i appreciate my culture essay

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Why I Am Proud of My Culture: Celebrating Identity

Table of contents, preserving heritage and traditions, celebrating cultural diversity, personal connections and values, culture's role in shaping worldview.

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Essay on My Culture

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Culture in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Culture

Introduction.

My culture is an integral part of who I am. It’s like a colorful tapestry, woven with traditions, customs, and values that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Family Traditions

Family traditions are a significant part of my culture. They include celebrating festivals, preparing and sharing traditional meals, and storytelling sessions that keep our heritage alive.

Language and Values

The language we speak at home is another cultural aspect. It connects me to my roots. Additionally, values like respect for elders, kindness, and honesty are cultural teachings I hold dear.

In conclusion, my culture shapes my identity, guiding my actions and thoughts. It’s a treasure I cherish and will continue to uphold.

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250 Words Essay on My Culture

Culture is an intricate tapestry, woven with threads of traditions, values, and experiences. It shapes our identity, influencing our beliefs and behaviors. My culture, a blend of South Asian heritage and modern Western influences, plays a significant role in defining who I am.

Traditional Roots

My culture is steeped in ancient traditions, each carrying profound meanings. From the vibrant festivals like Diwali, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness, to the daily rituals such as meditation, promoting inner peace, these customs provide a sense of belonging and continuity. They serve as a bridge, connecting me to my ancestors and their wisdom.

Western Influences

Growing up in a multicultural society, my culture has also been shaped by Western influences. The emphasis on individualism and freedom of expression has encouraged me to question, explore, and form my own beliefs. This fusion of cultures has led to a unique blend of values – respect for diversity, emphasis on education, and the pursuit of personal growth.

Impact on Personal Identity

My culture, a blend of tradition and modernity, has shaped my worldview and personal identity. It has taught me to appreciate diversity, strive for knowledge, and maintain balance in life. It has also instilled a sense of responsibility to uphold these values and pass them on to future generations.

Culture is not static; it evolves, influenced by time, place, and people. My culture is a testament to this dynamic nature – a harmonious blend of old and new, East and West. It is an integral part of my identity, shaping my thoughts, actions, and aspirations.

500 Words Essay on My Culture

Defining my culture.

My culture is a beautiful amalgamation of shared beliefs, practices, and traditions that have been passed down through generations. It is a social construct, born out of the need for a collective identity, yet it is also deeply personal, shaping my individuality. It is a complex interplay of history, geography, religion, language, and art.

Language and Communication

Language, an essential component of my culture, is more than just a tool for communication. It encapsulates the essence of my cultural heritage, carrying with it the stories, wisdom, and ethos of my ancestors. Each idiom, each proverb, each dialect is a window into the collective experiences and values of my community.

Traditions and Rituals

Values and norms.

At the heart of my culture lie the values and norms that guide my behavior and interactions with others. They instill in me a sense of responsibility, respect, and empathy, molding my character and influencing my worldview. These values, embedded in the fabric of my culture, serve as a moral compass, guiding me through life’s challenges and dilemmas.

Art and Expression

Art, in its many forms, is a powerful expression of my culture. It is a mirror reflecting society, a canvas depicting our dreams, fears, joys, and sorrows. Be it music, literature, dance, or visual arts, each piece is a thread in the intricate tapestry of my culture, adding depth, color, and texture to the narrative.

While cultures may vary enormously across the globe, they all share one thing in common: they are the lifeblood of human societies. They provide us with a sense of belonging and identity, and help us understand our place in the world. By cherishing and preserving our individual cultures, we contribute to the beautiful diversity of the human race.

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How to Write an Essay about Your Culture

Do you need to write an essay about your culture but don’t know where to start? You’ve come to the right place! I’m Constance, and I’ll show you how to write an essay about your culture. I’ll guide you step by step, and we’ll write a sample essay together. Let’s dive in. 

Writing an essay about your culture includes 5 steps:

Step 1. Plan how many words you want in each paragraph.

