesn’t know how to count properly, but because he has been taught by our

Growing up in an immigrant family led me to become heavily influenced by culture and tradition. My family immigrated from Afghanistan about 25 years ago and they brought their culture with them. Now since they didn’t quite know how to ‘Americanize’ or adapt to the american culture, they stuck to their own. This was in part because of the idea that moving to a new country possibly increased the chance of losing culture and traditions and in part because it was all they knew. Culture refers to all of the beliefs, customs, ideas, behaviors, and traditions of a particular society that are passed through generations and it is passed on by language, behavior, and it defines which traits and behaviors are considered important, desirable, or undesirable. I, personally, had noticed from a very young age that I was different in some ways: for example the way I acted was

In Bharati Mukherjee essay “Two Ways to Belong in America.” the author explains the different lives of two sisters. The two sisters Mira and Bharati are both from India that moved to America. Both living separate lives in America for 35 years with Mira griping closely to her Indian citizenship as she marries an Indian student majoring in business administration. Bharati on the other hands does the opposite and marries a Canadian American. Giving up Indian citizenship for an American citizenship and marrying outside of her family’s culture. Besides their differences the two sister keep in contact as they are blood sisters living in a foreign country. Mira complains about the unfairness given now to legal immigrants even though she’s has worked

Overcoming a challenge, not giving up, and not being afraid of change are a few themes demonstrated in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Perhaps the most prominent theme derived from the novel is defying the odds, or in other words rising above the expectations of others. Junior Spirit exemplifies this theme throughout the entirety of the book. As Junior is an Indian, he almost expects that he will never leave the reservation, become an alcoholic, and live in poverty like the other Indians on the reservation—only if he sits around and does not endeavor to change his fate. When Junior shares the backstory of his parents, he says that his mother and father came from “poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people” (11). He knows that if his parents were not born into poverty, his mother would have gone to college, and his father would have become a musician. Additionally, on page eleven Junior says that his parents “dreamed about being something other than poor, but they never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams.” Junior believes that he is trapped in this “circle” of poverty, and his dreams will be ignored just as his parents’ dreams had been. However, after Junior launches an old geometry book across a classroom, and it hits his teacher, Mr. P, in the face, Mr. P realizes something substantial about Junior: He has fought since his birth, beginning with the

The purpose of Elizabeth Graham’s text is to explore the uses, abuses and techniques of control used in two Ontario residential schools. The first being the Mohawk Institute located in Brantford. Originally opened as a Mechanics Institute by the New England Company in 1831 the building was later made into a residential school in 1834. The second, Mount Elgin in Muncey, founded by Peter Jones and the Methodist Church in 1850. Graham explains the residential school system as a preliminary attempt to mould and educate Canada’s Indigenous youth to fit into the greater Eurocentric society. Though the methods of assimilation and attitudes towards the ‘Indian problem’ have changed throughout the years, residential schools remained key to the solution.

Chapter one of Real Indians Eva Garroutte writes of the process it takes for a Native American to become recognized by the government and gain the benefits of being a “real Indian” by way of identification card or the Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There are many requirements that need to be filled out before the card can be issued out to the tribe member. Without this reassurance and validation from the government Garroutte explains that a tribe can go “extinct” as a result of the government not stating the tribe exists. According to Garroutte this has happened in the past, “…lack of federal acknowledgement has been shown to affect a grouped ability to preserve or maintain

Wind-Wolf’s father, Medicine Grizzlybear, explains to the teacher that he differs from his white peers that are acclimated with Western culture. Because the teacher is exposed to only Western culture and people in it, he or she creates the opinion that Wind-Wolf is a slow learner: “It takes a long time to absorb and reflect on these kinds of experiences, so maybe that is why you think my Indian child is a slow learner” (Lake 77). Wind-Wolf’s father was also part of the Seneca and Cherokee Indian tribes, but he is also an associate professor at a university; he has adapted to both the Indian and Western culture. From his experiences, he is able to view Wind-Wolf’s situation to not only be relatable, but to understand why Wind-Wolf has a difficult time with the way he is being taught. He also understands his son’s teacher’s perspective when he believes that Wind-Wolf is a slow learner as he has already incorporated Western culture into his own. These are ways and reasons why perspectives are affected by one’s

Bharati comes to America with her arms open wide, willing to adjust her customs and conducts in order to assimilate to her new country. She celebrates change and views it as a positive aspect in her life. The author says, “America spoke to me - I married it - I embraced the demotion from expatriate aristocrat to immigrant nobody,” meaning that to Bharati, America is not just a country. It symbolizes opportunity and freedom, which she desires most. (Mukherjee 282). Bharati’s marriage outside her own ethnic group and willingness to move to “every part of North America” represents her amenable attitude towards change itself. Mira comes to America in search of good education and economic opportunities, however, she refuses to acclimate American pop-culture into her thoughts, actions, and perceptions. Mira’s closed mindset requires her to live a stagnant lifestyle in which she has “stayed rooted in one job, one city, one house, one ancestral culture, one cuisine…” (Mukherjee 282) and never provokes a change in whom she could become. The authors notion towards Mira symbolizes the fact that Mira ignores anything that calls her away from her ethnic identity. Mira intentionally does not connect to her new country as Bharati does, instead she feels “some kind of irrational attachment to India that [she does not] to America,” (Mukherjee 282). Despite an immigrant’s upbringing, each individual must choose to whether to participate in American culture and customs or to continue to abide to their previous country’s norms. Founded upon a multitude of cultures and countries, America has always embraced and even encouraged diversity in individuals. Established on the principles of freedom, diversity, and democracy, the United States of America provides the opportunity for each of the sisters to live the life they

Culture is a very vast and complicated term. As a result, it is extremely difficult to provide an all encompassing definition. In layman terms, culture is used to refer to symbolic markers used by societies to differentiate and distinguish themselves from other societies. These symbolic markers range from religion to customs and traditions to something as basic as language and clothes. Basically culture is a way of living. However, in sociological parlance, in the words of E.B.Tyler ‘Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.’

The Joy Luck Club is what will be our example for the topic Cultural Encounter, which is caused by the differences of cultures. Therefore, communication development is based on sharing thoughts, which leads to an argument that ends either with agreements or disagreements. There are many aspects in an individual that affects the course of this action, and culture is one of them; which I will focus on in this article. I think that it is the most important, in my point of view.