culture have you lost it?

saw something interesting interesting on pbs called, "do you speak american."

there was a person on this show i could relate to. he was a second generation hispanic living in america. it was said that it's common that the first generation family will keep their language but by the time the second generation comes little or no language will be retained. i think this probably applies to culture as well.

I like many other people are a second generation americans. my mother spoke fluently filipino and knew much about the culture, and way of living. however by the time i came into the world i had not retained much of it. what ever language i could remember from my younger years is now gone. for some reason english was always spoken in the household and much about the culture in the philippines was not passed down to me. some times i'll go to family gatherings on the holidays and 70% of the time it's filipino spoken during the gathering. only time english is spoken is around us younger generation.

ironic thing is i don't know much about my american heritage either. my father was caucasian born in the desert states. he used to tell me stories every now and then about how we either knew famous people or we related historical figures. once person i remember him mentioning was ulysseys s. grant. we share the same last name other than that i haven't a clue as to how we're related.

i'm dissapointed to say that i don't no much about the filipino culture nor the american culture other than what was taught in the public school system. there is only so much they can teach you though. i feel like theres so much i should know about my family history, language, culture, etc. i'll probably grow up not knowing much more than i do know which i think is said.

have you reatined your culture or have you lost it?
(p.s. this was written past 3am so some parts may not make sense.)

i feel like theres so much i should know about my family history, language, culture, etc. i'll probably grow up not knowing much more than i do know which i think is said.




This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I have felt exactly the same way all my life. I am sure many Americans do as well. I, however, am not a second generation American. We believe that our earliest ancestors may have been here in the 1700's. But, we have no documented history of this at all. It's only by word of mouth. And that drives me crazy. I want to know where my roots come from. But, we can only make assumptions based upon origins of surnames, most of which are English and Irish on my mother's side, and Dutch on my father's.

All my life, I have tried to get the older members of my family to write down what they know about our family, but no one ever would. So, I struggle even with names. I ask my mother all the time to jot down names of the ones she knows, but every time I ask her to do this, she gives me this look like she doesn't want to, but proceeds in the next breath to complain about how her aunt used to always promise to write down names, but never did either. :confused:

One would think that it wouldn't matter at this point in our family's history, but it does matter to me somehow. I just would like to know. Example, my mother always says that she was always told that we are related to Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. But, she doesn't have a clue who told her that or on what that is based other than an ancestor having the same last name and of course we are from about 60 miles from where he was born.

So, anyway, I can relate Mano, even though I am not a second generation American.

Well, if I understand the definition correctly, that second generation Americans are Americans whose parents were immigrants, then, I guess I'm third generation American. My grandparents came from Mexico but my parents were born here. I do speak Spanish because my grandmother spoke Spanish to me. I grew up with beans, rice, and tortillas being a staple at practically every meal. However, now I am more eclectic in what I eat. Still Mexican food is my favorite and the easiest for me to prepare since that is how I was taught to cook. Food is probably the longest hanging remnant of my ancestors' culture. You will always find tortillas in my refrigerator. I have long left behind that part of Mexican culture that made women into second-class citizens. The things that still mean something to me, that makes me feel proud to be of Mexican ancestry is the indigenous history of Mexico, the music, the dances. But, I'm afraid that's about it. And, of course, as far as my children are concerned, even their friends don't believe they're 50% Mexican (until they meet me). But, you will find tortillas in each of their refrigerators.
Flyer

I was born and raised as a Canadian in Canadian "culture".

Despite that my father was born in Germany I never learned a word of the language and I was sheltered almost completely from German culture in Canada. Most of my cousins speak German and were raised in German families in Canada because their parents met and married in the German Church of God. My mother speaks English and is a third generation Canadian with a British/Irish/English background.

My immediate family was not religious so I was a) never Babtized/Christened, b) I don't have a middle name (usually to be the name of a saint) and c) wasn't part of the closely knit culture of the German Church of God that the rest of my family participated in.

It is only now that I am together with a wonderful guy in Germany that I begin to learn about the culture (although he is in Bavaria and my famiy is from the north).

I guess better late than never, eh? <- throws that in for Canadian content ;)

Hmmm...I don't know what generation I would categorize myself, I was born in Puerto Rico and although my culture is Spanish, I'm just as American as I am Rican, although I hear that in a couple of years we will be needing passports to go to PR as well as Guam.

