Undergraduate /
issue of importance to you-problem with combining cultures [3]
Hi, so the prompt is from UT topic B and I NEED advices on how to fix the essay and any opinions is appreciated! Thank you!
full prompt is:
Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.I picked to write about how the first generation children have to figure out how to balance the 2 cultures because their parents doesn't understand.
America is known as the melting pot to many because there are so many groups of diversity coming together under one country. This couldn't happen without immigrants and majority of them came here to live the American Dream. When those immigrants became citizens as well as parents, they had us as their first generation. In their eyes, American culture isn't harmful but it is when it crosses their own ethnical culture line. Therefore the parents try to prevent that by enforcing strictly their own ethnical culture on the first generation children. This is the electrical spark starting the issue because the first generation children are being raised in America but are being raised with a different culture. First generation children have to conquer the challenging task of combining both cultures respectably and equally. The challenging tasks they have to face is the forces of the parents, the American heavy influences, and combing them to be who they are.
Even though the foreign parents' identification card read U.S. citizen, they still have a secured belief in their own native culture. Their top goal in life is to pass on their traditional culture and heritage. Despite the fact that they are raising their children in American, they have strong grip on making sure their children will take on the ethnical culture. The strict enforcement tends to put a lot of pressure on the first generation children. When speaking of the term "first generation," I meant to defined it as people like myself, who have foreign parents, born in America, and are living as (some ethnicity) American. For example, I am Asian American first generation because both of my parents are foreign and I am bicultural like many Americans. The pressure of finding a balance between the two cultures doesn't start until they are exposed to society itself. As a child, I was kept in and shield from the outside world until I started school. The effect of that was I had to be in ESL although I was born here and the question of why I couldn't speak my own native language at school. The curiosity of why at home I have to communicate in my native language but not at school and as the questions pile up, the more I sway away from my own culture. This is natural because many want to fit in society and be accepted. The issue developed is the first generation children have to figure out how to balance the 2 cultures because their parents don't understand why they want to do the things they do. The effect of swaying away from their native culture and tradition cause the parents to buckle down their reinforcement. For example, a Indian-American friend of mine parents started looking into arrange marriage for her at the age of 17. My friend became very upset because she has been influences by the American culture of falling love naturally and rebelled against her parents. Her parent wants to continue their cultural tradition but she doesn't want to continue that aspect of it. The parents doesn't understand why their daughter is being disobedient which causes misunderstand.
Being raised in the American life isn't terrible but complicated when you have to represent your own culture because of your look while trying to fit in society. Many foreign parents would allow and push their children to blend in with the rest of society but for people like me, it is quite the opposite. I have to test out which aspect of the American culture I like while represents my ethnicity culturally. As I said before, America is like a melting pot because of these varieties of different culture people but what doesn't make sense is how could representing and practicing your own culture be not "fitting in?" Well I guess from all the mixture the pot produces a common thing where it goes against some traditional things. Living in America, of course have to have some kind of impacted and the pressure from the parents and society just keep pushing back and forth. This is when I decided that instead of picking on or the other; I picked both to combine it like some people.
As I filled out college applications or any documents, the ethnicity section has many choices but never has Asian-American or some ethnicity-American. I never thought about it that way until the pressure as the first generation child has burst and reached its limit. There was too many arguments between my parents and I about why I wasn't allow to do this or that because it's against our culture. I told them that we are in America and I am an American even if my physical features and little accent don't say so. I realized I was wrong about that part because I am Asian-American not just American. When I asked myself "who am I" I start with what the mirror tells me and then what my personality is. I begin to analyze deeply into the idea and concluded that I am both Asian and American. My parents only partially accept some aspects of American culture but not the same aspect as mine.