When you know the exact number of words you need for an essay, planning the word count for each paragraph will be much easier. 

For example, a 300-word essay typically consists of five paragraphs and three key elements:

• The introductory paragraph.
• Three body paragraphs.
• The conclusion, or the concluding paragraph.

Here’s a simple way to distribute 300 words across the five paragraphs in your essay:

You’ll get 300 when you add up these numbers. 

Step 2. Decide on what your main and supporting points will be.

First, you must take a stand, meaning you must decide on your main point. What do you really want to say about your culture? Whatever you want to say, that becomes your thesis. 

For example, “My culture is very rich.” That is enough to get started. You’ll get a better idea of how to expand or tweak your thesis after the next step.

Next, divide your topic using the Power of Three to prove the point that your culture is rich using three supporting ideas.

The Power of Three effectively divides an essay’s main idea into its supporting points. It means your main idea is true because of the three reasons you will provide in the body. So, it is a three-part structure that helps produce your body paragraphs .

Let’s try it for an essay about Filipino culture!

For example, here are three supporting ideas explaining the richness of Filipino culture:

• The Philippines has incredible food .
• Traditional Filipino clothing reflects the country’s heritage.
• Family values in the Philippines are essential.

Great! Now we have everything we need to write an essay about Filipino culture. We’re all set for the next step!

Step 3. Write your introductory paragraph.

Here are the key components of an introductory paragraph you need to remember in writing your essay:

Our first sentence is the introduction, which should pull our reader into the world we want to portray in our essay.

And the rest of the introductory paragraph is our thesis statement. It includes our main idea and three supporting points.

Example of an introductory paragraph about culture

“Having been colonized for centuries, the Philippines boasts a vast heritage. It has a rich culture characterized by food, clothing, and family values. Filipino culture has delicious food inherited from diverse parts of the world and periods of conquest. Traditional Filipino clothing reflects the country’s history, as well. And Filipinos prize their family values probably above all else.”

Look at how the introductory paragraph goes from a general statement to specific ideas that support our main idea.

Our introductory sentence is a general statement that serves as the opening in our essay. It briefly sets the essay’s context. Next comes the thesis statement — our main idea. Finally, we have three supporting ideas for our thesis.

Step 4. Write your essay’s body paragraphs.

Again, a 300-word essay typically has three body paragraphs containing your three supporting ideas. Here’s how to structure a body paragraph:

Looking back at our word count plan, we know that our body paragraphs should have roughly 70 words each. Remember your word plan as you write.

Body Paragraph 1

“The Philippines boasts a diverse food culture. It reflects indigenous flavors and foreign influences, such as American, Spanish, Indian, and Chinese. Whether it’s a typical or special day, Filipinos love eating these various dishes with rice, a staple. For example, rice goes well with curry, noodles, and adobo. It is also common to see various foods like pizza, pancit, lumpia, paella, (Filipino-style) sweet spaghetti, cakes, and ice cream at parties.”

As you can see, the first sentence in this body paragraph is a topic sentence . It gives context to the paragraph and briefly summarizes it.

The second sentence explains why the Philippine food culture is considered diverse. 

The remaining sentences illustrate your main point (topic sentence) by providing examples, starting with rice in sentence 3.

Body Paragraph 2

“Traditional Filipino clothing reflects Philippine cultural heritage. Although Filipinos now conform to current fashion trends in their everyday lives, the traditional clothing style is often used during celebrations. The traditional fashion sense exhibits influences from indigenous tribes, Chinese immigration waves, the Spaniards, and Americans, portraying the chronology of Philippine historical events. For example, the Philippines’ national costume, the baro’t saya, is an elegant blend of Spanish and Filipino clothing styles. Even some modernized forms of clothing also display other global influences.”

Just like Body Paragraph 1, this paragraph follows the same structure outlined in the diagram. It proceeds from a general statement to more specific points :

• The topic sentence.
• An explanation.

