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I Am Proud of My Cultural Identity

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Updated: 7 November, 2023

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• Chen, K., Shao, A., Jin, Y., & Ng, A. (2020). I Am Proud of My National Identity and I Am superior to You: The Role of Nationalism in Knowledge and Misinformation. Available at SSRN 3758287. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3758287)
• Schwartz, S. J., Zamboanga, B. L., & Weisskirch, R. S. (2008). Broadening the study of the self: Integrating the study of personal identity and cultural identity. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(2), 635-651. (https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00077.x)
• Smolicz, J. (1981). Core values and cultural identity. Ethnic and racial studies, 4(1), 75-90. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1981.9993325?journalCode=rers20)
• Hall, S., & Du Gay, P. (Eds.). (1996). Questions of cultural identity: SAGE Publications. Sage. (https://sk.sagepub.com/books/questions-of-cultural-identity)
• Lucy, S. (2007). Ethnic and cultural identities. In Archaeology of Identity (pp. 96-119). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203087572-10/ethnic-cultural-identities-sam-lucy)

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Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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How to Write an Essay about Your Culture

Do you need to write an essay about your culture but don’t know where to start? You’ve come to the right place! I’m Constance, and I’ll show you how to write an essay about your culture. I’ll guide you step by step, and we’ll write a sample essay together. Let’s dive in. 

Writing an essay about your culture includes 5 steps:

Step 1. Plan how many words you want in each paragraph.

When you know the exact number of words you need for an essay, planning the word count for each paragraph will be much easier. 

For example, a 300-word essay typically consists of five paragraphs and three key elements:

• The introductory paragraph.
• Three body paragraphs.
• The conclusion, or the concluding paragraph.

Here’s a simple way to distribute 300 words across the five paragraphs in your essay:

You’ll get 300 when you add up these numbers. 

Step 2. Decide on what your main and supporting points will be.

First, you must take a stand, meaning you must decide on your main point. What do you really want to say about your culture? Whatever you want to say, that becomes your thesis. 

For example, “My culture is very rich.” That is enough to get started. You’ll get a better idea of how to expand or tweak your thesis after the next step.

Next, divide your topic using the Power of Three to prove the point that your culture is rich using three supporting ideas.

The Power of Three effectively divides an essay’s main idea into its supporting points. It means your main idea is true because of the three reasons you will provide in the body. So, it is a three-part structure that helps produce your body paragraphs .

Let’s try it for an essay about Filipino culture!

For example, here are three supporting ideas explaining the richness of Filipino culture:

• The Philippines has incredible food .
• Traditional Filipino clothing reflects the country’s heritage.
• Family values in the Philippines are essential.

Great! Now we have everything we need to write an essay about Filipino culture. We’re all set for the next step!

Step 3. Write your introductory paragraph.

Here are the key components of an introductory paragraph you need to remember in writing your essay:

Our first sentence is the introduction, which should pull our reader into the world we want to portray in our essay.

And the rest of the introductory paragraph is our thesis statement. It includes our main idea and three supporting points.

Example of an introductory paragraph about culture

“Having been colonized for centuries, the Philippines boasts a vast heritage. It has a rich culture characterized by food, clothing, and family values. Filipino culture has delicious food inherited from diverse parts of the world and periods of conquest. Traditional Filipino clothing reflects the country’s history, as well. And Filipinos prize their family values probably above all else.”

Look at how the introductory paragraph goes from a general statement to specific ideas that support our main idea.

Our introductory sentence is a general statement that serves as the opening in our essay. It briefly sets the essay’s context. Next comes the thesis statement — our main idea. Finally, we have three supporting ideas for our thesis.

Step 4. Write your essay’s body paragraphs.

Again, a 300-word essay typically has three body paragraphs containing your three supporting ideas. Here’s how to structure a body paragraph:

Looking back at our word count plan, we know that our body paragraphs should have roughly 70 words each. Remember your word plan as you write.

Body Paragraph 1

“The Philippines boasts a diverse food culture. It reflects indigenous flavors and foreign influences, such as American, Spanish, Indian, and Chinese. Whether it’s a typical or special day, Filipinos love eating these various dishes with rice, a staple. For example, rice goes well with curry, noodles, and adobo. It is also common to see various foods like pizza, pancit, lumpia, paella, (Filipino-style) sweet spaghetti, cakes, and ice cream at parties.”

As you can see, the first sentence in this body paragraph is a topic sentence . It gives context to the paragraph and briefly summarizes it.

The second sentence explains why the Philippine food culture is considered diverse. 

The remaining sentences illustrate your main point (topic sentence) by providing examples, starting with rice in sentence 3.

Body Paragraph 2

“Traditional Filipino clothing reflects Philippine cultural heritage. Although Filipinos now conform to current fashion trends in their everyday lives, the traditional clothing style is often used during celebrations. The traditional fashion sense exhibits influences from indigenous tribes, Chinese immigration waves, the Spaniards, and Americans, portraying the chronology of Philippine historical events. For example, the Philippines’ national costume, the baro’t saya, is an elegant blend of Spanish and Filipino clothing styles. Even some modernized forms of clothing also display other global influences.”

Just like Body Paragraph 1, this paragraph follows the same structure outlined in the diagram. It proceeds from a general statement to more specific points :

• The topic sentence.
• An explanation.

Body Paragraph 3

“Family values are vital in the Philippines. The daily lives of most Filipinos revolve around close and extended family, making them known for their family-oriented lifestyle even when they’re overseas. It’s common for children to live with their parents after reaching legal age; some even stay after getting married or obtaining a job. Filipinos also cherish their extended families (aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins) and hanging out or celebrating significant events together.”

Once again, this paragraph follows the body paragraph structure. Now, we’re all set for the final step — the conclusion.

Step 5. Write the conclusion.

The easiest way to write a concluding paragraph for your essay on your culture is to restate your main idea and its supporting points using different words. You can even paraphrase your introduction — a time-proven method!

Let’s write the conclusion for our essay.

“Because of its history, the Philippines has a rich, diverse culture rooted in a vast heritage. Filipino cuisine is a blend of indigenous and foreign flavors. The nation’s history is reflected in its traditional clothing. And family values display a distinct Filipino trait.”

Note that this conclusion uses different words to restate the points we’ve already made, including those in the body paragraphs. 

Hope this was helpful. Now go ahead and write an essay about your culture!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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Essay on My Culture

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Culture in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Culture

Introduction.

My culture is an integral part of who I am. It’s like a colorful tapestry, woven with traditions, customs, and values that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Family Traditions

Family traditions are a significant part of my culture. They include celebrating festivals, preparing and sharing traditional meals, and storytelling sessions that keep our heritage alive.

Language and Values

The language we speak at home is another cultural aspect. It connects me to my roots. Additionally, values like respect for elders, kindness, and honesty are cultural teachings I hold dear.

In conclusion, my culture shapes my identity, guiding my actions and thoughts. It’s a treasure I cherish and will continue to uphold.

Also check:

• Speech on My Culture

250 Words Essay on My Culture

Culture is an intricate tapestry, woven with threads of traditions, values, and experiences. It shapes our identity, influencing our beliefs and behaviors. My culture, a blend of South Asian heritage and modern Western influences, plays a significant role in defining who I am.

Traditional Roots

My culture is steeped in ancient traditions, each carrying profound meanings. From the vibrant festivals like Diwali, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness, to the daily rituals such as meditation, promoting inner peace, these customs provide a sense of belonging and continuity. They serve as a bridge, connecting me to my ancestors and their wisdom.

Western Influences

Growing up in a multicultural society, my culture has also been shaped by Western influences. The emphasis on individualism and freedom of expression has encouraged me to question, explore, and form my own beliefs. This fusion of cultures has led to a unique blend of values – respect for diversity, emphasis on education, and the pursuit of personal growth.

Impact on Personal Identity

My culture, a blend of tradition and modernity, has shaped my worldview and personal identity. It has taught me to appreciate diversity, strive for knowledge, and maintain balance in life. It has also instilled a sense of responsibility to uphold these values and pass them on to future generations.

Culture is not static; it evolves, influenced by time, place, and people. My culture is a testament to this dynamic nature – a harmonious blend of old and new, East and West. It is an integral part of my identity, shaping my thoughts, actions, and aspirations.

500 Words Essay on My Culture

Culture is the lifeblood of a vibrant society, expressed in the myriad ways we tell our stories, celebrate, remember the past, entertain ourselves, and imagine the future. Our creative expression helps define who we are, and helps us see the world through the eyes of others. As such, I take immense pride in my culture, a rich tapestry of traditions, customs, and values that shape my identity and worldview.

Defining My Culture

My culture is a beautiful amalgamation of shared beliefs, practices, and traditions that have been passed down through generations. It is a social construct, born out of the need for a collective identity, yet it is also deeply personal, shaping my individuality. It is a complex interplay of history, geography, religion, language, and art.

Language and Communication

Language, an essential component of my culture, is more than just a tool for communication. It encapsulates the essence of my cultural heritage, carrying with it the stories, wisdom, and ethos of my ancestors. Each idiom, each proverb, each dialect is a window into the collective experiences and values of my community.

Traditions and Rituals

The traditions and rituals of my culture are a testament to its rich history and diversity. They are symbolic, carrying profound meanings and lessons about life, community, and spirituality. These traditions, whether they are festive celebrations or daily rituals, connect me to my roots, providing a sense of continuity and belonging.

