Week 3 Post: Understanding Identity and Assimilation

Post week 3: 1-30

Readings: Holliday (A1.1, A1.2, A1.3 & B1.1, B1.2) and Palvenko (34-67)

In Holliday’s text, the first theme of section A is identity. The chapter is much like the section before in the sense of being culturally sensitive, but this chapter gives a more in depth look at the individual and takes it away from such generalities. It states that identity is multi-faceted. Identity falls into layers and depths within a complex society and is capable of shifting.

The term, “thick description” is something I am still trying to get my head around. Holliday explains it as a term that involves two elements: “Deriving meaning from a broad view of social phenomena which pieces together different, interconnected perspectives” and, “Exploration, in which sense is made from an ongoing emergence of social phenomena, which may not immediately seem to connect, and which may indeed be unexpected (Holliday p. 9-10).”

After working through the description as well as the example given, I have come to understand thick description as a non-essentialist view on identity. I believe this because thick descriptions, as stated above, looks at the broad view of social phenomenon, that puts together many different perspectives, not just one. The non-essentialist view does just that with thinking of culture and identity as multi-faceted entities which cross across and through different cultures and identities.

This then, fits in nicely with the article by Pavlenko. Pavlenko states “In this perspective, identity is viewed as a dynamic and shifting nexus of multiple subject positions, or identity options, such as mother, accountant, homosexual or Latina (35).” Pavlenko and Holliday both share the idea that identity should be thought of as a non-essential view.

This article also states that narrative identities are best shown in autobiographies, and the focus of the article is about memoirs written by first generation immigrants who came to the US as children or adults and discuss their story of assimilation. This seems to be a touchy subject for some people. I know for my family is it a very touchy subject. My grandma immigrated to the US from Italy when she was a child. My great-grandma sent her off to school with limited English proficiency. On the first day of school, my grandma was sent home early with a note that said she was not allowed back until she spoke full English. Horrified, my great-grandmother vowed that Italian was no longer allowed in the household.

With this experience, my grandmother does not understand, nor value for that matter, school systems, or the government going out of their way to help immigrants. She believes because she did it and it was expected then, it should be expected now. Those are the types of mindsets that need to be broken. It is a completely different time era and we have a plethora of technological advances on our side to help educate. Not only do we need to educate those who are learning our language, we need to educate those who think poorly upon those that need the help.

In the article it is discussed that the English language “as the most vital force in the process of Americanization (50).” In my family, Italians did not necessarily look all that different from “Americans,” mostly because my family is mostly from north Italy. Once they had the language down, they felt “assimilated.” I believe that probably one of the hardest parts of assimilating into American society would be the different physical characteristics: darker skin, eye shape, stature, style of clothing, etc. Those things, besides clothing (unless for religious purposes) cannot be altered, but if you look the part, and speak the part, the rest falls into place. What my grandma had to do was strip herself of her culture publically, so that she would be accepted.

If you think about an infant, they learn a lot about their culture, society, and identity before they learn how to speak. They learn certain socially acceptable acts in their culture and understand that mom and dad are in charge and they are part of a family. They then learn the language. An immigrant is expected to do all of this immediately, while the infant doesn’t speak fluently or even read or write for many, many, years. This week’s reading is obviously just the tip of the iceberg that is the understanding of identity. It will be very interesting to continue to learn how we identify culture and the different theories and views out there on this matter.

Week 1&2 Post: My Discovery and Critical Eye on Culture

Post Week One & Two: 1-30-11

Readings: Holliday (3-5) (63-75), Kumara. Chapter 2

While reading through Holliday’s writing as well as participating in our class lecture, I have a better understanding on what culture is. Culture is almost indefinable in the sense that it has so many wide aspects and entities. Two views on culture that are very interesting are the essentialist and non-essentialist views. “A culture is a physical entity, as though it is a place, which people can visit…” (essentialist view) “Culture is a social force which is evident where it is significant…” (non-essentialist view) (Holliday p. 3). It seems to me, that one emphasizes the “human” aspect more than the other. The non-essentialist view seems to focus more on the human aspect, that culture is a complex society with specific values and can be characterized by a discourse as much as by a language. The non-essentialist view also states that culture can “flow, change, intermingle, and cut across and through each other.”

I agree with this very much. In a simple sense, we can observe this in any classroom. The classroom can be thought of as a vessel, the vessel contains many different cultures, being the people. The people all bring their own cultures into the vessel and in order to communicate, learn and grow we must allow our cultures to mix and take and give information to each other that we may learn from our cultures. The non-essentialist view on culture does not group together cultures just by regions, I believe. They group cultures and even sub-cultures on more in depth characteristics. I find this extremely interesting and hope to further study this view and the phenomenon that is “culture.”

While reading the sections in Holliday on pages 63-75, I read about “culturespeak” for the first time. I believe it is important for anyone, especially teachers, to be aware on how we speak about cultures. Small words like in the reading, “multicultural inferno,” can have a negative connotation. These types of negative connotations portray culture in a bad light. When in fact, everyone belongs to their own culture, if not many cultures. Teachers have their own culture; subsets of students have their own cultures, like the athletes, artists, LGBTQ, and student council members. Small words can ostracize a group in a situation. So I believe the first part of these sections is just calling for the readers so be more culturally sensitive because whether we realize it or not, there are so many cultures around us at a given time that we might say the wrong thing without even realizing. This proves that anything we say can be viewed as rhetoric, thus giving it the capability to be read in many different ways.

Also in this section, they describe culture in two different categories again. This time the categories are standard and complex. In the standard view, “culture is a complex set of shared beliefs, values, and concepts which enables a group to make sense of its life which provides it with directions for how to live.” What I take from reading about the standard view is that when a person takes on the beliefs and values and makes it their own, their identity, they are part of that culture. By taking on these beliefs and traditions, the people become who they are. The culture forms and shapes them. The “penetration” of culture produces their distinctive capabilities and characteristics: mentally, physically, and socially.

The complex view, I believe is just how it sounds. It is more complex in the sense that the members have conflicting beliefs and rules that are often mixed together. This could be because rules require interpretation, and interpretation can be learned culturally, but still vary depending on the specific person.

All and all, these readings are very interesting but dense at the same time. It takes quite a bit of concentration to not only get through them but to also comprehend and analyze them. I hope that throughout this semester I become more aware culturally as well as be able to make my own statements on culture and critically analyze readings on it.

Intro Post

My name is Laura Olson and I am a senior English education major, TESOL minor, and receiving reading and middle school endorsements at Illinois State University.