I was born there and raised here, most of my spanish is more Spanglish, although I love the food and we keep most of the traditions, the generation after me, knows no spanish whatsoever and barely likes the food. I mean, can you believe it, I have a 14 yr old niece who doesn't like rice or beans.

My 23 yr old niece knows some spanish but that's only because she was raised with her grandmother until she passed away when she was 14. I do have a Colombian friend now, who I speak spanish with but there are times where he confuses the heck out of me in what he says...lol

all my non-hispanic friends love my American accent when I do speak spanish and my french teacher thought I had the cutest accent and alot of my co workers and people on the phone think I'm english and some who I may meet in the street think I'm black because my hair is wavy (my grandfather on my mother's side is from Haiti). But I work at continually speaking spanish, the jokes are hilarious in spanish and I love dancing Salsa and Merengue and this new Caribbean music mixing Salsa w/jamaican music, its so cool.

As for my ancestors, I work at doing as much of my geneology as I can. Being LDS its encourage to take advantage of the Family History Centers all over the world for which the church microfiches thousands upon thousands of film from all over the world and keeps it on computer, and perserves it deep in the mountains of Utah for anyone to use and for future generations. So I'm slowly working on my 4th and 5th generation.

Paris

Interesting question. I'm a third generation Italian-American, I practice some "customs", handed down to me, but my culture is North American. I feel no real connection to relatives still living in Italy that I've never met. I don't speak Italian, though my father could, he never spoke it to us, and when he was younger his mother would speak to him in Italian, and he would answer her in English. When my grandparents first came to the US, in those days (early 1900s), I think there was a bigger push for immigrants to learn English, and to acculurate more into American society. Or at least for their children to do so. My grandfather was a veteran of World War I. But he fought as an American soldier, even though he was new to the U.S. There does exist an American culture, and perhaps you never lose your culture, but rather incorporate old with new, exchange, get rid of what does not work, adopt and accept what does, and redefine your culture, such that it exists in new cultural ideals, always changing.

I think moreso now, (as opposed to when my grandparents came), people do retain more of their cultural flavors, and exists more of the "salad bowl" but I think at some level, if we are going to live our lives in the U.S. and our families are here for generations, then I think over time, it happens that you will adopt and adapt those aspects of American culture that work for you, or that you need in order to succeed, and discard those (as some might do, out of rebellion), that you no longer accept. I think that is pretty much what happened to my family. We've not totally lost all our "Italianisms", but we are Americans too. It would happen to any culture no matter where the family moved, over time the affects of the dominant culture of that society or country would probably begin to outweigh those customs already held.

One thing that comes to mind is the custom in some cultures for arranged marriages. I think of this because I recall after high school, a girl I knew whose parents were from another country, wanted her to marry a man they had chosen for her. Though her parents were immigrants, she was born and raised here, went to public schools, etc. ... and for all intents and purposes was becoming "Americanized". One aspect of American culture places value on individualism, whereas her old culture placed more value on strict obeyance to parental rules and wishes, and sacrificing one's individualism for the sake of family.. neither of which in itself is necessarily a bad thing.. but in this instance, both values were at odds, and she did NOT want to marry some man from the "old country" that she did not know. She actually ran away from home because of it, and later married an "American" , a man she chose. So here is a person, who discarded a custom of her culture, because she had chosen or adopted a more "americanized" custom. Her children most certainly retain at least some of her culture, but also American culture.

My field is early childhood education. My grad degree is in special education birth to five. Until the last 10 or maybe 15 years the prominent "wisdom" was "English Emersion" for kids who did not speak English as a first language, i.e. throw them in a classroom and speak only English to them. Many immigrants were told not to or chose not to speak their first language to their children so the children could learn English and become more "American". A lot of culture was lost as a result of that philosophy. We are doing better with newly arrived immigrants over the last decade or so, actually encouraging mothers to talk to their babies in their first language. I'm sure you will see a lot of research/literature about this as more are children raised in this kind of a bilingual environment, i.e. one in which it is permissible, even encouraged to learn about one's heritage and to speak one's native language. It's still a controversial subject in the schools and the field of speech therapy, but I believe the trend is moving more toward instruction in the student's primary language while simultaneously teaching English. The idea is to eventually move toward teaching all subjects in English as the student becomes more fluent. It's important to keep in mind that speaking and understanding the spoken language is far different from being fluent enough to read, write and learn in that language.