Body Paragraph 3

“Family values are vital in the Philippines. The daily lives of most Filipinos revolve around close and extended family, making them known for their family-oriented lifestyle even when they’re overseas. It’s common for children to live with their parents after reaching legal age; some even stay after getting married or obtaining a job. Filipinos also cherish their extended families (aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins) and hanging out or celebrating significant events together.”

Once again, this paragraph follows the body paragraph structure. Now, we’re all set for the final step — the conclusion.

Step 5. Write the conclusion.

The easiest way to write a concluding paragraph for your essay on your culture is to restate your main idea and its supporting points using different words. You can even paraphrase your introduction — a time-proven method!

Let’s write the conclusion for our essay.

“Because of its history, the Philippines has a rich, diverse culture rooted in a vast heritage. Filipino cuisine is a blend of indigenous and foreign flavors. The nation’s history is reflected in its traditional clothing. And family values display a distinct Filipino trait.”

Note that this conclusion uses different words to restate the points we’ve already made, including those in the body paragraphs. 

Hope this was helpful. Now go ahead and write an essay about your culture!

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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Cultural Identity Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

No matter where you study, composing essays of any type and complexity is a critical component in any studying program. Most likely, you have already been assigned the task to write a cultural identity essay, which is an essay that has to do a lot with your personality and cultural background. In essence, writing a cultural identity essay is fundamental for providing the reader with an understanding of who you are and which outlook you have. This may include the topics of religion, traditions, ethnicity, race, and so on. So, what shall you do to compose a winning cultural identity essay?

Cultural Identity Paper: Definitions, Goals & Topics 

Before starting off with a cultural identity essay, it is fundamental to uncover what is particular about this type of paper. First and foremost, it will be rather logical to begin with giving a general and straightforward definition of a cultural identity essay. In essence, cultural identity essay implies outlining the role of the culture in defining your outlook, shaping your personality, points of view regarding a multitude of matters, and forming your qualities and beliefs. Given a simpler definition, a cultural identity essay requires you to write about how culture has influenced your personality and yourself in general. So in this kind of essay you as a narrator need to give an understanding of who you are, which strengths you have, and what your solid life position is.

Yet, the goal of a cultural identity essay is not strictly limited to describing who you are and merely outlining your biography. Instead, this type of essay pursues specific objectives, achieving which is a perfect indicator of how high-quality your essay is. Initially, the primary goal implies outlining your cultural focus and why it makes you peculiar. For instance, if you are a french adolescent living in Canada, you may describe what is so special about it: traditions of the community, beliefs, opinions, approaches. Basically, you may talk about the principles of the society as well as its beliefs that made you become the person you are today.

So far, cultural identity is a rather broad topic, so you will likely have a multitude of fascinating ideas for your paper. For instance, some of the most attention-grabbing topics for a personal cultural identity essay are:

• Memorable traditions of your community
• A cultural event that has influenced your personality 
• Influential people in your community
• Locations and places that tell a lot about your culture and identity

Cultural Identity Essay Structure

As you might have already guessed, composing an essay on cultural identity might turn out to be fascinating but somewhat challenging. Even though the spectrum of topics is rather broad, the question of how to create the most appropriate and appealing structure remains open.

Like any other kind of an academic essay, a cultural identity essay must compose of three parts: introduction, body, and concluding remarks. Let’s take a more detailed look at each of the components:

Introduction 

Starting to write an essay is most likely one of the most time-consuming and mind-challenging procedures. Therefore, you can postpone writing your introduction and approach it right after you finish body paragraphs. Nevertheless, you should think of a suitable topic as well as come up with an explicit thesis. At the beginning of the introduction section, give some hints regarding the matter you are going to discuss. You have to mention your thesis statement after you have briefly guided the reader through the topic. You can also think of indicating some vital information about yourself, which is, of course, relevant to the topic you selected.

