In the event that there was a
catastrophe in the United States of America and I had to relocate to another
country for an indefinite amount of time which ultimately pushes me into taking
on the culture of "my new home", and was I allowed to take only three
small items that I hold dear that represents my family and culture, it would be
my recipe book because it includes many recipes that my mother and father gave
me; it will always allow me to "taste a little bit of home" and
think about the many conversations that I had with my family as we prepared
various meals and I can pass those stories down to my son so that he can share them
with his family when he gets older.
I would also take with me my photo
albums so that I can look at my ancestors before me, and look at photos from my
childhood as well as my sons so that we can reflect on all of the good times we
had in our old home and country and in many respects hold on to those memories
so they can keep us grounded.
I would take my safe because it has my family’s
medical records, personal keep sakes, and my passport.
If upon my arrival, I was told that
I could only keep one of those items, I would keep my photos and write various recipes
from my recipe book that I shared with my family on the back of each photo so
that way I won’t lose too much of myself.
After completing this assignment, I
began to think about all of the many immigrants who had to leave their homes,
memories, traditions, and in many respects their language, and culture to come
to the United States of America for a better life; but I began to put a huge
question mark on "better". Although many families are given
many opportunities to have access to a better education which leads to job opportunities,
the down side is many families lose their language, foods, music, and customs
so that they can assimilate and fit in with the majority group….. but while
they tried to "fit in", they lost a piece of themselves which could
be lost forever if they fail to share things such as music, recipes, language,
dances and ect...with their children and their grandchildren.
Nicky
Nicky,
ReplyDeleteThank you for thinking about how immigrants feel about leaving their country to have a better life. Your post caught my attention because i am an immigrant myself but has been naturalized as American citizen. It is really difficult to leave our families behind but there are circumstances that we cannot prevent in order to survive. We block our feelings and emotions for our family's sake. Some people would not understand how a person can leave their family to live in a foreign land but in reality this is one way or the only way to keep your family and children survive. I just have to live in the fact that I am doing this for their future and time will come that we will be together again.
Thanks again for your post.
As always a pleasure reading your blog Nicky. I love the idea of quickly jotting the recipes on the back of the cards, it's important to keep and take as much as we can with us. The whole idea of the immigrants trying to fit in goes back to our discussion this week about the dominant culture. It makes you wonder, how much of our family culture must we sacrifice to fit in with the dominant culture?
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