Rivera

Andy Rivera
Professor Ditch
English 113B
07 May 2015

Two Worlds
Cultural identity is the building block of a culture that helps people in the culture to
understand the culture in a different way and show how they can develop new identities for
their cultural ways. Cultures are different, because there many people to each culture some
might really into it and others might not think of it as much. And everyone in each culture is
different on their own and act different too. Cultural identities also includes one's ethic
background, like religion, race, academic career, and family. My three major cultural
identities would be my Salvadoran family, my Americanized family and my Student career in
my Academic career. In each culture, I act a different way so I can adapt to all the surrounding
around me. To me this is totally fine, because everyone always likes to be treated in different
ways. So it should be fine for you to treat a cultural space differently as well. It is important
because a cultural space is made out many or a little group of people from expect a different
kind of respect for each other. This also helps with making bonds with trust between a group
of people, that might be old friends or making new friends.
In my Salvadoran family, we are not a very traditional Salvadoran family that speaks
only Spanish to each other all the time and spends the whole day with each other. In those
families, men always have to find a way where they can be in some assistance to their family.
The men have to always be a call away for help, in a sense. In my Salvadoran family, we are a
total of eight people; five brothers, a sister, a mother and a step-father. We don't always have

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time to spend with each other, but every time when it someone's birthday or just some
celebration, we all have to make time and get together to have dinner at some restaurant. But
when our mother gives one of us a call, we have to answer, because we have to respect every
single person in our family no matter what. Our attitude towards each is different between us,
I act different towards my brothers and sister then I do with my mother. It mostly deals like
that with my brothers and sister, because our mother is seen as the head of the house and we
respect our elders, like our mother to our grandmother. This is important, because our elders
and siblings, all deserve to treated different not the same.
My family also has became very Americanized, because of the older one in this family
are always busy working and as for my little brother is frequently busy with his school work.
As for me, I'm always busy with college homework, loads of it every night, and work. We
don't always get together to have family bonding time, but we are always close by, like being
in the same house at the same time. What make us an Americanized family is the fact that all
my mother's sons and daughter were born in the United States of American, so our Spanish is
not as good as it should be. Not having great Spanish language speaking tongues, this makes it
harder to talk and understand most of the words that full Spanish speaking person can say.
Even though, our Spanish isn't very well we still communicate to keep our relationship close
and strong. I have adapted well enough to the fact that my Spanish wasn't so well, but since
my family has become more Americanized, when I speak Spanish it has a mix of English
words too, they understand me better than I can talk. So the point is that no matter what our
family is becoming more apart of we are always close.
The good that thing that has came with my Americanized -side is that it gave me
assistance in my Academic career as a student. My role as a student that I set out to be was to
learn as much as I could and do the best as could. But now that I'm in an university, I'm free to

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learn way more than I would have ever image, like the different types of cultures there are
between just one culture and for an Academic school can be a whole culture of it own. Like
from an someone's major to someone's club. I'm apart of the Electrical engineering culture, but
the great thing is that I can also experience so many other different cultures in the university,
from race, religion to majors. And the great part of being apart of this growing community is
that I get a first look at how other culture are with each other. This kind of thinking makes me
want to take time to get to know the cultures I want to add to my cultural identity. The best
way for me to understand these culture would be to treat every single one differently, like I'm
learning a whole new lesson for the first time. I would have to take each one as a new lesson
to get the best understanding so I can have a better understanding of a person with in that
culture. Cultural identities are everywhere you go, from the school you attend to the place you
work at, you just have to have an open mind for anything to come your ways, to learn about it
to get to know it better. Even from the movie, Happy by Roko Belic, shows how there are
many different people living around the world and how they are all happy even though they
are from a different part of the world, each can be just as happy as the other. This goes with
my point because almost everyone is part of the cultural identity of being happy. You just got
to be open minded to see someone's point of view of life.
Although there are some people who believe bring all their cultures together into one
giant unit filled with different culture is good thing to do, like Alisa Valdas-Rodriquez in her
essay, My Hips, My Caderas (Caderas means hips). Valdas-Rodriquez is Cuban American,
and her main thesis is that mixing your cultures together is a positive thing. She says But
still, I dream of the day when bicultural Latinas will set the standards for beauty and success,
when our voluptuous caderas won't bar us from getting through those narrow American
doors. (Valdas-Rodriquez pg. 75) What she means is that she hopes one day, bicultural

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Latinas will set their minds to higher goals in the American culture to be loved for their minds
and just not their bodies and not to let their bodies get in the way of what they set their goals
to be, but I don't necessarily agree with Valadas-Rodriquezs main thesis, because everyone in
each culture is a totally different person, who might think differently, even if they are part of
the same culture. So a person has to adapt to each culture to understand another individual.
For me, I have adapted being a student with an Academic career and learned that my
university comes with many different cultures within cultures that have opened my eyes and
mind to a bigger picture that the world, itself has to offer. Also adapting to both of my sides in
my family, which my life more interesting and ready to experience new thing in life.
So treating every individual's cultural identities as something different or even unique
can help better where he or she is coming from and leading to a relationship between that
person. I have learned adapted to both my Salvadoran family, Americanized family and as a
student with an Academic career in all different ways to make my life much simpler than
having to mix and thing think every single culture is the same as one unit. I noticed a
routine I do throughout the week which is spending ever morning as a Student with an
Academic career then after my classes I move on with my Americanized family, where we are
all too busy for each other at times, then at night we all come together to ask each other how
were day went and if anything new happened. So I stronger believe see every culture as one
unit and within the one unit there are many more units of people that share the same brief, but
have different thoughts about it. So treating each culture as something new would expand your
mind and knowledge to a whole in world.

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Works cited
Belic, Roko. "Yekra - The Happy Movie / The Happy Movie." Yekra - The Happy Movie /
The Happy Movie. Los Angeles SEO, 2011. Web. 05 May 2015.
Hanks, Reuel R., and Stephen John Stadler. "Geography--Encyclopedias."Encyclopedia of
Geography Terms, Themes, and Concepts. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.ValdesRodriguez, Alisa. "My Hips, My Caderas."MSN's Underwire (2000): 73-75. Print.