Your main body should reveal your ideas and arguments. Most likely, it will consist of 3-5 paragraphs that are more or less equal in size. What you have to keep in mind to compose a sound ‘my cultural identity essay’ is the argumentation. In particular, always remember to reveal an argument and back it up with evidence in each body paragraph. And, of course, try to stick to the topic and make sure that you answer the overall question that you stated in your topic. Besides, always keep your thesis statement in mind: make sure that none of its components is left without your attention and argumentation.

Conclusion 

Finally, after you are all finished with body paragraphs and introduction, briefly summarize all the points in your final remarks section. Paraphrase what you have already revealed in the main body, and make sure you logically lead the reader to the overall argument. Indicate your cultural identity once again and draw a bottom line regarding how your culture has influenced your personality.

Best Tips For Writing Cultural Identity Essay

Writing a ‘cultural identity essay about myself’ might be somewhat challenging at first. However, you will no longer struggle if you take a couple of plain tips into consideration. Following the tips below will give you some sound and reasonable cultural identity essay ideas as well as make the writing process much more pleasant:

• Start off by creating an outline. The reason why most students struggle with creating a cultural identity essay lies behind a weak structure. The best way to organize your ideas and let them flow logically is to come up with a helpful outline. Having a reference to build on is incredibly useful, and it allows your essay to look polished.
• Remember to write about yourself. The task of a cultural identity essay implies not focusing on your culture per se, but to talk about how it shaped your personality. So, switch your focus to describing who you are and what your attitudes and positions are. 
• Think of the most fundamental cultural aspects. Needless to say, you first need to come up with a couple of ideas to be based upon in your paper. So, brainstorm all the possible ideas and try to decide which of them deserve the most attention. In essence, try to determine which of the aspects affected your personality the most.
• Edit and proofread before submitting your paper. Of course, the content and the coherence of your essay’s structure play a crucial role. But the grammatical correctness matters a lot too. Even if you are a native speaker, you may still make accidental errors in the text. To avoid the situation when unintentional mistakes spoil the impression from your essay, always double check your cultural identity essay. 

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• How to Write a Diversity Essay | Tips & Examples

How to Write a Diversity Essay | Tips & Examples

Published on November 1, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Table of contents

What is a diversity essay, identify how you will enrich the campus community, share stories about your lived experience, explain how your background or identity has affected your life, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Diversity essays ask students to highlight an important aspect of their identity, background, culture, experience, viewpoints, beliefs, skills, passions, goals, etc.

Diversity essays can come in many forms. Some scholarships are offered specifically for students who come from an underrepresented background or identity in higher education. At highly competitive schools, supplemental diversity essays require students to address how they will enhance the student body with a unique perspective, identity, or background.

In the Common Application and applications for several other colleges, some main essay prompts ask about how your background, identity, or experience has affected you.

Why schools want a diversity essay

Many universities believe a student body representing different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community.

Through the diversity essay, admissions officers want students to articulate the following:

• What makes them different from other applicants
• Stories related to their background, identity, or experience
• How their unique lived experience has affected their outlook, activities, and goals

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Think about what aspects of your identity or background make you unique, and choose one that has significantly impacted your life.

For some students, it may be easy to identify what sets them apart from their peers. But if you’re having trouble identifying what makes you different from other applicants, consider your life from an outsider’s perspective. Don’t presume your lived experiences are normal or boring just because you’re used to them.

Some examples of identities or experiences that you might write about include the following:

• Race/ethnicity
• Gender identity
• Sexual orientation
• Nationality
• Socioeconomic status
• Immigration background
• Religion/belief system
• Place of residence
• Family circumstances
• Extracurricular activities related to diversity

Include vulnerable, authentic stories about your lived experiences. Maintain focus on your experience rather than going into too much detail comparing yourself to others or describing their experiences.

