1)I really enjoyed this video as Trevor Noah incorporated his real life and pretty serious issues of racism
he experienced but told the stories in a jokingly manner to make it more of a light topic and engage the
audience. I do agree that the idea of cultural behaviors are learned through what we see in acts from
those who raise us and who we grow up around. For me, personally, I learned cultural behaviors
through my parents and how they behaved in different settings like within our own Mexican culture at
family gatherings or in Mexico. It's all by observation and children absorb so much through what they
are exposed to but even as adults I feel we learn cultural behaviors by observation and implementing
those behaviors in ourselves. In our Mexican culture I was taught to always respect our elders, our
parents and strangers in the way we speak, and by having love and pride for our people through
different traditions and through food! In my Catholic culture, I learned how to behave in Church in how
we are quiet unless singing and praying, listen to the priest and take eucharist. We are taught how to be
kind, what values to hold and implement in our lives and right from wrong. I have had people
misperceive my cultural identities in how Mexicans are viewed as maybe undocumented, field workers,
maids or whatever the biases are that revolve around the Mexican Culture, however of course not
everyone holds these biases. I think people misperceive my culture in this way based off what is shown
in Television, Film and how they hear others around them treat and speak to people. In the past we
mostly see Mexicans portrayed as such, however I do feel we are seeing more diversity in that area
which is a positive. I don't think I've really felt people expect something from me as a result of my
cultural identities, I think the big thing is that people are surprised to find out I am full Mexican and
don't even believe me as I am lighter complexed. Latinos don't all look a certain way and I think that is
where some biases are seen. I don't think everyone in my cultures acts the same way as everyone has
individual minds. I do believe people are multicultural and we learn our sub-cultures through media or
in person experiences within that culture. I belong to baseball culture, food culture, film culture, acting
culture, arts culture. I think the ones I identify most would be my Catholic culture because it is so much
of who I am and the arts culture because I work within the arts regularly. I think we aren't necessarily
taught that we are part of cultures unless it's very clear like, "I am Mexican. Therefore I am part of
Mexican culture." I wouldn't have even thought, for example, that loving baseball and keeping up with
that would make me part of a "baseball culture." I don't think we can connect all of our cultures to
ethnicity like I can't really connect my baseball culture directly to being Mexican, or maybe I could I just
wouldn't know how to make that connection. It can get tricky if you say something between culture and
ethnicity is linked when it offends someone part of said culture as they don't agree with the connection
you are making. I think just holding empathy, learning from one another and listening is how we can
hold value from people in our sub-cultures who are part of a different ethnic group.
2)Trevor Noah makes a good point about being of multi-cultural background and how it makes it difficult
to identify what are your "cultural-behaviors" such that It should be more like your father's or mother's
side. It is difficult to concur entirely with the idea that cultural behaviors are learned, however it really
depends more so on the combination of what region of the world a person's upbringing is and what kind
of ethnical background they inhabit. Sharing a personal experience, I am ethnically Armenian as both of
my parents are ethnically Armenian, however there are a great many cultural behaviors that I express
throughout my everyday interactions that would be more accustomed to most Americans. This is due to
the fact that I am born in the United States, however my cultural roots were maintained, such as my
ethnicities' language, history, faith, and customs by attending a private Armenian school where many of
those cultural behaviors are preserved; this splits the idea of whether or not cultural behavior was
taught to me or not, because as I perceive it, and have witnessed myself conforming to American
customs more and more as I have been away from an All Armenian community for 3 years now, cultural
behaviors of where I live currently have crept into my mannerisms without my explicit "learning" of
them. Some behaviors that members of the Armenian communities share are the closeness and love of
family, where it is not common for many members of a nuclear family to live in the same home, and for
children of the family to still live at home until they are ready to be wed. Most people that belong to the
Armenian community make an effort to adapt to their new homes, while maintaining the core of
Armenian tradition. As most of the Armenian community in the world is living in the diaspora, such that
a great many live outside of the mother country of Armenia, the Armenian peoples of the United States
have adapted to living in the West, and as such pursue the American dream of owning your own
business as one of their core values and a metric for success. The Sub-cultures of the Armenian
community is quite fun! The community has distinct dialects of Armenian dictated by where in the
diaspora you currently are, and explicitly in the US, where your family emigrated from. For example, the
main Sub-cultures of Armenian are Armenians from Syria and Lebanon whom speak the dialect of
"Western-Armenian" and who primarily descended from Armenians living in the eastern reaches of the
Ottoman Empire and have learned Arabic as a result; Persian-Armenians whom were split off from the
millet of Ottoman "Armenia" during the 16th century by the Persian Empire at the time and adopted
Farsi as a second language, and finally Russian-Armenians or Armenians from the Motherland whom
both speak fluent Russian as Armenia is a post-soviet Country and used to belong to the USSR. Both of
my parents families ironically descend from the same town in Western-Armenia or "Ottoman-Armenia,"
the town of "Kharpert" or Fortress of Stone. However, my mother's family fled to the Levant also known
as Syria/Lebanon and my father's family had moved to Persia during the early 20th Century Armenian
Genocide. As I spend a lot of time with my grandmother from my mother's side, I would say I identify
primarily with the "Western-Armenian" sub-culture.
3) Watching Trevor Noah's video was very eye opening to the hardships mixed people have to endure.
They must feel torn not being accepted in either group due to them being mixed. Especially being in the
spot light and having that be much worse for you, I can't begin to imagine what that is like. I believe that
cultural behaviors are learned. Our identities are formed based on our upbringing and being accustomed
to the different practices in our cultures. I learned my cultural behaviors from my family and family
friends. I spent a lot of time growing up around people from the Middle Eastern culture. This included
getting to know our language, food, music, morals, religion, and how to be with one another. For
example, one thing I learned from my culture is to never just freeload off of people. If you pay for
dinner, I'll pay next time. If you do not let me pay for dinner, I will bring you a gift to thank you for
dinner. That is a practice I observed growing up from my sisters and it is something I live by. It is a very
courteous gesture that I think is important in showing that you appreciate what others do for you. I've
had some people mistake me as Latina even though I am Arab. This may be because I have many Latino
and Latina friends that made them think I was one of them as well. People expect me to speak perfect
Arabic because of my Middle Eastern identity. I understand the language, but my parents were never
very strict on us speaking it to them as children. As a result, my Arabic is not so good. My sub culture
would be an education sub culture. This is due to education being so important to me and who I am. I
would also say my sub culture is a concert one. This is because I go to concerts so often and it is
something I really enjoy doing. It is an escape I have from my reality. We can learn to value people as
members of a different ethnic group and as members of our same sub-cultural group by always
remaining respectful of them. We can also get to know more about their groups and backgrounds to
understand them more as people.
4) I agree that cultural behaviors are learnt from one person to another or from one aspect, event or
social practice to another. I learnt culture from my family through close association and through
imitation of what they did such as imitating them to speak, to dress and even to take food that they
took. Some behaviors that members of my culture share is the language and the manner in which they
speak, their dressing code is almost similar, the food they eat and generally the way they live. I have
experienced people misperceive my identity due to accent as a Persian person they did not expect me
to speak in English as they spoke. All people of my culture do not behave in the same way, some have
dressed in a very strange way than what majority of my culture do. Most people are multi-cultural
where you find they practice sub-cultural behaviors that are not part of their main culture. Subcultures
are groups with distinct patterns both of shared and learned behavior within the main culture and
despite distinct traits, they still share commonalities. One can learn to value people as one of the
cultural group or even people from other cultures is respect is a learnt trait and should be taught to
everyone.
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