Values and Norms

At the heart of my culture lie the values and norms that guide my behavior and interactions with others. They instill in me a sense of responsibility, respect, and empathy, molding my character and influencing my worldview. These values, embedded in the fabric of my culture, serve as a moral compass, guiding me through life’s challenges and dilemmas.

Art and Expression

Art, in its many forms, is a powerful expression of my culture. It is a mirror reflecting society, a canvas depicting our dreams, fears, joys, and sorrows. Be it music, literature, dance, or visual arts, each piece is a thread in the intricate tapestry of my culture, adding depth, color, and texture to the narrative.

In conclusion, my culture is an intricate mosaic of shared beliefs, traditions, values, and artistic expressions. It shapes my identity, influences my worldview, and connects me to a community and history larger than myself. It is a source of pride and a beacon of diversity, reminding me of the richness of human experience. As I navigate my way through life, I carry with me the invaluable legacy of my culture, a testament to the resilience and creativity of my ancestors.

While cultures may vary enormously across the globe, they all share one thing in common: they are the lifeblood of human societies. They provide us with a sense of belonging and identity, and help us understand our place in the world. By cherishing and preserving our individual cultures, we contribute to the beautiful diversity of the human race.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on My Class Room
• Essay on My Class
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Why I Am Proud of My Culture: Celebrating Identity

Table of contents, preserving heritage and traditions, celebrating cultural diversity, personal connections and values, culture's role in shaping worldview.

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My Cultural Identity Essay: A Guide to Writing about Who You are

October 12, 2015

A cultural identity essay is a paper that you write exploring and explaining how your place of upbringing, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, and family dynamics among other factors created your identity as a person. Even facts such as what activities you took part in as a child can be part of your cultural identity. Your culture identity is ultimately the group of people that you feel that you identify with. The thought process behind this is known as cultural identity theory. To get a better idea of this, take a look at this single paragraph blurb of information that you might see in a culture identity essay. After reading, you can easily  write my paper  and feel comfortable getting grades as high as you can imagine.

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I was born in rural Missouri, but my family moved to St. Louis before I was a year old. My mother is 100 percent Irish and comes from a family that identifies very strongly with Irish culture. My father is Middle Eastern, but was adopted by an English family who moved to the United States when he was 5. We lived in a pretty big house in a subdivision. My parents had two more kids after me, they were both boys as well. My father wasn't religious, but my mom was a practicing Catholic. She went to mass every week. My brothers and I both had first communion and were confirmed, but stopped going to church as teenagers. We weren't really encouraged to play sports because our parents thought we should focus on our studies. They really emphasized math and science. I did well in these classes, but I didn't enjoy them. In high school, I became active in music and theater. Most of my friends were also into that as well. I earned a scholarship to study engineering on the East Coast, but I dropped out as a sophomore. I returned home to study music, needless to say my parents were disappointed. My brothers both pursued careers in technical fields. One is a mechanical engineer and the other is a software engineer. I am close with my family, but we do not have much in common. My circle of friends is fairly varied when it comes to race, ethnicity, religion, and economic background, but it consists almost entirely of people who are artists, musicians, writers, or people involved in those industries.

Keep in mind that your essay samples may look nothing like this. In our example, the writers choice of career, talents, and interests influenced his cultural identity more than his religious, ethnic background, or family values did. This may not be the case for you. Remember that when you are writing your paper there are no wrong answers. You just have to ask yourself insightful questions and keep the theory of cultural identity in mind as you write. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• How did the foods I ate as a child influence my identity
• Did I look different from the kids I went to school with? How did that impact me?
• Did birth order influence who I am as an adult?
• Does my life today match the life I was raised in?

While being committed to a number of charitable causes, like volunteering at special events or giving free art lessons to children, Marie doesn’t forget her vocation – writing. She can write about almost anything but has focused on time management, motivation, academic and business writing.

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Essays about Culture and Identity: 9 Examples And Prompts

Writing essays about culture and identity will help you explore your understanding of it. Here are examples that will give you inspiration for your next essay.

Culture can refer to customs, traditions, beliefs, lifestyles, laws, artistic expressions, and other elements that cultivate the collective identity. Different cultures are established across nations, regions, communities, and social groups. They are passed on from generation to generation while others evolve or are abolished to give way to modern beliefs and systems.

While our cultural identity begins at home, it changes as we involve ourselves with other groups (friends, educational institutions, social media communities, political groups, etc.) Culture is a very relatable subject as every person is part of a culture or at least can identify with one. Because it spans broad coverage, there are several interesting cultural subjects to write about.

Our culture and identity are dynamic. This is why you may find it challenging to write about it. To spark your inspiration, check out our picks of the best culture essays. 

1. Sweetness and Light by Matthew Arnolds

2. how auto-tune revolutionized the sound of popular music by simon reynolds, 3. how immigration changes language by john mcwhorter, 4. the comfort zone: growing up with charlie brown by jonathan franzen, 5. culture and identity definition by sandra graham, 6. how culture and surroundings influence identity by jeanette lucas, 7. how the food we eat reflects our culture and identity by sophia stephens, 8. identity and culture: my identity, culture, and identity by april casas, 9. how america hinders the cultural identity of their own citizens by seth luna, 1. answer the question, “who am i”, 2. causes of culture shock, 3. your thoughts on dystopia and utopia, 4. gender inequality from a global perspective, 5. the most interesting things you learned from other cultures, 6. the relationship between cultural identity and clothes, 7. describe your culture, 8. what is the importance of honoring your roots , 9. how can a person adapt to a new culture, 10. what artistic works best express your country’s culture, 11. how has social media influenced human interaction, 12. how do you protect the cultures of indigenous peoples, 13. are k-pop and k-drama sensations effectively promoting korea’s culture , 14. what is the importance of cultural diversity.

“… [A]nd when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,—has good in it, and more good than bad.”

Arnolds compels a re-examination of values at a time when England is leading global industrialization and beginning to believe that greatness is founded on material progress. 

The author elaborates why culture, the strive for a standard of perfection, is not merely driven by scientific passions and, more so, by materialistic affluence. As he esteems religion as “that voice of the deepest human experience” to harmonize men in establishing that ideal society, Arnolds stresses that culture is the effort to “make reason and the will of God prevail” while humanizing gained knowledge to be society’s source of “sweetness and light.”

“Few innovations in sound production have been simultaneously so reviled and so revolutionary. Epoch-defining or epoch-defacing, Auto-Tune is indisputably the sound of the 21st century so far.”

Reynolds shows how Auto-Tune has shaped a pop music genre that has cut across cultures. The article maps out the music landscape Auto-Tune created and examines its impact on the culture of song productions and the modern taste for music. While the author debunks accusations that Auto-Tune destroyed the “natural” process of creating music, he also points out that the technology earned its reverence with big thanks to society’s current custom of using technology to hide blemishes and other imperfections.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about culture shock .

“… [T]he heavy immigration that countries like Italy are experiencing will almost certainly birth new kinds of Italian that are rich with slang, somewhat less elaborate than the standard, and… widely considered signs of linguistic deterioration, heralding a future where the “original” standard language no longer exists.”

American linguist McWhorter pacifies fears over the death of “standard” languages amid the wave of immigration to Europe. On the contrary, language is a vital expression of a culture, and for some, preserving is tantamount to upholding a cultural standard. 

However, instead of seeing the rise of new “multiethnolects” such as the Black English in America and Kiezdeutsch in Germany as threats to language and culture, McWhorter sees them as a new way to communicate and better understand the social groups that forayed these new languages.

“I wonder why “cartoonish” remains such a pejorative. It took me half my life to achieve seeing my parents as cartoons. And to become more perfectly a cartoon myself: what a victory that would be.”

This essay begins with a huge fight between Franzen’s brother and father to show how the cultural generation gap sweeping the 60s has hit closer to home. This generation gap, where young adults were rejecting the elders’ old ways in pursuit of a new and better culture, will also be the reason why his family ends up drifting apart. Throughout the essay, Franzen treads this difficult phase in his youth while narrating fondly how Peanuts, a pop culture icon at the time, was his source of escape. 

“…Culture is… your background… and Identity is formed where you belong to… Leopold Sedar Senghor and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim both talks about how culture and identity can impact… society…”

In this essay, Graham uses “To New York” by Senghor and “Learning To Love America” by Lim as two pieces of literature that effectively describe the role of culture and identity to traveling individuals. 

The author refers to Sengho’s reminder that people can adapt but must not forget their culture even if they go to a different place or country. On the other hand, Lim discusses immigrants’ struggle to have double identities.

“Culture is something that surrounds all of us and progress to shape our lives every day… Identity is illustrated as the state of mind in which someone or something distinguishes their own character traits that lead to determining who they really are, what they represent.”

Lucas is keen on giving examples of how his culture and surroundings influence an individual’s identity. She refers to Kothari’s “If you are what you eat, then what am I?” which discusses Kothari’s search for her identity depending on what food she eats. Food defines a person’s culture and identity, so Kothari believes that eating food from different countries will change his identity.

Lucas also refers to “Down These Mean Streets” by Piri Thomas, which argues how different cultural and environmental factors affect us. Because of what we encounter, there is a possibility that we will become someone who we are not. 

“What we grow is who we are. What we buy is who we are. What we eat is who we are.”

Stephens’ essay teaches its readers that the food we grow and eat defines us as a person. She explains that growing a crop and harvesting it takes a lot of effort, dedication, and patience, which mirrors our identity. 