Keep the focus on you

Tell a story about how your background, identity, or experience has impacted you. While you can briefly mention another person’s experience to provide context, be sure to keep the essay focused on you. Admissions officers are mostly interested in learning about your lived experience, not anyone else’s.

When I was a baby, my grandmother took me in, even though that meant postponing her retirement and continuing to work full-time at the local hairdresser. Even working every shift she could, she never missed a single school play or soccer game.

She and I had a really special bond, even creating our own special language to leave each other secret notes and messages. She always pushed me to succeed in school, and celebrated every academic achievement like it was worthy of a Nobel Prize. Every month, any leftover tip money she received at work went to a special 509 savings plan for my college education.

When I was in the 10th grade, my grandmother was diagnosed with ALS. We didn’t have health insurance, and what began with quitting soccer eventually led to dropping out of school as her condition worsened. In between her doctor’s appointments, keeping the house tidy, and keeping her comfortable, I took advantage of those few free moments to study for the GED.

In school pictures at Raleigh Elementary School, you could immediately spot me as “that Asian girl.” At lunch, I used to bring leftover fun see noodles, but after my classmates remarked how they smelled disgusting, I begged my mom to make a “regular” lunch of sliced bread, mayonnaise, and deli meat.

Although born and raised in North Carolina, I felt a cultural obligation to learn my “mother tongue” and reconnect with my “homeland.” After two years of all-day Saturday Chinese school, I finally visited Beijing for the first time, expecting I would finally belong. While my face initially assured locals of my Chinese identity, the moment I spoke, my cover was blown. My Chinese was littered with tonal errors, and I was instantly labeled as an “ABC,” American-born Chinese.

I felt culturally homeless.

Speak from your own experience

Highlight your actions, difficulties, and feelings rather than comparing yourself to others. While it may be tempting to write about how you have been more or less fortunate than those around you, keep the focus on you and your unique experiences, as shown below.

I began to despair when the FAFSA website once again filled with red error messages.

I had been at the local library for hours and hadn’t even been able to finish the form, much less the other to-do items for my application.

I am the first person in my family to even consider going to college. My parents work two jobs each, but even then, it’s sometimes very hard to make ends meet. Rather than playing soccer or competing in speech and debate, I help my family by taking care of my younger siblings after school and on the weekends.

“We only speak one language here. Speak proper English!” roared a store owner when I had attempted to buy bread and accidentally used the wrong preposition.

In middle school, I had relentlessly studied English grammar textbooks and received the highest marks.

Leaving Seoul was hard, but living in West Orange, New Jersey was much harder一especially navigating everyday communication with Americans.

After sharing relevant personal stories, make sure to provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your perspective, activities, and goals. You should also explain how your background led you to apply to this university and why you’re a good fit.

Include your outlook, actions, and goals

Conclude your essay with an insight about how your background or identity has affected your outlook, actions, and goals. You should include specific actions and activities that you have done as a result of your insight.

One night, before the midnight premiere of Avengers: Endgame , I stopped by my best friend Maria’s house. Her mother prepared tamales, churros, and Mexican hot chocolate, packing them all neatly in an Igloo lunch box. As we sat in the line snaking around the AMC theater, I thought back to when Maria and I took salsa classes together and when we belted out Selena’s “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” at karaoke. In that moment, as I munched on a chicken tamale, I realized how much I admired the beauty, complexity, and joy in Maria’s culture but had suppressed and devalued my own.

The following semester, I joined Model UN. Since then, I have learned how to proudly represent other countries and have gained cultural perspectives other than my own. I now understand that all cultures, including my own, are equal. I still struggle with small triggers, like when I go through airport security and feel a suspicious glance toward me, or when I feel self-conscious for bringing kabsa to school lunch. But in the future, I hope to study and work in international relations to continue learning about other cultures and impart a positive impression of Saudi culture to the world.

The smell of the early morning dew and the welcoming whinnies of my family’s horses are some of my most treasured childhood memories. To this day, our farm remains so rural that we do not have broadband access, and we’re too far away from the closest town for the postal service to reach us.

