Cultural Autobiography
My
cultural background is mixed, but I am always been quite fascinated by it. I was
told I was English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh as a child, and as an adult I
have questioned that so I have opened an account with Ancestry.com and used
their DNA kit to discover my heritage. I discovered I am in fact Irish, Scottish
& Welsh (32%), Scandinavian (17%) and also my heritage can be traced back
to the western parts of Europe such as France, Germany, Belgium, the
Netherlands (31%), Italy/Greece (7%) as well as eastern Europe like Poland,
Ukraine, Belarus, Romania (6%) (it was not as precise as I would have hoped). All
in all about 97% European, as I assumed and it matched up with the family
history I had uncovered as well.
In
my early childhood I was blessed with the opportunity that my family hosted
several Foreign Exchange Students. Our first student was from Germany when I
was about 4-years-old. Her name was Eva and she was one the swim team at the
high school. I think she is the reason I love to swim as much as I do. I do not
have many memories of her, just that she had a pixie cut and raven black hair
and she was pale as snow and I remember how sweet and kind she was to me, and
she treated me as if I were her little sister, reading me books and always
making time for me. Our next exchange student was Andrea from Slovenia. She was
a buxom blonde who wore a lot of the typical 90’s acid washed jeans and loose-fitting
plaid button-up over a plain white tee. Then there was Peter from Hungary, he
was a bookish young man who wore glasses and liked to sit on our roof. About
this time we had Ekaterina, or as we called her Katya. She was a tall pale
redhead from Russia. She was absolutely stunning, but she was an ice-queen. She
had been very well taken care of in Russia by her family. They spoiled her and
sent her money often. She was not as warm to me as Eva had been and she probably
though I was a pest. I remember her collecting dolls (which I loved and wanted
desperately to play with) and she drew often, many of the times she drew
Vampires, of which she was obsessed. She was a Vampire for Halloween that year.
Looking back she may be a large part of the reason I pursued an artistic life,
why I love fashion and many other things. Lastly there was Julia, a student
from China but I do not believe she lived with us long. I do not remember Andrea,
Peter or Julia living with us long, several of our students changed households
while in America.
We
were invited by Eva to visit Germany and stay with her family, and of course we
accepted. We went to Germany when I was maybe 5 or 6 and I believe we stayed
there for weeks, but as a child everything seems to last so much longer than it
really does so who knows. We travelled and visited many countries, Morocco,
England, France, Denmark, Belgium, etc. It was a magical experience, and I have
wanted to return ever since. I remember only some events, one such was getting
fully outfitted in equestrian gear, (helmet, riding pants with chaps and
padding, a vest and a turtleneck sweater and riding boots) built in such as
riding a Lipizzaner horse and it rearing with me in the saddle and I remained
calm,. Then I remember Eva’s family remarking how well I had done and insisting
I should stay to learn to ride. They ran an equestrian business of some sort. I
remember eating waffles in Belgium, and buying a garter in France. I recall going
to a market because I was a picky eater and would not try many of the different
foods and I picked out a jar of miniature hotdogs and eggs. I remember peering
into the edge of the Black Forest and how much it looked like a place of
fairytales.
My
multicultural experience as a child puts me in a minority in America. How many
children get to interact with people intimately from 6 different countries for
a year? How often do children get to experience another country and see the
culture first hand? Few, the rich and the military are the types of families I
can imagine that see what I got to see all before I was 10 years old.
During
my late childhood, between about 7 and 13 years old, my family met several
Irish families who had emigrated to America. We spent every holiday with them
and they became our extended family and have since heavily influenced my
cultural outlook, my identity and my deep abiding desire to move to the United
Kingdom. I feel all these cultural experiences colored my worldview and
broadened my perspectives.
We
moved to Clovis when I was 13 and I grew to loathe being told what to do, being
asked was one thing I had no problem with, but being “forced” made me dig my
heels in and do the opposite. My rebellious streak was always there, it just
grew as I hit puberty. I am a natural rule follower, but if I feel like people
tell me I cannot do it, I want to sometimes. Assuredly I was in the majority
here, teens all like to rebel on some level.