Another metaphor she used is planting rice: it takes skills and knowledge to make it grow. Cooking rice is more accessible than cultivating it – you can quickly cook rice by boiling it in water. This reflects people rich in culture and tradition but who lives simpler life. 

“Every single one has their own unique identity and culture. Culture plays a big role in shaping your identity. Culture is what made me the person I am today and determines who or what I choose to associate myself with.”

Casas starts her piece by questioning who she is. In trying to learn and define who she is, she writes down and describes herself and her personality throughout the essay. Finally, she concludes that her culture is a big part of her identity, and she must understand it to understand herself.

“When it comes to these stereotypes we place on each other, a lot of the time, we succumb to the stereotypes given to us. And our cultural identity is shaped by these expectations and labels others give us. That is why negative stereotypes sometimes become true for a whole group or community.”

In this essay, Luna talks about how negative stereotyping in the United States led to moral distortion. For example, Americans are assumed to be ignorant of other countries’ cultures, making it difficult to understand other people’s cultures and lifestyles. 

She believes that stereotyping can significantly affect an individual or group’s identity. She suggests Americans should improve their intellectual competence by being sensitive to other people’s cultures.

14 Prompts on Essays about Culture and Identity

You can discuss many things on the subject of culture and identity. To give you a starting point, here are some prompts to help you write an exciting essay about culture. 

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips and our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Understanding your personality is vital since continuous interaction with others can affect your personality. Write about your culture and identity; what is your personality? How do you define yourself? Everyone is unique, so by writing an essay about who you are, you’ll be able to understand why you act a certain way and connect with readers who have the same values. 

Here’s a guide on writing a descriptive essay to effectively relay your experience to your readers.

Sometimes, people need to get out of their comfort zone and interact with other individuals with different cultures, beliefs, or traditions. This is to broaden one’s perspective about the world. Aside from discussing what you’ve learned in that journey, you can also focus on the bits that shocked you. 

You can talk about a tradition or value that you found so bizarre because it differs from your culture. Then add how you processed it and finally adapted to it.

Dystopia and Utopia are both imagined worlds. Dystopia is a world where people live in the worst or most unfavorable conditions, while Utopia is the opposite. 

You can write an essay about what you think a Dystopian or Utopian world may look like, how these societies will affect their citizens, etc. Then, consider what personality citizens of each world may have to depend on the two worlds’ cultures.

Today, more and more people are fighting for others to accept or at least respect the LGBTQ+ community. However, countries, territories, and religions still question their rights.

In your essay, you can talk about why these institutions react the way they do and how culture dictates someone’s identity in the wrong way. Before creating your own, feel free to read other essays and articles to learn more about the global gender inequality issue. 

The world has diverse cultures, traditions, and values. When you travel to a new place, learning and writing about your firsthand experiences with unique cultures and rituals will always be an interesting read.

In this prompt, you’ll research other cultures and how they shaped their group’s identity. Then, write about the most exciting aspects you’ve learned, why you found them fascinating, and how they differ from your culture.

Those proud of their culture will wear clothes inspired by them. Some wear the same clothes even if they aren’t from the same culture. The debate over cultural appropriation and culture appreciation is still a hot topic. 

In this essay, you may start with the traditions of your community or observances your family celebrates and gathers for. Then, elaborate on their origins and describe how your community or family is preserving these practices. 

Learning about your roots, ancestors, and family cultures can help strengthen your understanding of your identity and foster respect for other cultures. Explore this topic and offer examples of what others have learned. Has the journey always been a positive experience? Delve into this question for an engaging and interesting essay.

When a person moves country, it can be challenging to adapt to a new culture. If there are new people at work or school, you can interview them and ask how they are coping with their new environment. How different is this from what they have been used to, and what unique traditions do they find interesting?

Focus on an art piece that is a source of pride and identity to your country’s culture, much like the Tinikling of the Philippines or the Matryoshka dolls of Russia. Explore its origins and evolution up to its current manifestation and highlight efforts that are striving to protect and promote these artistic works.

The older generation did not have computers in their teen years. Ask about how they dated in their younger years and how they made friends. Contrast how the younger generation is building their social networks today. Write what culture of socialization works better for you and explain why.

Take in-depth navigation of existing policies that protect indigenous peoples. Are they sufficient to serve these communities needs, and are they being implemented effectively? There is also the challenge of balancing the protection of these traditions against the need to protect the environment, as some indigenous practices add to the carbon footprint. How is your government dealing with this challenge?

A large population is now riding the Hallyu or the Korean pop culture, with many falling in love with the artists and Korea’s food, language, and traditional events. Research how certain Korean films, TV series, or music have effectively attracted fans to experience Korea’s culture. Write about what countries can learn from Korea in promoting their own cultures.

Environments that embrace cultural diversity are productive and innovative. To start your essay, assess how diverse your workplace or school is. Then, write your personal experiences where working with co-workers or classmates from different cultures led to new and innovative ideas and projects. Combine this with the personal experiences of your boss or the principal to see how your environment benefits from hosting a melting pot of cultures.

If you aim for your article to effectively change readers’ perspectives and align with your opinion, read our guide to achieving persuasive writing . 

Aisling is an Irish journalist and content creator with a BA in Journalism & New Media. She has bylines in OK! Magazine, Metro, The Inquistr, and the Irish Examiner. She loves to read horror and YA. Find Aisling on LinkedIn .

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How to Write a Cultural Identity Essay With Tips and Examples

11 December 2023

last updated

Writing a cultural identity essay is an exciting academic exercise that allows students to develop and utilize critical thinking, reflective, and analytical skills. Unlike a standard essay, this type of paper requires learners to use first-person language throughout. In essence, a cultural identity essay is about writers and what makes them identify with a particular cultural orientation. When writing a cultural identity essay, authors should choose a specific identity and focus on it throughout their texts. Moreover, they should reflect and brainstorm, use the “show, not tell” method, utilize transitions to create a natural flow, and proofread their papers to eliminate mistakes and errors. Hence, students need to learn how to write a cultural identity essay to provide high-quality papers to their readers.

Definition of a Cultural Identity Essay

Students undertake different writing exercises in the learning environment to develop their critical thinking, reflective, and analytical skills. Basically, one of these exercises is academic writing , and among different types of essays that students write is a cultural identity essay. In this case, it is a type of essay where authors write about their culture, which entails exploring and explaining the significance of their cultural identity. Moreover, there are numerous topics that instructors may require students to write about in a cultural identity essay. For example, some of these essay topics fall under different disciplines, such as religion, socio-economic status, family, education, ethnicity, and business. In essence, the defining features of a cultural identity essay are what aspects make authors know that they are writing in this type of essay. In turn, these features include language, nationality, gender, history, upbringing, and religion, among many others.

Differences Between a Cultural Identity Essay and Other Papers

Generally, a cultural identity essay is similar to a standard essay regarding an essay structure and an essay outline . However, the point of difference is the topic. While standard essays, such as argumentative, persuasive, and informative essays, require learners to use third-person language, such a paper requires them to use first-person language. In this case, when writing a cultural identity essay, authors should use the word “I” throughout to show the audience that they are writing from their perspective. Indeed, this aspect is the primary objective of a cultural identity essay – to give the writer’s perspective concerning their culture. Besides, another point of difference between a cultural identity essay and other papers is that the former does not require writers to utilize external sources but to write from a personal viewpoint.

List of Possible Examples of Cultural Identity Essay Topics

1. cultural identity and socialization in a learning environment.

Here, a cultural identity essay prompt may require students to discuss the significance of culture in education, focusing on cultural identity and socialization. As such, this topic requires writers to reflect on how culture influences behavior in a learning environment.

2. The Impact of Culture Change on Family

Here, this prompt may require students to explore and discuss how culture impacts a family unit. Moreover, the theme is a family, and the students’ mission would be to explain how culture in all its dynamics affects families in diverse settings.

3. The Role of Language in Building a Cultural Identity

Here, instructions may require students to explore and explain the significance of language in cultural identity. Hence, writers should focus on explaining the place of culture in the sociology discipline, focusing on the connection between language and cultural identity.

4. The Significance of Culture in a Globalized Economy

Here, a cultural identity essay topic may require students to explore and discuss how culture affects individuals and businesses in today’s connected world. Also, the students’ task would be to explain how culture, in all its dynamics, such as language, is essential in business for individuals and enterprises.

5. How Culture Influences Relations in the Workplace

Here, an essay prompt may require students to explore and explain how culture, in all its dynamics, affects or influences social relations at the workplace. In turn, the task of writers, for example, would be to focus on how Human Resource (HR) departments can use culture to enrich workplace relations.

6. The Place of Culture in Individuals’ Self-Concept

Here, an analysis of a theme may require students to reflect on how their cultural orientation has affected their self-concept. Moreover, the student’s task would be to discuss how culture and its dynamics enable individuals to build a strong or weak understanding of themselves.

7. The Importance of Cultural Orientation in a Multicultural Environment

Here, assignment instructions may require students to explore and discuss how their cultural orientation enables them to operate in a culturally diverse environment, such as a school or workplace. In this case, the student’s task would be to explain how cultural characteristics, such as language and religion, facilitate or hamper social competency in a multicultural setting. 