Going to school regularly was always a struggle: between the unceasing demands of the farm and our lack of connectivity, it was hard to keep up with my studies. Despite being a voracious reader, avid amateur chemist, and active participant in the classroom, emergencies and unforeseen events at the farm meant that I had a lot of unexcused absences.

Although it had challenges, my upbringing taught me resilience, the value of hard work, and the importance of family. Staying up all night to watch a foal being born, successfully saving the animals from a minor fire, and finding ways to soothe a nervous mare afraid of thunder have led to an unbreakable family bond.

Our farm is my family’s birthright and our livelihood, and I am eager to learn how to ensure the farm’s financial and technological success for future generations. In college, I am looking forward to joining a chapter of Future Farmers of America and studying agricultural business to carry my family’s legacy forward.

Tailor your answer to the university

After explaining how your identity or background will enrich the university’s existing student body, you can mention the university organizations, groups, or courses in which you’re interested.

Maybe a larger public school setting will allow you to broaden your community, or a small liberal arts college has a specialized program that will give you space to discover your voice and identity. Perhaps this particular university has an active affinity group you’d like to join.

Demonstrating how a university’s specific programs or clubs are relevant to you can show that you’ve done your research and would be a great addition to the university.

At the University of Michigan Engineering, I want to study engineering not only to emulate my mother’s achievements and strength, but also to forge my own path as an engineer with disabilities. I appreciate the University of Michigan’s long-standing dedication to supporting students with disabilities in ways ranging from accessible housing to assistive technology. At the University of Michigan Engineering, I want to receive a top-notch education and use it to inspire others to strive for their best, regardless of their circumstances.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

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• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

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• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
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In addition to your main college essay , some schools and scholarships may ask for a supplementary essay focused on an aspect of your identity or background. This is sometimes called a diversity essay .

Many universities believe a student body composed of different perspectives, beliefs, identities, and backgrounds will enhance the campus learning and community experience.

Admissions officers are interested in hearing about how your unique background, identity, beliefs, culture, or characteristics will enrich the campus community, which is why they assign a diversity essay .

To write an effective diversity essay , include vulnerable, authentic stories about your unique identity, background, or perspective. Provide insight into how your lived experience has influenced your outlook, activities, and goals. If relevant, you should also mention how your background has led you to apply for this university and why you’re a good fit.

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Essays about Culture and Identity: 9 Examples And Prompts

Writing essays about culture and identity will help you explore your understanding of it. Here are examples that will give you inspiration for your next essay .

Culture can refer to customs, traditions, beliefs, lifestyles, laws, artistic expressions, and other elements that cultivate the collective identity. Different cultures are established across nations, regions, communities, and social groups. They are passed on from generation to generation while others evolve or are abolished to give way to modern beliefs and systems.

While our cultural identity begins at home, it changes as we involve ourselves with other groups (friends, educational institutions, social media communities, political groups, etc.) Culture is a very relatable subject as every person is part of a culture or at least can identify with one. Because it spans broad coverage, there are several interesting cultural subjects to write about.

Our culture and identity are dynamic. This is why you may find it challenging to write about it. To spark your inspiration , check out our picks of the best culture essays. 

1. Sweetness and Light by Matthew Arnolds

2. how auto-tune revolutionized the sound of popular music by simon reynolds, 3. how immigration changes language by john mcwhorter, 4. the comfort zone: growing up with charlie brown by jonathan franzen, 5. culture and identity definition by sandra graham, 6. how culture and surroundings influence identity by jeanette lucas, 7. how the food we eat reflects our culture and identity by sophia stephens, 8. identity and culture: my identity, culture, and identity by april casas, 9. how america hinders the cultural identity of their own citizens by seth luna, 1. answer the question, “who am i”, 2. causes of culture shock, 3. your thoughts on dystopia and utopia, 4. gender inequality from a global perspective, 5. the most interesting things you learned from other cultures, 6. the relationship between cultural identity and clothes, 7. describe your culture, 8. what is the importance of honoring your roots , 9. how can a person adapt to a new culture, 10. what artistic works best express your country’s culture, 11. how has social media influenced human interaction, 12. how do you protect the cultures of indigenous peoples, 13. are k-pop and k-drama sensations effectively promoting korea’s culture , 14. what is the importance of cultural diversity.

