StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Cultural Background Summary - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
My cultural background is that of African American, with practicing religion that of a Christian. I belong to the middle class having usual comforts and sufficient food to eat. My schooling was in the neighborhood school with mixed racial children though predominantly of African American descent.
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.3% of users find it useful
Cultural Background Summary
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Cultural Background Summary"

My cultural background is that of African American, with practicing religion that of a Christian. I belong to the middle having usual comforts and sufficient food to eat. My schooling was in the neighborhood school with mixed racial children though predominantly of African American descent. My cultural background is influenced by history of our people, the church and the mainstream American culture beamed into all households daily through T.V., and radio to a lesser extent. The now well researched history of slave trade of my early ancestors in America and their societal isolation helped preserve many practices and traditions which they had brought with them from Africa passing orally from generation to generation in the form of stories, songs, music and dance.

Our dance movements can be easily traced to many tribes of sub-Saharan, Sahelean Africa and western dance form. Similarly our music and songs are an amalgamation of African and European styles giving rise to unique styles like jazz, swing, blues and ragtime. When these evolved they were restricted to African Americans only but have become popular the world over. Similarly our folktales were a clever way of preserving the cultural traditions of the past conveyed through the convenience of riveting stories whose magic enthralled not just through words but also the expression and tone of the story teller.

Modern day rap songs are an extension of the same.The dialect and distinct accent has also been shaped in the historical melting pot in which English and often unknown various African regional languages were thrown in. We are able to manage the Standard English at school and our unique dialect at home with equal ease. Though we know that our ancestors were forcibly converted, we are practicing Christians and regularly go to the church in the best possible dresses. The women especially like to wear elaborate caps for worship and our gospel songs also display unique African American flavor.

Culturally the preference is for brightly colored attire as is the case with many western Africans, though mainstream clothes (fabric and patterns) do influence the dress sense and appearance. The hairstyles most common ones being dread locks and braids are distinctly African and very convenient given the kind of tightly coiled hair of ours. My own cultural identity is also shaped as above but I think that the mainstream cultural influence has also found its way into my personality. This is because of the influence of T.V. and my non friends of European descent.

My food habits are somewhat simpler than those of my parents and grand parents who are used to fat laden traditional food of fried chicken, collared beans, candied yam, cheese and macaroni. My language is also more refined than those of earlier generations and the choice of music and dance is more cosmopolitan though I do prefer rap, and hip hop and am not ashamed about it. My white friends also share the same interests as me so I feel that my assimilation in the mainstream American culture is much more than those of my ancestors.

Read More
Tags
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Cultural Background Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Cultural Background Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1502561-cultural-background-summary
(Cultural Background Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
Cultural Background Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1502561-cultural-background-summary.
“Cultural Background Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1502561-cultural-background-summary.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Cultural Background Summary

Way companies should handle customers and employees in a multiculturalism environment

The research project provides a brief background indicating the way the globalization era has altered the way companies carry out business and also communicate across diverse cultures.... The world demands marketing experts who are capable of recognizing the rising communication complexities across cultural borders.... This concerns especially the companies going global or the companies carrying out international business as well as handling customers from diverse cultural backgrounds....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

Children's Needs in Culturally Diverse Societies

This entails dealing with all children and satisfying their needs irrespective of their race, language background, community and so on (CADS Staff 2006).... Non-ethnocentrism entails dealing with all children (and even adults) and satisfying their needs irrespective of their race, language background, community and so on (CADS Staff 2006).... n addressing the needs of children in multicultural societies, a non-ethnocentric approach is essential since it will ensure that all children's needs are addressed irrespective of the children's ethnic background or race....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Cross cultural awareness

Next benefit of stereotyping is that it provides us with a mental file or a mental background in the context of which we can make sense of... Owing to its international presence, Execon faces cultural relevant challenges in managing its staff as well as delivering customer service.... This report highlights some of the challenges and… This report is made for the use of the specialists, hired by Execom in the field of Marketing, HRM and Food and Beverages, and it is expected that they will be able to make use of the cultural aspects in Stereotypes are simplified and standardized conceptions about groups of people or individuals (Hurst, 2007)....
18 Pages (4500 words) Essay

Cultural Diversity in an Organisation

The result of socio-economic growth would be inadequate in terms of classifying people by their background, qualification and physical condition.... The paper 'cultural Diversity in an Organisation' presents the importance of workforce and in-house communication in regards to cultural diversity.... According to Ruffino people from different cultural and educational backgrounds, with different work experiences bring in different skills....
9 Pages (2250 words) Term Paper

Cultural Case Study

Thus, they had to study a lot about cultural and religious background of the country.... Therefore, for multinational campaigns there is a need to deal with… On the example of cross-cultural business communication challenges between UK and UAE, the following self experience correlated with the modern cross-cultural management is provided further on. The main issues covered concern inconsistencies between In order to make a more proper cross-cultural analysis of business communication, models developed by Trompenaars and Hofstede are discussed in detail....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Importance of Communication in Society

I have realised that culture differs from… One interesting thing about culture is that we often encounter different cultural aspects from our own and we may need to learn that culture in order to adjust to it in case of foreigners or new comers to a The first chapter summary s that culture is generally described as a way of life of a particular group of people.... he second chapter summary dwells on the concept of diversity which primarily focuses on the aspect of differences that exist among people living in a similar group or location....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Culture Differences

Learning to cope with people from different cultural background is a must for any engineer since in the course of working we are going to meet people from all walks of life.... One has to understand the cultural background of people in order to communicate effectively.... … Executive summaryThis report discusses the importance of cultural differences to an engineer within a global economy.... It explains how as an engineer I will work and relate with other people from different cultural backgrounds....
9 Pages (2250 words) Assignment

Cross-Cultural Interview and Summary

This is the Cross-Cultural Interview and summary essay.... hellip; Therefore, I was able to find an Asian man for this cross-cultural Interview and summary essay.... These were the findings from my cross-cultural Interview and summary.... nbsp;The United States is made up of people from different cultural backgrounds.... Asians form part of this cultural diversity.... The second was to understand more about cultural identity....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us