8. How Global Conflicts Disturb Cultural Identity for Refugees

Here, this example of a cultural identity topic may require students to explore and explain how conflicts in today’s world, such as civil unrest, affect the cultural identity of those who flee to foreign countries. Also, the student’s task would be to explain how one’s culture is affected in a new environment with totally different cultural dynamics.

9. The Challenges of Acculturation

Here, a cultural identity essay prompt may require students to explore and explain the challenges that individuals face in identifying with the dominant culture. In particular, the student’s task would be to explain the significance of the dominant culture and what those from other cultures that try to identify with it must confront.

10. Host Country Culture and Multinational Enterprises

Here, this prompt sample may require students to explore and explain how a host country’s culture affects expatriates working for multinational corporations. Besides, the students’ task would be to show how one’s culture defines their behaviors and how that can be affected in a new environment with new cultural characteristics.

11. Compare and Contrast Native Culture and Dominant Culture in the United States

Here, such instructions require students to explain specific areas of similarity and difference between the Native culture and the dominant culture. In turn, the students’ task would be to define the Native culture and the dominant culture and help the audience to understand whether they mean the same thing. Hence, whether they do or do not, students should elaborate.

12. The Objective of Acculturation

Here, this example of a cultural identity essay topic requires students to explore and explain why people prefer to identify with the dominant culture. Moreover, the students’ task would be to note the advantages of the dominant culture over others and the opportunities that one may access to identify with this dominant culture.

13. The Challenges That the LGBTQ Community Faces in the Modern World

Here, essay prompt instructions require students to explore and discuss the challenges that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people face in their normal day-to-day activities. In this case, the students’ task would be to explain the uniqueness of the LGBTQ community and how stereotyping makes their lives miserable in an environment where people are intolerant of different personalities and viewpoints.

14. Dangers of Cultural Intolerance in the Health Care System

Here, instructions may require students to explore and discuss how nurses that are intolerant to cultural differences may jeopardize patients’ lives.

15. Advantages and Disadvantages of Acculturation

Here, a cultural identity essay prompt requires students to discuss the pros and cons of identifying with the dominant culture.

How Students Know if They Write a Cultural Identity Essay

The defining features of a cultural identity essay give students the indication that they need to write this kind of essay. Basically, when learners read instructions regarding their essay topics they need to write about, they should identify one or several defining elements. In turn, these elements include language, nationality, religion, ethnicity, and gender.

Structure of a Cultural Identity Essay

As stated previously, the primary point of similarity between a cultural identity essay and standard papers is an essay structure and an essay outline. Basically, this structure and outline comprise of three main sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. Like in all other essays, writing a cultural identity essay requires students to address specific issues, which are, in essence, the defining characteristics of the essay’s structure and outline.

I. Introduction and Its Defining Characteristics

The introduction is the first paragraph of a cultural identity essay. Here, students introduce themselves to the audience, giving a brief background of their cultural identity. Moreover, rules of academic writing dictate that this part should not exceed 10 percent of the entire paper. In this case, writers should be brief and concise. Then, the most prominent component of this section is a thesis, a statement that appears at the end of an introduction paragraph and whose objective is to indicate the writer’s mission. In summary, the introduction part’s defining features are the writer’s background and thesis statement . In turn, the former gives a hint about a writer, and the latter provides the audience with insight into the writer’s objective in writing a cultural identity essay.

The body of a cultural identity essay is the most significant section of a paper and takes the largest part. Generally, writers use several paragraphs to advance different arguments to explain specific concepts. In a cultural identity essay, writers can use different paragraphs to explain important aspects of their cultural identity. Nonetheless, what determines the number of paragraphs and the content of each is a paper topic. Also, the most prominent defining features of a cultural identity essay’s body are paragraphs, with each advancing a unique concept about the writer’s cultural identity. In turn, paragraphs are where writers provide real-life experiences and other personal anecdotes that help the audience to develop a deeper understanding of authors from a cultural perspective.

III. Conclusion

The conclusion part is the last section of a cultural identity essay. In particular, writers restate a thesis statement and summarize the main points from body paragraphs. Moreover, authors provide concluding remarks about a topic, which is mostly an objective personal opinion. In summary, the conclusion part’s defining features are a restatement of a thesis, a summary of the main points, and the writer’s final thoughts about a topic.

Outline Template for a Cultural Identity Essay

I. Introduction

A. Hook statement/sentence. B. Background information. C. A thesis statement that covers the main ideas from 1 to X in one sentence.

II. Body Paragraphs

A. Idea 1 B. Idea 2 … X. Idea X

A. Restating a thesis statement. B. Summary of the main points from A to X. C. Final thoughts.

An Example of a Cultural Identity Essay

Topic: Identifying as a Naturalist

I. Introduction Sample in a Cultural Identity Essay

The period of birth marks the beginning of one’s identity, with culture playing a significant role. However, from the stage of adolescence going forward, individuals begin to recognize and understand their cultural makeup. In my case, I have come to discover my love for nature, an aspect that I believe has made me a naturalist both in belief and action.

II. Examples of Body Paragraphs in a Cultural Identity Essay

A. idea 1: parents.

Parents play a critical role in shaping the cultural and personal identity of their children. In my case, it is my mother who has instilled in me a love for nature. Although I may not say exactly when this love started, I can only reason that since it was ingrained in me since childhood, it has developed gradually.

B. Idea 2: Naturalism

Today, naturalism defines my interactions with people and the environment. In short, I can say it shapes my worldview. As a lover of nature herself, my mother had this habit of taking me outdoors when I was a toddler. I have seen family photographs of my mother walking through parks and forests holding my hand. What is noticeable in these pictures besides my mother and me is the tree cover that gives the setting such a lovely sight. Moreover, I can now understand why I seem more conversant with the names and species of flowers, trees, and birds than my siblings- my mother was the influence. In turn, my siblings and friends make a joke that I have developed a strong love for nature to the point of identifying myself with the environment. Hence, the basis for this argument is my love for the green color, where even my clothes and toys are mostly green.

III. Conclusion Sample of a Cultural Identity Essay

Naturally, human beings behave in line with their cultural background and orientation. Basically, this behavior is what determines or reflects their cultural identity. In turn, my intense love for nature underscores my naturalist identity. While I may not tell the stage in life when I assumed this identity, I know my mother has played a significant role in shaping it, and this is since childhood.

Summing Up on How to Write a Good Cultural Identity Essay

Like any standard paper, writing a cultural identity essay allows students to build essential skills, such as critical thinking, reflective, and analytical skills. In this case, the essence of a paper is to provide the writer’s cultural identity, background, or orientation. Therefore, in order to learn how to write a good cultural identity essay, students should master the following tips:

• Decide where to focus. Culture is a broad topic, and deciding what to focus on is essential in producing a cultural identity essay. For example, one may have several cultural identities, and addressing all may lead to inconclusive explanations.
• Reflect and brainstorm. Given the close link between one’s cultural identity and personal experiences, learners need to reflect on experiences that would provide the audience with an accurate picture of their cultural identity.
• Adopt the “Show, not tell” approach by providing vivid details about one’s experiences. Using personal anecdotes may be effective in accomplishing this objective.
• Use transitions , such as “therefore,” “thus,” ” additionally,” and “furthermore,” to enhance a natural and logical flow throughout the essay.
• Stay personal by using first-person language to describe one’s background and experiences.
• Proofread a cultural identity essay to eliminate spelling and grammatical mistakes and other notable errors, such as an inconsistent life storyline.

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How Does Culture Affect the Self Identity Personal Essay

Introduction, culture influence on personality identity, chinese – indonesians’ culture in relation to personal identity, how am i shaped and influenced by culture.

Culture or the way of life is attributed to the personality of an individual and makes them who they really are. Self awareness emphasizes the significance of an individual to exist and is attributed to social views and practices. It defines individual characteristics and contributes to the diversity of people in the world and this makes life interesting.

Culture and personal identity relate closely and are dependent on each other. Construction of identities is within individual in relation to a particular historical background and organization. This paper shall explore the personality trait explained above and explain the contribution that culture has made.

The vibrant Indonesian culture is ethnic and is also being influenced by countries such as China and India which neighbor it. Cultural identity is marked by the influence from the family, regional, and religious aspects. For instance, am a mixture of Chinese and Indonesian, born in Indonesia and have lived there my entire life.

My family background is relatively humble although my parents provide for my basic needs. However, Luxuries are not always present when needed. With hard work, the family is better than before since the parents have worked extra hard to make ends meet. Nevertheless, the initial financial constrains that my family experienced contributed to my personality.

I have come to be known as a girl of low profile since my cultural background has dictated so. I have learnt to save money and use it on important things only. In addition, I’ve learnt to share with others and not to become self-engrossed, an image that I always portray not only to my parents and friends but also to the society at large. This has made me and the whole family relate well with others.

Chinese- Indonesians are an ethnic minority whose culture is heterogeneous. They have been categorized into totok and peranakan. Since peranakan have their birthplace as Indonesia, they are identified with the ethnic regions of Indonesia and they disregard their Chinese origin.

In contrast, the totok has a lesser Indonesian orientation instead, are more of Chinese since them or their parents have been born in china (Aimee 77).

Another distinction is in the commercial activities undertaken by the groups. Totok group are geared on achieving business success and accumulate wealth. Thus, this is reflected in their self-reliance, investment approach, and prowess which are aspects that have greatly influenced my identity.

As a totok I practice a significant cultural value known as the guanxi . It is a concept which points out that for one to succeed, he or she should relate with people who matter and one must harmonize with the environment instead of altering it.