“… [A]nd when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,—has good in it, and more good than bad.”

Arnolds compels a re-examination of values at a time when England is leading global industrialization and beginning to believe that greatness is founded on material progress. 

The author elaborates why culture, the strive for a standard of perfection, is not merely driven by scientific passions and, more so, by materialistic affluence. As he esteems religion as “that voice of the deepest human experience” to harmonize men in establishing that ideal society, Arnolds stresses that culture is the effort to “make reason and the will of God prevail” while humanizing gained knowledge to be society’s source of “sweetness and light.”

“Few innovations in sound production have been simultaneously so reviled and so revolutionary. Epoch-defining or epoch-defacing, Auto-Tune is indisputably the sound of the 21st century so far.”

Reynolds shows how Auto-Tune has shaped a pop music genre that has cut across cultures. The article maps out the music landscape Auto-Tune created and examines its impact on the culture of song productions and the modern taste for music. While the author debunks accusations that Auto-Tune destroyed the “natural” process of creating music, he also points out that the technology earned its reverence with big thanks to society’s current custom of using technology to hide blemishes and other imperfections.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about culture shock .

“… [T]he heavy immigration that countries like Italy are experiencing will almost certainly birth new kinds of Italian that are rich with slang , somewhat less elaborate than the standard, and… widely considered signs of linguistic deterioration, heralding a future where the “original” standard language no longer exists.”

American linguist McWhorter pacifies fears over the death of “standard” languages amid the wave of immigration to Europe. On the contrary, language is a vital expression of a culture, and for some, preserving is tantamount to upholding a cultural standard. 

However, instead of seeing the rise of new “multiethnolects” such as the Black English in America and Kiezdeutsch in Germany as threats to language and culture, McWhorter sees them as a new way to communicate and better understand the social groups that forayed these new languages.

“I wonder why “cartoonish” remains such a pejorative. It took me half my life to achieve seeing my parents as cartoons. And to become more perfectly a cartoon myself: what a victory that would be.”

This essay begins with a huge fight between Franzen’s brother and father to show how the cultural generation gap sweeping the 60s has hit closer to home. This generation gap, where young adults were rejecting the elders’ old ways in pursuit of a new and better culture, will also be the reason why his family ends up drifting apart. Throughout the essay , Franzen treads this difficult phase in his youth while narrating fondly how Peanuts, a pop culture icon at the time, was his source of escape. 

“…Culture is… your background… and Identity is formed where you belong to… Leopold Sedar Senghor and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim both talks about how culture and identity can impact… society…”

In this essay , Graham uses “To New York” by Senghor and “Learning To Love America” by Lim as two pieces of literature that effectively describe the role of culture and identity to traveling individuals. 

The author refers to Sengho’s reminder that people can adapt but must not forget their culture even if they go to a different place or country. On the other hand, Lim discusses immigrants’ struggle to have double identities.

“Culture is something that surrounds all of us and progress to shape our lives every day… Identity is illustrated as the state of mind in which someone or something distinguishes their own character traits that lead to determining who they really are, what they represent.”

Lucas is keen on giving examples of how his culture and surroundings influence an individual’s identity. She refers to Kothari’s “If you are what you eat, then what am I?” which discusses Kothari’s search for her identity depending on what food she eats. Food defines a person’s culture and identity, so Kothari believes that eating food from different countries will change his identity.

Lucas also refers to “Down These Mean Streets” by Piri Thomas, which argues how different cultural and environmental factors affect us. Because of what we encounter, there is a possibility that we will become someone who we are not. 

