It seems that people today, or at least the people in my generation that I have been around, pride themselves on a heritage that most of the time they know very little about. Heritage has become an image to people more than a culture. Its a way we identify ourselves as if its some type of indicator of who we are as a person. We set out to seem like we have this great understanding of our heritage, because it makes us seem cultured an unique, when really there is no way for us to be able to understand our heritage fully, having grown up in the United States and saying that we do is ridiculous. For example, how we were discussing Italian Americans in class, I know many Italian Americans who constantly like to bring up how "Italian"they are. In reality they probably know as much about actual Italian culture as I do (which isn't much). I have witnessed people justify how "Italian" they are by wearing an Italian horn around their neck and saying they have spaghetti dinner with their family once a week. Or with Irish Americans, right around St. Patrick's day all of the Irish people start to come out of the wood work and bring up how "Irish" they are during the month of March. Eating spaghetti does not make you Italian, wearing green on St. Patrick's day does not make you Irish and going out for a drink on Cinco de Mayo does not make you Mexican. Just because you are of a certain heritage does not mean you have a full understanding of it. European Heritage has become a trend in the United States more than anything and the actual aspects of it have lost their meaning. It is one thing to take pride in your heritage and to try and gain an understanding of it, but to claim to have a full understanding is really over the top.
-Ryan Fleming blog#14
No comments:
Post a Comment