I
was raised in a “liberal” Mormon household, where my mother taught me to think
for myself and never trust that I could depend upon a man. That is a bit
counter-culture in Mormonism, where women are designated to the realm of the
home primarily and told not to work unless it is necessary. I was taught by my
mother to get an education and be able to support myself, and the Latter-Day
Saint Church does encourage everyone, men and women, to get a college degree if
possible, just a woman’s education often is of no practical use. She also had a
more lenient view on the Word of Wisdom (the lifestyle guidelines in the
Latter-Day Saint church), where caffeine is typically a no-no my mom was a
heavy Pepsi drinker, and I became a regular tea drinker. I also was not held
back from having feelings for the opposite sex, whereas the church guidelines
basically forbid dating exclusively until after age 16. Those, in my life,
seemed like small differences but they were hugely different than all the children
I was raised with. My LDS upbringing within Mormon culture would be a minority,
to be an active member and yet not follow all the rules, even more odd is that
we were open about our differences!
I was also raised with the typical “Christian
guilt” that sin brings, and it heavily affected my childhood and my teen years.
I was a very judgmental child and teen, and my mind did not expand until I went
through my own trials. Me sinning as a teen colored my views, I could no longer
judge people who had done what I had done because that would make me a hypocrite.
I struggled with the idea that I had failed God, that my mistakes meant I was
worthless and that I could never recover. I also felt alienated by the members
my age, which did nothing to help me attend church. I felt lost, adrift and
lonely but I still kept my beliefs close even though I felt like I was no
longer worthy to attend church. I prayed often, feeling stupid for asking for
forgiveness for something I knew for a fact I would only do again and again. In
my mind repenting meant that you “go and sin no more”, and it was false of me
to ask to be forgiven when I would continue to sin regularly. To fix this I
more or less bullied my ex-husband into marriage at 18 before we had even graduated,
and that caused a slew of new problems. I was simultaneously in the majority
and the minority with my religious upbringing, in this part of America so many
are Christians who I am sure have faced similar struggles, but my “sect” of
Christianity is small here in Clovis, New Mexico.
I
also took courses in high school that permanently broadened my mind, i.e.: psychology
and world religions. After this my thirst for knowledge of different cultures,
religions and how the mind works has set me on the current path I am on. I,
still, cannot seem to get enough knowledge about all things different from me
as well as learning every more about myself. I enjoy taking IQ tests, interest
inventories, quizzes, or reading about things I relate to. It is as if I am
dying of thirst to learn and only knowledge can quench it.
In
high school I also had my first taste of a yoga class, which I immediately fell
in love with. Throughout college yoga has been another cultural passion of
mine, of which I have seriously considered making a career path. I love the
theology and the history behind yoga and I have become enchanted with India.
All of the cultural exploration I have done in the past few years has
overlapped, I take classes simultaneously that enhance and support one another
so I learn all about the religion of an area while at the same time immersing
myself in the history and culture in another class. This more or less sums up
my undergraduate career.
Young
adulthood for me has been learning to put all of my values into a cohesive
whole. To somehow balance my love of all religions, and how I believe they each
have merits and truths, and still profess Mormonism. How I can balance my huge
feminist streak with my appreciation for gender roles. Contrast is my life, I
have values on many “opposing” things, but I do not believe they have to clash.
I feel like I walk the middle road, and
dabble one each side. This makes me feel like the minority because I feel too
many people are far right or far left with no one finding the middle ground where
I stand.
I
feel like the minority in that I support so many different beliefs and
lifestyles, but it may just be the part of the world where I currently reside.
I
can see how each stage of my life was influenced by a different culture, my
youth by Europe (especially Germany), my later childhood by Irish culture and
people, my teens by American society and my rebelling actively and inactively
against my church upbringing, young adulthood has been colored by world history
and religion with a healthy dash of psychology. I enjoy learning how and why
people think as they do, while maintaining my own idea of right and wrong. My opinion
of the right way to do things is fairly broad, basically if it does no harm
(mentally, physically, emotionally, etc) than it should not be a problem. If
something hinders someone else’s life (such as takes away their rights, freedom
or equality) I am against that. My hope is to fight for the underdog, to help
people to realize their worth and power. I feel like the underprivileged deserve
to be heard and helped.
