My Family Culture

January 20, 2013

Scenario:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

The three items that I would take that are dear to me would be my picture albums and the hard drive that has all my pictures and documents on them.  There are pictures of my biological parents, my family as I was growing up and of my children and family. Along with this I would grab my computer.  I would also grab the American flag that was on my dad’s casket.

There is much information and stories on this hard drive and in the photo album that I would bring. I would share the experiences that are important to me and how that created the culture and traditions in my life that I have learned and lived.  The documents that are on the hard drive are stories and facts that would educate others of how I lived in my life and important information that might be helpful to others.

It would be a very hard choice if I had to give something up.  Especially just having the three items. I would keep the photo albums.  In these albums there are many stories and facts that I could share forever.  It would also keep me sane as to allowing me to remind me of where I came from and who I am. 

What I have learned from this exercise is that I take advantage of life and how I live it. It seem that I just want people to know who I am and my identity that I am an individual. I have done some deep thinking lately of how I think and pre judge people.  We are all made of different traditions, cultures, color and personality.  If I do not understand I should not judge.  I really thought about this and to tell you the truth I think that I would be very scared at first if this scenario happened.  As I see in today’s world here in the United States and in my community, most really do not want to know or their ignorance causes pre judgment and then the stereotyping begins.  I am going to try and find out before I judge.  We are all of one, just with different upbringings, which we all need to respect. After all there is so much that can be learned from each other and if we all combine our cultures and beliefs in a positive way we can have and create a win/win experience in life.