Strength and Diversity in the Family

There is so much that goes into making a person who they are. My cultural heritage played a bigger role in my development than my racial or ethnic heritage did as a child. Religion makes up the majority of my cultural heritage. Race and ethnicity didn’t seem like a huge thing to learn about in my family because it was mainly centered on learning about my religion taught us. Today, I think that learning about your racial and ethnic background can add to how you learn about religion and what good things you can pick from world religion as a whole.  Learning about family structure has been an interesting topic to learn about. When my mom passed away 20 years ago and my role in the family should have changed except I didn’t know how to make that transition or to what extent my role would change. But I’ve learned that family structure doesn’t have to fit neatly into a little box that can be wrapped up and tied with a bow to show the world. Family can be messy sometimes and often ti...

In the spirit of the holiday season, I pulled out my holiday centered movies the other day and watched The Family Stone. It stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Craig T. Nelson and Luke Wilson. The basic premise of the movie is that all the Stone children come home for Christmas with some bringing a spouse or significant other. The movie focuses on Sarah Jessica Parker's character - Meredith Morton - who is a successful executive from Manhattan who comes off as very conservative. She goes home for the holidays with her boyfriend, Everett Stone - who is quite different from Meredith. He comes from a liberal and boisterous family who keeps tabs on all the siblings. After a few awkward attempts to get to know the family Meredith ends up running out to a nearby pub where Everett's brother, Ben, goes to check on her and ends up spending time with Meredith. Ben becomes intrigued with Meredith and quickly falls for her. Meredith chec...

I love the show One Day at a Time with Justina Machado and Rita Moreno. The show is about a single mom raising two children - Elena and Alex - while she works full-time as a registered nurse in a doctors office. The single mom and Army veteran played by Justina Machado - Penelope - is suffering from PTSD  after returning from a tour in Afghanistan. The sitcom tackles issues of mental illness, immigration, sexism, homophobia, and racism that Latinx people living in the US deal with. It's an interesting juxtaposition of watching Penelope - a second generation U.S. citizen - deal with these issues while having her mother - Lydia - have her preconceived notions of the same issues. While Penelope is taking medication for depression and anxiety and going to group therapy, Lydia essentially tells her daughter that Latina women just push through - and usually suffer - the issues and don't talk to strangers about what they're going through. Penelope is also separated from her husb...

If you have not watched Disney's Moana yet, you are missing out. Yes, it's a kids movie, but Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is in it! So if for any other reason, watch the movie already.  If you aren't familiar with the movie, the basic plot is that on the Polynesian island of Motunui, the people who live there worship the goddess Te Fiti. Te Fiti is part of traditional Polynesian deity. Anyway, Dwayne Johnson's character, Maui, steals the heart of Te Fiti which is the source of her power. Maui steals the heart to give to humans for the power of creation. Te Fiti disinigrates and Maui is attacked by Te Ka who is a volcanic demon. In that fight, Maui is blasted out of the ski losing both his magical fish hook and the heart to the depths of the sea. Thousands of years later, the ocean chooses baby Moana to find the heart of Te Fiti and return it to her. Moana is the daughter of Motunui's chief, Tui, who has big plans for his daughter since she is next in line to ...

I talked with my neighbor, Tracy Crane, about her experiences of growing up in South Africa. She grew up in a small town near Johannesburg during the time of apartheid. As a white citizen, she never had to experience the racism. She felt that it was wrong to live that way, but as a child she didn't know how to voice those opinions. While in primary school, Tracy had her first experience of standing up for herself against another student. Since Tracy didn't believe in apartheid, she would regularly help her black neighbors in the community she lived in. She knew that it wasn't always safe to do so so she had to pick her battles and help when she could without bringing harm to herself. One day after school as she Tracy was walking home a black mother dropped a sack of groceries while juggling two small children. Tracy didn't think twice to help the mother pick up her groceries. She didn't notice that one of her white classmates was following her home and spying on h...

Hopefully, you're not here by accident. What started as an assignment for my Contemporary Families class at Utah Valley Universit y turned into something a little bigger than I anticipated. I figured this assignment would be easy and that I'd write a paper that I'd soon forget about. A blog feels a little more permanent and something that I can show to future employers. The topic of this blog is to explore the diversity and strengths in the family structure through a cultural lens. There are so many different ethnic and cultural heritages that make up the United States that it's hard to pin point every single one of them. But what we can learn from those in our neighborhoods and communities can add to our world view of how families live, work, and enjoy time together. In my Contemporary Families class, I came upon this topic in the fourth week's reading. In chapter 2 it talks about the importance of how the family structure isn't solely regulated to one man ...