“For instance, through his personal and financial connections with government officials, particularly Suharto, whom he befriended long before he became Indonesia’s president, Liem Sioe Liong amassed a multibillion dollar importer that encompassed the manufacturing of cement and steel, automobile distribution …” (Aimee 78).

The example emphasizes the aggressiveness of the totok which in turn has taught me to avoid being self-centered but instead count on others in every activity I undertake in life.

On the other hand, the peranakan base their engagements on merit hence are not very successful in the Indonesian commercialism. Therefore, being a totok means that the culture has dictated my hardworking nature and most significantly, my networking and social nature. This has in turn affected my personality of being considerate of others and avoiding being self-centered.

Religious aspects, social environment, and distinct originality have had a strong effect on my identity. Being a Chinese- Indonesian I have learnt proper use of money and resources in order to become successful in life contribute to my identity of being low profile.

The family is a very important institution based on the cultural values if Chinese-Indonesians. Family ties are maintained and preserved by practice of norms such as marriage which ensures solidarity among members (Aimee 74).

It is the role of the parents to teach their children proper manners in life and this has been properly implemented by both of my parents in a strict way which has enabled me to follow the rules and regulations set in various areas quite easily. The family union is relevant to set a good example to the children and ensure happiness in marriage. Marriage is one cultural value that is highly regarded by Chinese-Indonesians.

Indonesian culture is very categorical on religious morals which are elements that are reflected in the entire society and more specifically by my trait of putting others ahead of me and sharing my resources with them. I believe that Sex before marriage is a vice that is forbidden by my culture which helps maintain an environment where children can grow well, become educated, and attain a high degree of moral standards.

Being a Muslim country it is also under the influence of other religions such as Buddhism as well as Hinduism which may as well have played a part on my personal identity. Its cultural, richness is depicted in the country’s art and theatre work such as dances and music.

The economic background, family relations and ethnic distinctions have contributed significantly to the personality trait of being a low profile person who is considerate of others. Moreover, belonging to a Chinese-Indonesian ethnicity means that I have interacted with several cultures.

A multicultural interaction may have similar or contradicting effects on personal identity which is reflected in my personality making it hard to evaluate specifically whether I am of totok o r peranakan origin.

Nevertheless the role played by my immediate family has guided me as I interact with the social environment around me. The culture has enabled me be identified in the society as a low profile woman. This does not only help to deliberately avoid undue prominence but also to exercise personal freedom and acceptance.

Aimee, Dawis. The Chinese of Indonesia and their Search For Identity: The Relationship Between Collective Memory and the Media . New York: Cambria Press. 2009. Print.

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My Cultural Story, Essay Example

Pages: 10

Words: 2845

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Introduction

The purpose of this essay is highlighting a personal view of the world, through self-examination of cultural values as represented by how they differ from other people’s cultural values, as well as how they influence working relationships, adhere to personal beliefs, influence personal experiences, and reflect cultural backgrounds.

Becoming aware of one’s cultural background is important on any occasion, but becomes crucial when one is an educator, because when an educator interacts with his or her students, it is actually a culture which interacts with another culture. Culture is defined by Ginsberg & Vlodkowski (2009) as “the deeply learned confluence of languages, values, beliefs and behaviors that pervade every aspect of a person’s life and it is continually undergoing changes” (p. 9). In order for the interaction to be meaningful, the educator must be aware of his or her own system of beliefs and values. Adult students, unlike children, come with baggage loaded with life experiences, each of them affecting the way they view the world. Children form in the collectivity, and are shaped to a large extent by their educators, and by the experiences they have in school. On contrary, adult learners are already formed when they enter the collectivity and they must interact with each other, and with their educators, which does not always lead to successful learning experiences, due to the conflicting worldviews that might characterize the teacher and the students.

Experience, as a learning method, is not treasured in the contemporary Western Educational system. Rather, education is based on theoretical knowledge and abstract thinking and experience is ignored, or neglected in the learning process. However, as Merriam & Grace (2011) explain, “much of our learning is embedded in the experiences we have in our everyday lives” (p. 311). Experience, therefore, not only shapes us as individuals, but also defines their learning experience throughout their lives. Formal education stops at a given moment, but we continue to learn throughout our experiences, and, to a great extent, our learning experiences are cultural experiences. For this reason, culture is a very influential part of any person’s life and our behavior reflects, to a great extent, our cultural background and our beliefs, which were shaped by experiences. People are unique and their experiences are very different and so, their beliefs and values differ to a great extent depending on what they have learnt to respect, to treasure and to practice.

Therefore, the educator’s task is to learn about himself or herself, before being able to interact successfully with adult learners. This is because, as Ginsberg & Vlodkowski (2009) argue, “educators exert a powerful influence over classroom norms [and so] it is important to make explicit those values that are most implicit and profoundly affects students in our classrooms”. The educator must understand which of his beliefs and values are shared with the representatives of the dominant culture, and which reflect his own unique background. He must understand how his background influences the way he sees the world and how much of these beliefs are transmitted through teaching and interacting with students.

A Precarious Equilibrium: Between Two Worlds

How My Past Influences My Present

My past is not past. My past is present in everything I do and has a significant share in every decision I make. What I came to be today, where I situate myself in society, the life path I chose is to a great extent the result of my past. As an American citizen of Spanish and Puerto Rican ancestry, who was born and reared in Spain, I have certain values and beliefs that are different from dominant American culture. However, having been educated in the United States, and having seen my parents working extremely hard to achieve the American Dream, I also adopted the American society’s values and ideals and therefore, I consider myself both the product of the values of the dominant culture and of my own cultural heritage. I am the sum of my varied experiences: some were painful, some were extraordinary, and some were hard to learn. All these experiences have taught me something about the world I come from, and the world I live in today and have made me the kind of person I am.

Since I was a child, I saw my parents working very hard to make a better life for themselves and especially for me and my brothers. I looked up to them, but especially to my father, who was a strong and very firm man. My family lived in Spain when I was very young but we relocated to the United States, eager to live the American dream. In Spain, we were not poor but as immigrants, our lives in America were as difficult as those of almost all immigrants: difficulty in understanding the language, in finding and keeping a job, in adapting to the new culture and to the problems that are inherent to the American society, such as racism and stereotyping. My parents filled our minds with stories of success and told us how we were going to succeed because we had the advantage of growing up American. All my childhood and teenage life, I worked towards accomplishing this goal. I truly believe that hard work will lead one to success and my own success on both personal and professional plans are to a great success due to my commitment and hard work.

Even though I am a disciplined and hardworking individual, being productive and disciplined is not a goal in itself for me. In this respect, I am influenced by the values of my Spanish culture, in which the family is the most important treasure of an individual and comes before career. Therefore, there is a conflict within me between my desire to achieve success in my career, and my deep commitment to my family. I am married, and I have a daughter, even though I am an officer in the U.S. Army, and I am also working very hard to obtain my Masters degree. Despite so many challenges, I always find time for my daughter, and we also visit my parents twice each year. Being productive, disciplined and active are very important values to me, but my cultural heritage helps me to balance these values with a very strong sense of the family, of my environment and of my culture.

Where my commitment to helping others is concerned, I strongly believe in the equality of chances and social justice. However, my life experiences have taught me to respect people that help themselves, rather than being committed to the dominant culture’s traditional dedication to helping the needy, I believe that people must first do their best to succeed and help should be earned rather than received unconditionally. This belief was shaped since childhood. As I came to the United States, I did not speak English and I was very scared of school. I had a hard time adjusting and my teachers did not make things easier for me simply because of my background. I had to work very much in order to earn their sympathy and their respect, and their sympathy regarded my hard work, and not my persona, or my poor situation. It was only when I began to demonstrate that I am willing to work hard and I am very ambitious that they also began to help me in this direction. Also, my parents refuse to rely on social assistance and worked very hard on low-paying jobs, under their educational level, in order to demonstrate their value.

The concepts of right and wrong are very important for me and I largely believe that the world is split between these two notions. As an officer, I learned that what is right for my country is right in general is good for me, and I was taught never to question orders regardless of my own judgment of a situation. Trying to be non-judgmental does not work for me because, in order to respect orders and be able to believe in what I am doing, I have to truly believe that there is right and wrong in the world and that, by choosing to serve in the U.S. army, I chose to be on the side of the good.

Also, by choosing to serve in the army, I not only followed my father’s example, but also demonstrated my devotion for my adoptive country. I am as much American as I am Spanish, and I believe that patriotism is one of the most important values a person can learn and teach to his children. For me, there is a very particular American identity that all of us share, regardless of our race, religion, or class. This is apparent to me every time I return to Spain. Even though Spanish is my native language, and I have a strong sense of belonging to the Spanish culture, I feel very ‘American’ when I am there. I am able to connect much better with my African- American husband than with my Spanish relatives, because of the sense of the American identity we share.

My Public Image vs. My Private Life

While I was at the academy, I learnt the value of being efficient and practical. For my teachers, I did not matter how I got there, what matters is to be there in an exact time frame. Efficiency and ‘getting things done’ are very important for me and I try my best to work efficiently and make the most practical choices. In one’s career and in the professional and public life in general, what matters is the product and not the process, because efficiency is a value of the dominant culture. However, in the private sphere, I value the process more than the product, and this demonstrate that I am a complex individual and that I was shaped professionally by the dominant culture in which I work, and personally, by the cultural heritage carry. My public image is a practical and efficient one, but at home, I value the things we do together, rather than the result. For example, even though it would be much more efficient to bake a cake, or do chores alone, and the result would be much better, I always involve my daughter and allow her to be an active part in the process, because the quality time spent together is more important than being time efficient and having the best result.

