What Have I Learned

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 times family relationships are the messiest and sometimes the hardest relationships we have in our lives. When I was younger I was always concerned about what my family looked like from the outside looking in. In this class, I’ve learned that what my family looks like from the outside, the point is that if we’re all functioning well as individuals our relationships with each other will either grow and get stronger or you realize that you need to keep certain people at an arm’s length. I find that especially true now that my siblings and I are all adults. 

Doing this assignment has helped me look at my family and the families that my siblings have started with their partners in a different light. Even though my brothers and sister and I all grew up in the same family with the same parents, they all experienced their childhood differently than I did. Those experiences then make up how they raise their own families and how they deal with problems.  (Photo from: http://www.silverstaruk.org/age-race-gender-family-history/)

I also see my socioeconomic history in a different light. My mom and dad grew up poor in East Los Angeles. My mom, at one point, lived in the projects with her mom and siblings soon after her dad left the family. I saw that my mom was careful with money and my dad let her take care of the family finances. They paid bills together and stressed about money together, but my mom was mostly in charge of how much money was spent on food and other items. As an adult, I knew that I needed to be careful with money and that it needed to be saved but I didn’t have any real world experience with it. As soon as I got my first real paycheck it was gone almost as soon as I had gotten it. I was the girl with the dead mother and no one to tell me to rein in my spending. I had to learn the hard way of the benefit of setting aside a little bit of money, paying bills right away, and then giving myself a little bit of an allowance instead of immediately spending it all on things that won’t last. 

Racial heritage, cultural and ethnic heritage, family structure, socioeconomic history, and gender all have influence in who we are as people. I’ve learned that I shouldn’t be regulated to the multicultural “brown” girl who doesn’t speak Spanish or know how to hula or how to serve a proper Japanese tea ceremony. I’ve learned that my cultural heritage shouldn’t be all who I am and that it’s okay to let the other parts of who I am come to light more often. (Photo from https://www.shutterstock.com)

Learning about where I came from and about my ethnicity has only been a journey I've embarked on in the last decade. I was a in a multi-cultural dance group called Remembering Our Culture many years ago. I had just moved to Utah and didn't know anyone. My brother and sister in law meet in the group and were helping teach some of the dances for the program that year. I was impressed that even though some of the members came from multi-cultural backgrounds themselves, they knew more about their cultures than I did. I started to work on my family tree and found so many branches reaching across the ocean to Japan and Hawaii and down to the deserts of Mexico.
(Photo from: http://rapidlife.blogspot.com/2009/05/roc-remembering-our-culture.html) 

I've learned the importance of the family structure and what strengths can be learned from each iteration from the stand point of many different cultures. Learning about the different parts of your culture can help you understand why certain attitudes are passed down and why your family works (or doesn't). I'd encourage you to watch any media representation about family structure that is different than yours. Especially if you will be working with a diverse population. Understanding why they have the prejudices they have and why it might take longer for them to open up to outsiders is something that a family scientist needs to be attuned to and could potentially make your job easier.