I believe the trend is moving more toward instruction in the student's primary language while simultaneously teaching English, eventually moving toward teaching all subjects in English as the student becomes more fluent in English.

This is exactly right, Deb, at least in the Chicago system. I was a bilingual teacher my first 8 years of teaching. Our school has what is called a "transitional bilingual" program, which is what you've described. But, this may vary among school districts.

I hold dearly to my heart my Italian culture.....I hope I can continue the traditions that my ancestors past down to me, it is what makes me who I am today.
Although I was born and raised here in the US, I know very little past what was taught in school and seen in movies. I guess I am more interested in where my family comes from then where we are presently.

Didn't have it to lose :( My parents saved French to talk to each other when they didn't want us kids to know what they were saying. When I was little, I used to think it was hysterical to speak pretend-French to them whenever they did that.

Which reminds me of an "Everybody Loves Raymond" joke:

Debra: "Marie, did you teach the boys Italian?"
Marie: "No, unfortunately, we never did. Frank and I only spoke Italian when we were fighting."
Ray and Robert: "We are fluent in Italian!"

Seriously, though, my Mother could not speak English when she started school and it was so horrible for her, she was afraid the same thing would happen to us so she would not speak French to us. I wish she had.

i was just thinking about this subject the other day...and reading the posts on here i sense that a lot of us hold ourselves and/or family responsible on some level for our loss of language/culture...but you know i was thinking that the way we live our lives here in the states has so much to do with this loss of culture and connections...our society is so mobile now...we move around so much...many people move every few years or so...our children go to many different schools throughout the course of their education...then they're off to college across the state or across the country...so it's really hard for us to make any real interpersonal relationships with our neighbors...many of us hardly know our neighbors' names....our housing and living patterns don't realy foster a sense of community, either...you have these housing developments, we call them subdivisions in the south, that are supposed to foster that sense of community...but actually they have the opposite effect...cuz people are mobile and upwardly mobile...they're always looking to upgrade on the house...so you have a constant flow of poeple moving in and out of these neighborhoods...people don't want to invest so much emotionally into relationships that may end any day....

beyond our housing patterns....our driving habbits and social patterns really discourage a sense of community....many of us commute for hours a day to and from work...mostly alone in our cars....we isolate ourselves from everyone else....we really don't socialize with our co-workers outside of work...we're always in a rush to get somewhere...we don't eat together as a family...it's all about convenience and speed....fast food...quick tv dinners....the family dinner conversation is lost....replaced by hours of sitting on the couch in front of the television...

when i think of "culture" i think of family, community, a common sense of identity...i just think it's been nonexistent here in the states since the postwar...even for minority or immigrant groups where communal and familial ties tend to be stronger...people are struggling to keep their community and family together....children grow up and go away to college...parents will go where the jobs are to support their families...it just seems that the emphasis here is on economic comfort and security and much less on familial and communal connections...and i think that is such a great loss...

there's a great new york times series of articles on the changing social economic patterns of our society that i think y'all would find interesting....it's on the front page of nytimes.com

my 2 pennies....

I just got something in the mail from one of my "cuzans" about my great,great,great ,great grandfather and his wife and children...I agree with Genieveve about the assimilation pressure being greater in the early 1900's until about WWII then it is today. On both sides I know a lot more on my fathers side My dad's dad was a Cajun from Houma,Louisiana and his family had been in Louisiana since around 1784(when it was still under Spanish rule) when they arrived via western France(St.Malo) via Nova Scotia,Canada after being robbed and deported by the British before the French and Indian War of 1755....but my Cajun relatives maintained much of their culture for many genrations(5 or 6 generations) up until around my grandfathers generation and below he was born in 1912....There were many factors involved, one of the 1st was the institution(sometime in the early 1900's) of all textbooks in public schools to be converted to English instead of French, also another effort was made to eliminate Cajun French was the schools passed laws that children were to be punished and humiliated for speaking French in school, so of course this made many including my grandfather ashmed of his native tongue. Most of these laws and things were at the time made becasue of the growing fear of the Immigrants coming over at the time also probably the sense of patriotism during the WW I & II and the pressure to assimilate to anglo culture to be more American... Another factors was the widespread construction of new highways and roads going in and out of Cajun country in the 1900's, which made the people less isolated as they had been for hundreds of years from the rest of America,Also in around the 1920's southern Louisiana discovered Oil so more and more anglo americans made there way into the swamps to drill for oil bringing with them much needed industry and jobs for the mostly poor sharecropping Cajuns,but it also brought a different powerful American culture with them. My grandfather was never in the oil business(he was a sugar cane farmer and sugar worker) but his younger brother was the 1st in the family to work for the rigs. What this did was bring a lot of young men away further from their small communities and traditions and language. also with the rise of pop culture,T.V. in the 50's and the discuragement and humiliation the older generations had to go through much the younger generations felt ashmed thus abandoning more and more of their ancestors traditions ,language exc exc.......it was mostly the language from my reseach, many still have all the cooking....family values, and some traditons