Progress is also part of my public image, and is an important concept in the dominant culture. Progress drives society forward and it is assumed that both the individual within the society, and the society, and indeed, the world, must constantly aim towards progress. As an educator also, progress is an important concept and one of the goals of education. Thus, according to Grace (2011), “liberal adult education is focused on the progress of the individual who uses different perspectives to analyze social and personal location as the first step in building new knowledges and understandings” (p. 42). Even though progress is not always beneficial for the environment, and for the culture, human beings have the capacity and should balance progress with the preservation of our environment and our culture. We should, therefore, take what is best from both concepts: from Native Americans and other culture, we should learn to maintain traditions and to preserve our heritage, but in the same time, we should strive towards personal progress. Once, I asked my father why he wanted to move from Spain to the United States, and he answered that people constantly try to improve their lives and to ‘make things better’ for themselves and for their families. My parents’ desire to progress therefore is what allowed me to be in America today, and from them, I learnt what progress meant.

How I See the World

Material comfort is also one of the goals that drove my parents to leave their country and move to the United States. Material comfort is a major value in most western societies and living a comfortable life is what makes people feel ‘rewarded’ for being productive in the society. Once, my father gathered all children, and asked us, “Do you want to be able to afford everything you see in the show window, or you want to spend your life worrying about money?” We all answered that we want to have a good life, and this question haunted me and pushed me forward. Material comfort is therefore one value of the dominant culture that I value.

Freedom is another fundamental value that is inherently American. Americans believe in freedom more than anything else, but, as an officer, as an educator and as a parent, I know that freedom is sometimes dangerous. In Horton & Frieire (1990), the idea of freedom is linked to that of authority, because, “we need limits, and in experiencing the need for limits, we are also experiencing the respect for freedom and the need for exercising authority” (p. 142). Therefore, freedom is not to be assumed, but has to be respected as a valuable and important notion. It implies so much danger that, even though it is one of the principles of the American society, no one is ever entirely free and, as you assume more responsibilities in the society and at home, you are less free, and more responsible with limiting the freedom of others.

Along with freedom, individualism is yet another important value of the American society. Unlike societies in which the ‘group’ is more important, in the U.S.A, each person has to fight for himself, and has to make it on his own. This is contradictory to the Spanish culture, which emphasizes more on the relationships between individuals, and in which helping each other as a group is very important. Instead, the American society is a very competitive environment, in which the individual is always alone. This was easy for me to adapt to in the education system, and later in the work environment, but for my parents, it was much harder. I believe that this environment promotes economic progress and that it encourages individuals to overcome their disabilities and their weakness.

However, there are spaces in which I see the world as Spanish rather than as an American. As compared to the average American, I am much more religious and this is all due to my Catholic education. I believe that science does not have all the answers, and that there are limits as to what we are allowed to do with science. For me, the Earth is sacred and we should strive to maintain it in a good shape, instead of modifying nature to fit our needs. Science is not always the best option, and in my commitment to nature, I try to buy natural food products for myself and my family.

Both as a Spanish person, and as an American, I deeply trust in the power of democracy to give equal chances to everybody, and promote social justice. I travelled all over the world as an U.S. army officer, and I had the occasion to see what dictatorial regimes actually mean. Those experiences taught me to value democracy as a system that sets people free and gives them the right to develop as individuals and to be part of the decision making process in the society. In a democratic system, everyone has the right to try to reach success, and oppression of certain classes in not allowed, although it does occur. Racism exists in our society and it cannot be ignored, but we must struggle to overcome it. Being married to an African-American person, and being of Spanish and Puerto Rican heritage myself, I did confront racism and it represented a challenge for our family, both on a personal and on a professional level. However, racism is not a reason to fail, but merely a new challenge to overcome.

My unique background and my experiences created me as a person with a dual character, who assumed the values of the dominant culture in what professional life is concerned, but maintained the characteristics of my own cultural background in my personal life. As the child of my father, I undertook a military career which further shaped my view of the world. As a parent, I try to transmit to my daughter the values I was taught, and to teach her to be proud of her multiracial heritage. Finally, as an educator, I will try to perceive my students as the sum of their own experiences, and to allow them to teach me, as I teach them.

Grace, A. (2011). Building a knowledge-base in academic adult education (1945-1970). In Merriam, S. and Grace, A., (eds.). The Jossey-Bass Reader on Contemporary Issues in Adult Education. (pp. 33-57). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Ginsberg, M. & Wldodkowski, R. (2009). Diversity and motivation: culturally responsive teaching in college (2 nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Willey & Sons.

Horton, M. & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Merriam, S. & Grace, A., eds. (2011). The Jossey-Bass reader on contemporary issues in adult education. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

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My Cultural Identity Essay Example

A culture is the symbol of the country and it is the soul of the people of what they believe in. The difference between the western and eastern culture demonstrates the diversity of the world. The characteristic and knowledge that will represent the country’s uniqueness and the wisdom from our ancient ancestor. I am Chinese, and my name Wing Si Cheung reveals my ethnicity. Cultural identity is an interesting topic about how our culture will influence our development of identity and character. I never thought about this topic before and this topic will lead me to discover myself more deeply by knowing how my culture will affect the way I behave and making the decision daily.

I was born in Hong Kong SAR, China, and migrant to Macau SAR, China when I was two years old. I spent most of my childhood with my grandparent because my parent needs to work and don't have time to take care of me. This is one of the traditions in China that the grandparent takes care of the grandchildren and the parents will work to earn the living by satisfying their time with the children. It is a memorable experience to live with my grandparent. Whenever I break the rules, they will use the bamboo stick to hit me that let me understand there will be punished if I misbehave. As I grow up, I understand that it is not their responsibility to take care to be and I become more gratitude that they raise me up to become an independent and obedience, young lady. Since I was young, I remember every adult will give me a red pocket which it is my most significant memory of the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Tradition is a custom or belief that has been passed from generation to generation. This festival symbol the blessing from our elderly and honor our ancestor of the culture they pass down. This is the most meaningful tradition because it gathers all the people together and recognize the power will stronger if we stay together.

When I was twelve years old, I immigrant to New York, USA and live with my aunt. In my whole entire life, I live in a mixed culture environment. Macau is a very special location in Asia because it is a mixture of western and eastern culture. It is the first place European arrive in China and colonized by Portuguese at least 400 years, so ninety percent of the school is the Catholic school. Education is one of great influence on the development of character because it taught the student about ethnic and value. My family is traditional in Chinese culture and value on Confucius, but this does not lead me hundred percent to follow the custom. Family and religion is the core of the life and I value my family' tradition which is hard working and do the best in everything and believe in Christianity about the eternal life.

After I immigrated to America, I experience the value of trust. People will support your idea even it is unrealistic, it is a way how they show respect. It is challenging for the first generation immigrant to adopt the new environment because they need to learn the new language and culture. The New York culture let me experience what is the American dream. Your background, religion, race or language will not be a factor to set up your dream, but it becomes the advantage to fulfill your destiny. The value of respect made me proud of a New Yorker. It doesn’t make you feel like you are outside and an open mind to approach new ideas.

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My Personal Culture Essays & Paragraphs for Students

My culture is very important to me and my family. In this essay, I will tell you about my culture and what makes it special. I will talk about things like food, traditions, celebrations, and family.

Table of Contents

Essay On My Culture And Tradition

Food from my culture.

One big part of my culture is the food. We eat lots of [culture’s cuisine]. Some foods we eat a lot are [dishes]. My favorite is [dish] because it tastes so good! When we have family parties or get-togethers, we always eat traditional foods from our culture. Cooking and eating together is a big part of spending time with my family.

Celebrations (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); From My Culture

We celebrate many holidays and special days that are important in our culture. One big celebration we have is [cultural holiday]. During this time, we [traditions]. It is fun, and I love spending time with my extended family. Another celebration we have is [another cultural holiday]. We [traditions]. My favorite part of the celebrations is getting presents and candy!

Spending Time with Family

Family is very important in my culture. We see my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins a lot. Many weekends, we hang out, eat and play games. I like it when all the kids my age can play together. We feel close to our whole big family. My mom says that family is one of the best parts of our culture.

Some traditions we follow are passed down through generations in our culture. Every year on [date], we [tradition]. It is cool that we keep doing the same things my parents and grandparents did when they were children. Another tradition is that [tradition]. Following traditions connects me to my history and those who came before me in my family.

Learning about My Culture

At school, I am learning more about where my family comes from on maps. I am also taking [language] lessons to better communicate with relatives who do not speak English. Understanding my culture and heritage is important to me. I want to learn as much as possible to share it with others and keep the traditions alive for future generations in my family.

In conclusion, my culture plays a big role in my life and who I am. The food, celebrations, traditions and time spent with family are all special parts of my cultural identity. I feel proud of where I come from and look forward to passing on these important things I have learned to my children someday. My culture is what makes me me.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

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Life in a Luxury Hotel for New Moms and Babies

My month of rest, relaxation, and regret at a Taiwanese postpartum-care center.

