Revision: English 1C: Critical Thinking (7 - 7 1/2 pages)

James Ruan

Professor Click

English 1C

2 August 2017

Embracing of Two Cultures

The life of any given human being cannot be separated from what the person believes in and how he or she has been brought up. Culture plays a significant role in making up a community. However, there are people who are faced with a challenge of making sure that they balance between their culture and the culture they tend to adapt. A good example can be seen in the case of Hispanic immigrants as the United States plays host to many Hispanic immigrants. Some immigrants cross the border when they are adults while some come into the United States at a very young age. This creates a conflict between the cultures of the immigrant. In this essay, the concentration will not be a specific person but rather a group of people. This is to make sure that the points put down are broad and focus on a larger population rather than an individual. The use of the Hispanic immigrants in the United States is suitable for the essay, and this is because there have been conflicts between them and the government as well as between their culture and the United States culture. However, the main aim is not to show that a specific culture is superior than the other but to relate how the immigrants are affected by the foreign culture once they land in the United States.

When a conflict of two cultures exists, it becomes difficult for an individual to determine the exact culture to embrace. Most young immigrants are faced with a challenge of trying to balance the cultural values that they experienced. It is apparent that those who enter into a foreign nation at a younger age must go to school so that they can achieve the basic knowledge that is required for surviving in their new environment . In the process of pursuing education, such young people encounter challenges of making sure that their culture is not eroded. However, there are those who cannot hold on to their culture for a long period because their peers tend to pull them towards the foreign culture. As a result, the immigrants are left with more than one culture to practice.

Different philosophers have come up with different theories with the aim of increasing the understanding of the people who move from a place to another. Some of the philosophers believe that one should hold on to his or her culture with no compromise. According the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “The art of dissimulation reaches its peak in man; here deception. Flattery, lying and cheating, slander, false pretenses, living on borrowed glory, masquerading, convention of concealment, play-acting before others and before oneself, in sum, the constant fluttering about the flame of vanity, is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure desire of the truth could arise among men (247)”. There is a need to know that there is no evil of embracing the culture of others. As a matter of fact, there should be a promotion of embracing diverse cultures. However, the foreign culture should just remain as a foreign culture; it is not supposed to replace the culture of the person. One of the best lessons which can be learned from the people of the United States is that they influence others to adopt their culture, but they do not lose themselves as far as the issue of culture is concerned.

There is a value that comes with embracing one's culture and making it the first culture. However, without looking much into how people embrace a culture of others, there is a need to look at immigrants and how they are forced to embrace foreign cultures. There are different reasons like fitting in, to enhance communication, to appreciate the hosting culture and some embrace foreign culture because they are tired of their own culture. However, for the case of people who value their culture, they end up not losing it but work hard towards embracing the hosts’ culture. In Nietzsche’s essay, he describes: “since the individual wants to preserve himself against other individuals, in the natural state man uses the intellect mostly for dissimulation (247)”. In the modern world, people have used different excuse why they cannot hold on to their cultures. Some of the excuses are related to the globalization of the world today. By looking at the issue of globalization, it is a fact that the world has evolved and has presented an opportunity for every person to live in any part of the world. A person using such an example demonstrates that he or she is intellectually abled. With the intellect that he or she possesses, he or she justifies the reason why he or she cannot embrace his or her culture and give the foreign culture a send position.

Slavery is related to the act of being forced to do what one does not want to do. However, slavery can be optional in the modern world. For example, if a person lives in an abusive relationship, that person chooses to do so despite the relationship being a grave danger to him or her. Therefore, the person lives in slavery but from his or her will. Culture slavery has also been associated with the way people chose not to embrace their culture and embrace the cultures of others. People were created different, and the culture of each person is unique in one way or another. A good example can be seen in the case of tourists. There are people in the country who tour some of the African nations with interest in just seeing how some of the communities live (Moran et al. 2014). In this example, if the residents in the specific places in Africa did not embrace their culture, the tourists from the country would not have an interest in touring the places. This proves that culture plays a significant role in making sure that people get to respect and appreciate each other. Therefore, a person who lives his or her ways of life just to embrace other ways of life is considered a slave of the culture. In Nietzsche’s essay, he states: “man, however, has an unconquerable tendency to let himself be deceived and as he is as if enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic legends as true or the actor in a drama plays the king more regally than any real monarchy does (255)". The quote by Nietzsche tries to show how people who embrace different foreign cultures try to play a role in a better way than even the people who have lived in the culture for years. This scenarios shows that people are being deceived when they are trying to embrace a new or foreign culture. The action of acting like a person belongs to a specific culture and acting better than even people who have lived with the culture for ages raises the question of slavery. It is only a slave of the mind who would do away with his or her culture and embrace the culture of the other as if it was his or her own.