My grandfather was fluent in Cajun but never spoke it around my dad and his brothers simply becasue from what I understand he wasn't very proud of it, not only becasue of the things that the government and American culture did to it but also because he gre up dirt poor and didn't have many good memories of his old home, he actually married my grandmother who was the daughter of a sicilian immigrant farmer who was pretty well off and actually moved up in class, there's actually a name for that in sociology, can't remember it right now, but he would only speak Cajun when some of his old buddies came up to visit or when he went back to visit and speak to older relatives who really didn't know much english.

I also found out that my grandmother was supposed to be "Betrothed" to another Sicilian immigrant's son that knew the family but my grandma always said he was "too unattractive"...ahhahaha soon after she met my grandfather and he was supposedly handsome and charming..... ;) and the rest was history...:)

but today though and for much of the past 30-40 years culture and ethnic heritage is seen a little more acceptable than it was in the past..As for me I wish my grandfather would've taught my dad some Cajun becasue I love all that stuff. but my brother and sister really could care less about it so i;m sure it wouldn't have mattered to them. I think that is how it is in many famalies, It wouldn't matter if the older generations taught language exc exc there's always going to be some who aren't interested in it and assimilate more into the dominate culture...

Of course i'm American and love history,culture,languageds, in genral, especially when its my own...

One thing that will never die though is the Cooking..ohh I love me some Cajun cooking..

Sorry if I bore anybody...

wcoloto, your post was not boring at all! In fact I think this entire thread is quite fascinating. Everyone has some great things to say. :)

I get annoyed when people talk about America has no culture, well where I'm from we have nothing but culture and history.....

Well, America definitly has it's own culture......there are certain cultures that stand out quite a bit more, but we have a culture here for sure.

America has a culture - the Native American culture

I agree, there is an American Culture.. largely made up of a mix of various cultures. Culture is a living, growing, changing thing. Food, customs, values, language, belief systems are only parts of the whole of what culture is. American culture has roots in European, African, Native, etc.. beliefs and value systems, but these tend to grow and change over time, and are given new meaning by different generations to create a new culture.. American culture. Or, U.S. Culture. Of course, there are many sub-cultures, which help make up the "salad bowl". But there is an overall American Culture.

Deb.. on the subject of Native Americans (thanks for bringing that up, by the way) :) anyone interested in just how much we've borrowed in our culture from Native Americans should read a book called Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford. You'd be surprised at what we call American culture came from elsewhere.

Well, we do have to realize that the general thinking on "culture" is alot different than it was 75 years ago. I'm a 3rd generation too, and all my grandparents came over in the great Eastern European migration of the late 19th and early 20th century through Ellis Island. And their children, who grew up here, methodically burned all of their old country souvenirs and records and refused to teach their children Russian or Polish. It *is* a great loss, but let's remember that at the time, it wasn't illegal or even particularly frowned upon to not hire or refuse to rent to (depending on the era) the Irish, the Italians, the Jews etc.

When they first came over, they were segregated in the Lower East Side ghetto of New York, and fought like hell to get out of there and into the safe harbor of Brooklyn. Is it any wonder that they wanted their children to be "real Americans"?

The culture has changed in some very big ways (and not so much in other ways), but it is certainly more acceptable to retain language and cultural ties to an old country than it was. And it's nice. I think it's alot healthier for people when they can do that.

Is it any wonder that they wanted their children to be "real Americans"?


Exactly on my Italian side, my great-granfather wanted his kids to be American....