By Clarissa Wei

A week after I gave birth to my son, I lay face up on a heated massage table so that another woman could milk me. Spa music twinkled in the background as she squeezed a few drops into a glass bottle. I was trying not to feel embarrassed for producing so little—was my emergency C-section to blame?—when the awkward small talk began.

“How long is your stay in Taiwan?” she asked me. Her bobbed hair bounced a little as her bare hands pressed down on my boobs.

“I live here.”

“You have an accent.”

“I was born and raised in America, but I’m also Taiwanese.”

I stared at a baby-blue flower motif on the wall, which reminded me of areolae. Relax, she told me. Maybe I should try sleeping through the night. My baby was mostly formula-fed anyway, she said, as though I needed reminding of my low supply. “Getting up every two hours to pump is exhausting. You’re just tied to the baby.”

The massage therapist’s advice seemed like the opposite of what I’ve been taught as an American. In the U.S., the first month of motherhood is often seen as painful and difficult by design. After my friend Laura gave birth, in Los Angeles, her back hurt so much that she had to go to physical therapy. “I had coffee ice cream for breakfast every morning as a survival mechanism,” she texted me. My college roommate, Emily, told me that her newborn son clamped onto her breasts for a week straight. “For better or worse, I’ve built up calluses,” she said.

I, on the other hand, was lounging at a luxury postpartum hotel in Taipei, leaving much of the hard work to an army of nurses. I could sleep in a fluffy queen bed, wake up to a floor-to-ceiling view of the city, and eat a hot breakfast of rice porridge, poached greens, and herbal tea. The experience was so indulgent that it felt wrong.

At the end of the milking session, the massage therapist handed me the result: less than a teaspoon of custardy-yellow breast milk. She didn’t want me to feel bad about it, though. “The postpartum period is a time to rebalance your qi,” she said. “You have time here.”

In Taiwan, an old folk saying sums up this attitude: “During pregnancy, nurture the baby. After pregnancy, nurture your body.” Giving birth is believed to disturb the body’s equilibrium, so new mothers traditionally engage in zuo yue zi , or thirty to forty days of rest at home, pampered by family. Literally, the phrase means “sitting the month,” but it is often translated as postpartum confinement, away from the stress and sickness and cold of the outside world. My mom always emphasized the role of food: some dishes, like pork trotters with peanuts or ginger chicken drenched in sesame oil, are said to repair the uterus.

These days, Taiwan tends to leave the postpartum month to professionals. New mothers can stay in one of approximately two hundred and eighty specialized hotels, where they will receive food, round-the-clock child care, doctor visits, and miscellaneous perks such as yoga classes and milk pumping. According to Gary Lee, the founder of MamiGuide, a Web site that books postpartum-hotel stays, they cost an average of two hundred and twenty U.S. dollars per night. For Americans, this can seem like an unbelievable deal. But here, where the average salary is slightly more than twenty-two thousand U.S. dollars, a monthlong stay can consume between twenty to thirty per cent of one’s annual income. Still, according to Lee, sixty-five per cent of postpartum parents check into one of these hotels, even if that means saving up for years. “It’s like buying a diamond ring,” Lee told me over the phone. Similar accommodations are available in China and South Korea .

Milk in hand, I exited the spa, shuffled down the hallway, and pressed a button in the wall. A door slid open, revealing a small, closet-like room decorated with baby photos and thank-you letters. A masked nurse in green scrubs greeted me brightly: “Hello, Mommy!” I gave her the milk along with my room number, eight. My son was somewhere in a nursery behind her; so were dozens of other wailing newborns.

As I handed over my breast milk, it hit me that I was outsourcing a cherished ritual, breast-feeding my newborn, to strangers. But the hotel existed so that I could focus on my needs, I told myself. I went back to my room, plopped onto a cerulean-colored velvet couch, and opened an app on my phone. A live video of my snoozing baby, his blue pacifier hanging limply out of his mouth, filled the screen. A sticker on his swaddle showed the number eight. We would have plenty of time together later, I thought, trying to suppress a sudden wave of guilt. Right now, it was time for my nap.

When I was born, three decades ago, in Los Angeles, my grandmother flew over from Taiwan with a suitcase full of Chinese herbs, intending to oversee my mother’s zuo yue zi . She quickly tired of babysitting, however. “She just wanted to go to San Diego and see our relatives,” my mother told me. In the weeks after my birth, my mom remembers developing chronic fatigue. In her view, the postpartum period sets a precedent for future health. I assumed, therefore, that she would want to supervise my zuo yue zi . But when I asked her at the start of my pregnancy, over dinner in Taipei, she only laughed.

“Do you want me to die early?” she said. “Newborns are exhausting.”

And so I started touring Taipei’s postpartum hotels. I learned that, instead of enforcing taboos associated with a traditional postpartum month (don’t wash your hair, avoid ice water), they offered amenities with a similar vibe, such as heaters, warm foot baths, and hot herbal tea. But there was something condescending about the hotels. Staff members kept calling me Mommy. Although dads and employees could come and go freely, moms had to check in and out. Visitors weren’t allowed in hotel rooms, and could see newborns only through a glass window. We weren’t allowed to take our own babies outside unless they had a doctor’s appointment.

During one of my tours, I asked a nurse if I could go for daily walks. “Yes,” she replied, and then hesitated. “Most people don’t, though. You’re supposed to rest.”

Eventually I settled on Whole Love, which was built in my neighborhood a few years ago. Whole Love, which has twenty-three rooms, describes itself as a care center, while moms tend to call it a hotel. Although it didn’t have a partnership with a Michelin-recommended restaurant, like some postpartum hotels, my room would have its own massage chair, bottle sterilizer, and breast pumps. I could schedule a manicure or learn to make soap out of breast milk (not that I would have much to spare). I chose Whole Love mostly because it was close to home.

My husband worried that I was signing up for a kind of quarantine center for mothers. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. Wouldn’t I be more comfortable in our apartment, where he could cook and I could go outside?

I was grateful for the offer, but it struck me as naïve. My husband’s excellent cooking had never included bone broths infused with Chinese medicine. My family didn’t want to look after us, and his was thousands of miles away. We lived in a rare place where postpartum care was a norm; some of our friends had cried when their hotel stays came to an end. Shouldn’t we jump at this opportunity?

When my delivery date arrived, my doctors tried and failed to induce me. Two days later, they resorted to an emergency C-section. Afterward, I felt like a deflated sack; I could barely lift my head. It seemed unfathomable that in the U.S., where caregivers joke about “drive-through deliveries,” the average new mother who has had a C-section stays in a hospital for only two to four days. I stayed for five. Then my parents drove us to the hotel.

As our newborn snored in his car seat, my body tingled with anxiety. What if he woke up and started crying? What if we got stuck in traffic and he soiled his diapers? I had spent most of the time in the hospital bedridden, and my husband had spent most of that time caring for me. Our beloved child was still an enigma to us.

“Aren’t you glad we’re going to the hotel now?” I asked my husband.

He nodded. “We’ll use this opportunity to learn from the nurses.”

We rode an elevator to the fifth floor and waited in a dark lobby. I felt as if I were at a zoo: on the other side of a glass wall, we could see a brightly lit nursery, where nurses matter-of-factly lifted and lowered babies, as though they were dolls. Then a nurse came into the lobby and plucked our baby out of his stroller. For the next thirty days, the hotel would monitor his needs and control his movements. I only needed to look after him when I wanted to.

In Room 8, a collection of dainty white bowls waited on a platter: clam soup, steamed fish, crunchy okra with beef slices, bright greens sprinkled with goji berries. I felt a surge of optimism. I was going to treat the hotel like school, and graduate into the best mother I could be.

The food was meant for me, so my husband left to find some lunch. A receptionist handed me onboarding materials, bath-product samples, and information about a service that preserves umbilical cords. Next, a nurse showed me how to label breast milk. Once a day, she would take my temperature and blood pressure; twice a week, she would help me change my C-section bandage.

The telephone by the bed rang. My baby was hungry. Did I want to feed him, or did I prefer to rest? I chose the former, as though I were ordering room service.

A couple of minutes later, he was wheeled in on a cart, which contained a perfectly warmed bottle of formula and a drawer of fresh diapers. Newly washed, with his hair neatly parted, he looked like a present for me. The nurse told me to sit on the sofa and gently pressed my baby into my arms. “Make sure to burp him frequently,” she said. If I needed any help, I could call the nursing station. Then she closed the door, and for the first time in my life I was alone with my son.

My baby came with detailed instructions. I was to feed him every four hours, fill out a chart with how much he ate and when, and mark any diaper changes. This sounded easy enough; I imagined myself lounging in bed, sipping tea as the baby cooed. But with me he often cried until he was purple. He had spent the past nine months curled up peacefully inside of me, with no complications. Now that he was out in the world, why couldn’t I soothe him?

Many times, a nurse took my son from my arms and bounced him to peace. Then, when he landed in my arms again, he would erupt in anger. She would try to reassure me, but eventually she had to return to the nursery. “You can just wheel him back to us if you need a break,” she would say. I was overwhelmed, and I started sending him back after every feeding.

For weeks, I spent no more than four hours at a time with my son. I felt terrible about it—I seemed to be trading intimacy for tranquillity—but I told myself that he appeared happier with the nurses. Maybe the instinct to suffer through discomfort was too American. I kept thinking back to the massage therapist who’d milked me. “You have time here,” she had said.

The first time my son pooped at the hotel, I called a nurse over in panic. At the hospital, my husband had handled diaper changes.