Research shows that there is a big difference between the people of the Hispanic origin who migrated to the united states at a tender age and people who migrate to the united state's adults. There are factors which contribute to the differences. However, it is apparent that the young people face a lot of challenges in maintaining their culture. However, there are those who succeed in maintaining their culture; there are those whose culture is eroded and there those who embrace the two cultures and can live with them. There is a need to look at the factors which influence the cultures of people who move into the United States at a tender or younger age. The first factor is associated with the growth and the maturity of their respective cultures in them. For example, in some cultures, there is the factor of rite of passage. The culture entails having a procedure that initiates a person from an age group to another. When a child is still young, he or she is not familiar with all the cultures from his or her community. According to Nietzsche, “language as we saw and later science works at the structure of concepts” (254). During a younger age, a child is like a growing tree. The tree can be bent and grow facing a particular direction. However, when the tree is mature, the tree cannot be bent; the only thing that can be done to it is cutting it down. Therefore, a child at a younger age can be able to adapt the culture of other people and live with it as if he or she was born of the culture group.

The day to day activities has a role to play when it comes to nurturing and shaping the culture of a person. For example, when some of the children from the Hispanic origin live with children from the American origin, they tend to act like the Americans. Sometimes it happens in a way that the children cannot explain because it is influenced subconsciously. A child must go to school, and at the same time, he or she must play with other children. When people migrate, they do it with the aim of making their lives better. Therefore, they do not have choices over where they would stay; any available place is suitable for them. As they do not have the choice of the neighborhood they live in, they might find themselves living in a diverse neighborhood. As a consequence, it becomes difficult for the children to maintain their culture. However, the children are not prohibited to embracing other people's cultures, but they should not do it at the expense of their original culture.

Living in a new environment and making sure that one’s way of life is not affected is challenging. The young Hispanics who move into the United States go through a lot of challenges which sometimes make them give in and live a different life. When it comes to the case of communication, Most of these people do not have a good command of the English language. In the United States, if people are not familiar with the English language, they will most likely face a lot of difficulties as far as communication is concerned. Putting into consideration that these are young people, they will try to do all they can get so that they can intergrate7 with the local citizens. In the process of doing so, they are absorbed by the foreign culture and even before knowing it; they are left practicing the culture of others and neglecting their culture. The issue of trying to be perfect and to fit in also plays a significant role when it comes to embracing a different culture. Human beings are created in a way that they would love to be appreciated by the people they live with. It is for this reason they care so much about what other think about them than what they do right. When a young person wants to fit in the new peer group, he or she finds him or herself trying so hard to be like the local citizens,“only insofar as man forgets himself as a subject, indeed as an artistically creative subject, does he live with some calm, security, and consistency” (Nietzsche 252). As a result, the young person finds him or herself exercising the culture of the hosts.

Living a double life is a struggle for anyone because when a person is forced to live two different types of life, they have a choice to either embrace both of them or drop one. When one embraces both of them, it becomes good for him or her (Huntington, 2013). The reason for stating so is because the person does not abandon what he or she believes in and is in a position to learn about a new culture. However, when a person drops the original culture and picks the foreign culture, he or she is seen as a slave. The struggle might be too much especially if a person lives in a neighborhood where his or her culture is not practiced. Learning about culture is a continuous process which does not end, "That drive to form metaphors, that fundamental desire in a man, which cannot be discounted for one moment" (Nietzsche, 254). For example, in some cultures, traditions are only revealed to a person upon attaining the desirable age. Therefore, there is a tradition to learn about when a person attains the age of an adult, and there is a tradition to learn about when a person attains the age of a father or a mother. Therefore, if a person loses track at a tender age, he or she loses an opportunity to know more about the culture.

Among the challenges of living a double life, there is a challenge of keeping off of the foreign culture or making sure that it does not influence the original culture. The question to ask is how one can stay away from the culture that is dominant in his or her surrounding. Doing so is close to impossible. It is as the same as telling one to avoid a way that takes him or her to work or school. The challenge of avoiding a foreign culture among the young immigrants is evident in their daily life. However, with proper guidance and upbringing, a child can be able to embrace the culture of others and still maintain his or her culture.

Works Cited

Huntington, S. P. (2013). 25 The Hispanic Challenge. A Language and Power Reader, 6.

Mitchell, J. M. (2015). International cultural relations. Routledge.

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Routledge.

Nietzsche, F. (1989). On truth and lying in an extra-moral sense. Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, 246-57.