“Do you know how to change a diaper?” she asked, without judgment. When I nodded hesitantly, she demonstrated, propping his body on her left arm while gripping his thigh like a drumstick. At the sink, she peeled off his diaper and used the faucet as a bidet, before cleaning him with wipes. My baby was delighted.

“Can’t we just use wet wipes?” I asked.

He was less likely to develop diaper rash this way, she said gently.

Some of the activities were genuinely sweet. During a baby-swimming session, my husband and I clapped in encouragement as we watched our son, ensconced in an inflatable ring and surrounded by rubber duckies, confidently kick around in a full-sized bathtub.

On another evening, a photographer and his assistant came into my room. After setting up some backdrops on my bed, the assistant stared my son in the eyes and began to hum, low and melodic. Immediately, the baby fell into a trance. They managed to dress him as a newspaper boy, as a bunny rabbit, and in beach clothes. When they wrapped him in a green pear costume, he fell asleep.

As adorable as the photo session was, it made me feel useless. I was learning a few tricks from the staff, but they did everything for me, and they were better at it. About three weeks in, I began to feel claustrophobic. In the long, dark hallway between rooms, my fellow-moms didn’t make eye contact. Occasionally, I overheard bits of people’s lives. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” one mother pleaded in the room next door.

Another time, I was holding my baby in my room when I heard a man’s angry voice in the hall. “This place is like a jail,” he shouted. “My wife is in her room, crying. I will sue you!”

My son glanced up at me, puzzled by the commotion. “Sh-h-h,” I told him. Through the door, I could hear stomping feet and the low voices of staff.

Although the hotel advertised itself as a modern and flexible take on postpartum traditions, it wasn’t wrong to call it a place of confinement. I couldn’t have my girlfriends or parents in my room, or take my son out for a stroll. Everyone had a uniform: mothers wore white pajamas with pink and green circles; nurses, who were exclusively women, wore green scrubs; and babies wore off-white kimonos. Only dads wore street clothes and had no official role—a reflection of a traditional society in which mothers are expected to be married to fathers and tend to be the primary caregivers. The few times I did step out—for a snack, a quick coffee with a friend, and a much-needed date with my husband—the nurses asked me where I was going. I always felt ashamed. “Errands,” I’d lie.

During my last week, I finally made a friend. Mariah, a Taiwanese Canadian woman, had just given birth to her second child, a baby boy. One afternoon, after our morning feedings, we grabbed bubble tea and sat on the roof. The nurses literally gasped when they saw us together.

“When I had my first kid, I was just grunting,” Mariah told me. Because she hadn’t trusted her live-in nanny, she’d done night shifts by herself, and grew so tired that she could barely speak. So, the second time that she was pregnant, she immediately put down a deposit for a hotel.

I confided that I was having a difficult time being alone with my son. My American friends probably envied me, but I was starting to wish I could trade places with them; for all their sleepless nights, they seemed to have bonded with their newborns immediately. With a week left in my stay, I felt about the same as I had in the car: anxious, inadequate, confused.

The point of the postpartum period was not to learn skills, Mariah reminded me, but to recover physically and mentally from the rigors of pregnancy. On her phone, she toggled through parenting apps that she wanted me to try.

“How long do you have your baby with you in your room?” I asked.

“Eight in the morning to eleven at night.”

The shock must have shown on my face. “The point is that I can sleep through the night,” she said.

“How do you eat?”

Paradoxically, she gave me a guilty look. “My friends say I should rest more,” she said. I was feeling bad for spending too little time with my son; she was feeling bad for spending too much. Our desires to take care of our sons and ourselves seemed mutually exclusive.

On the day we checked out, my baby was given a “diploma” to commemorate his first month of life. But, as a mother, I felt as if I had failed. My first three days at home washed over me like ice water. After thirty days of relative calm, I was bewildered by the total lack of personal time. “It’s like hazing, except you delayed it by a month,” Laura texted me from Los Angeles. The only time I felt relief was when I took a warm shower, which drowned out my newborn’s cries across the hall.

Almost immediately, though, I felt the flood of intimacy I had been craving, followed by a quiet understanding. It was simple: I didn’t know my child because I hadn’t spent enough time with him. He threw tantrums when he was overtired, I discovered. He enjoyed contact naps, his dad’s soft chest, and leaning back against the slope of our thighs. He preferred long walks in his stroller to being swaddled in his bassinet. The hotel had absolved me of responsibility for my son, which created an emotional chasm; its rigid routines had stopped us from learning about him as an individual.

Though I didn’t fully understand it at the time, staying at a postpartum center gave me a chance to catch my breath between transitions, before diving into the marathon of parenthood. I had approached it all wrong. In retrospect, if I wanted to connect with my son right off the bat, I should have kept him with me all day, like Mariah did. Or I should have just enjoyed my month off completely, gone out with wild abandon—nurses be damned—and trusted that I would eventually figure it all out.

Now that my husband and I have both gone back to work, we’ve been trying out a couple of part-time nannies who can watch our son for a few hours a week. Our favorite is a woman named Connie, who showed up for her first day in a surgical mask and pink scrubs. At the end of the session, she texted me a detailed breakdown of how much the baby ate and at what time.

Recently, I walked in on Connie giving my son a massage, by stretching out his arms and rubbing his little feet. He broke into a gummy smile. The scene felt familiar. It turned out that, before she became a private nanny, Connie had worked as a nurse supervisor at a postpartum hotel.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and began to prepare lunch. The days when food arrived at my hotel room on a platter seemed like a hallucination. But the anxiety and the feeling of inadequacy were gone. After many delirious weeks, and many hours of bouncing my crying son to sleep, I felt fully inducted as his mother. This time around, I knew my kid better than the woman who was helping me care for him. And, after lunch, my husband and I were going to take him for a long walk. ♦

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By Claire Porter Robbins

By Charles Bethea

By Shauna Lyon

By Fiona McFarlane

My Abortion Story Went Viral. Here’s What Happened Next.

In an exclusive essay for ELLE.com, Arizona state Sen. Eva Burch recounts her speech on the floor of the Arizona Senate.

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Last week, Arizona state Sen. Eva Burch did the unthinkable: She announced her decision to get an abortion on the floor of the Arizona Senate. In her speech, which quickly went viral, Burch talked about the importance of access to abortion care in America and why she, as a politician, felt compelled to share her story in such a public manner. Now, in an exclusive essay for ELLE, Burch writes about that emotional moment on the Senate floor—and why she wants to “ change the narrative about what abortion care looks like.”

Two years ago I scheduled my first abortion. This was a pregnancy my husband and I had been dreaming of and planning for, but it wasn’t progressing. Then, as if that news wasn’t heartbreaking enough, I began to miscarry. The bleeding was heavier than expected, and we called an ambulance.

Shortly after we arrived at the hospital, my miscarriage stalled, and the bleeding stopped. Doctors could still see the embryo on the ultrasound, but there was no longer a heartbeat. I was told that I couldn’t have an abortion in the hospital, because my life wasn’t in danger. Instead, doctors advised me to wait and go to my scheduled abortion appointment the next day. They said their hands were tied, and it was all they could do. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade .

Fast forward to this year, and I found out that I was pregnant once again. My mother had just passed away in my home where I was caring for her, and it was hard not to believe this was a sign that this pregnancy might be different. But after several ultrasounds, it became clear that my pregnancy was, once again, not progressing as it should. I made the decision to have an abortion.

For far too long, political extremists have worked to rewrite the image of the abortion patient—working overtime to make us believe that the only people who seek out abortion care are promiscuous, selfish, irresponsible, or even lazy. This narrative is pushed to create stigma and justify bad laws.

Sometimes it feels like a bad dream; my first abortion was days before the Supreme Court stripped away the reproductive rights of millions of Americans. Here I am, standing in that position once again, as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) , which will decide how patients can access mifepristone, one of two drugs (along with misoprostol) used in medication abortions.

My own experience has been marred by disinformation and obstacles created by out-of-touch elected officials. If SCOTUS once again chooses to side with extremists, it will make medication abortion much harder to get. And we know these attacks won’t stop there. While SCOTUS decides just how much bodily autonomy we are entitled to, the Arizona Supreme Court is weighing the decision to either uphold our state’s current 15-week abortion ban or reinstate our no-exceptions total ban on abortion that was enacted in 1864. Either way, Arizonans lose. And similar scenarios are playing out in states all across the country .

I can’t find a way to say this with more clarity: Our rights are on the chopping block, and they won’t be protected unless you show up to vote in November. As a legislator, I am well aware of how hostile Republicans can be to our rights and freedoms. I work with them every day. Some Arizona Republicans are so far out of touch, that they refused to even consider or discuss the Right to Contraception Act that was introduced by my Democratic colleagues. So we know exactly what they are coming for next. It will never be enough.

I share my story in the hopes that we can change the narrative about what abortion care looks like, who the abortion patient is, and how legislation impacts real people seeking abortion care. The overwhelming amount of love that I have received and the willingness of strangers to tell me their own stories gives me hope that November will be a time of celebration, not heartbreak. We have the power to write our own stories. Let’s do it together. Get registered to vote. Learn about the candidates on your ballot. Bring friends to the polls.

Abortion is on the ballot, and we must elect politicians up and down the ticket who will remain committed to restoring our fundamental freedoms—and who protect us from those who seek to take away our rights, our stories, and our futures.

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