“What we grow is who we are. What we buy is who we are. What we eat is who we are.”

Stephens’ essay teaches its readers that the food we grow and eat defines us as a person. She explains that growing a crop and harvesting it takes a lot of effort, dedication, and patience, which mirrors our identity. 

Another metaphor she used is planting rice: it takes skills and knowledge to make it grow. Cooking rice is more accessible than cultivating it – you can quickly cook rice by boiling it in water. This reflects people rich in culture and tradition but who lives simpler life. 

“Every single one has their own unique identity and culture. Culture plays a big role in shaping your identity. Culture is what made me the person I am today and determines who or what I choose to associate myself with.”

Casas starts her piece by questioning who she is. In trying to learn and define who she is, she writes down and describes herself and her personality throughout the essay . Finally, she concludes that her culture is a big part of her identity, and she must understand it to understand herself.

“When it comes to these stereotypes we place on each other, a lot of the time, we succumb to the stereotypes given to us. And our cultural identity is shaped by these expectations and labels others give us. That is why negative stereotypes sometimes become true for a whole group or community.”

In this essay , Luna talks about how negative stereotyping in the United States led to moral distortion. For example, Americans are assumed to be ignorant of other countries’ cultures, making it difficult to understand other people’s cultures and lifestyles. 

She believes that stereotyping can significantly affect an individual or group’s identity. She suggests Americans should improve their intellectual competence by being sensitive to other people’s cultures.

14 Prompts on Essays about Culture and Identity

You can discuss many things on the subject of culture and identity. To give you a starting point, here are some prompts to help you write an exciting essay about culture. 

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips and our round-up of the best essay checkers .

Understanding your personality is vital since continuous interaction with others can affect your personality. Write about your culture and identity; what is your personality? How do you define yourself? Everyone is unique, so by writing an essay about who you are, you’ll be able to understand why you act a certain way and connect with readers who have the same values. 

Here’s a guide on writing a descriptive essay to effectively relay your experience to your readers.

Sometimes, people need to get out of their comfort zone and interact with other individuals with different cultures, beliefs, or traditions. This is to broaden one’s perspective about the world. Aside from discussing what you’ve learned in that journey, you can also focus on the bits that shocked you. 

You can talk about a tradition or value that you found so bizarre because it differs from your culture. Then add how you processed it and finally adapted to it.

Dystopia and Utopia are both imagined worlds. Dystopia is a world where people live in the worst or most unfavorable conditions, while Utopia is the opposite. 

You can write an essay about what you think a Dystopian or Utopian world may look like, how these societies will affect their citizens, etc. Then, consider what personality citizens of each world may have to depend on the two worlds’ cultures.

Today, more and more people are fighting for others to accept or at least respect the LGBTQ+ community. However, countries, territories, and religions still question their rights.

In your essay , you can talk about why these institutions react the way they do and how culture dictates someone’s identity in the wrong way. Before creating your own, feel free to read other essays and articles to learn more about the global gender inequality issue. 

The world has diverse cultures, traditions, and values. When you travel to a new place, learning and writing about your firsthand experiences with unique cultures and rituals will always be an interesting read.

In this prompt, you’ll research other cultures and how they shaped their group’s identity. Then, write about the most exciting aspects you’ve learned, why you found them fascinating, and how they differ from your culture.

Those proud of their culture will wear clothes inspired by them. Some wear the same clothes even if they aren’t from the same culture. The debate over cultural appropriation and culture appreciation is still a hot topic. 

In this essay , you may start with the traditions of your community or observances your family celebrates and gathers for. Then, elaborate on their origins and describe how your community or family is preserving these practices. 

Learning about your roots, ancestors, and family cultures can help strengthen your understanding of your identity and foster respect for other cultures. Explore this topic and offer examples of what others have learned. Has the journey always been a positive experience? Delve into this question for an engaging and interesting essay .

When a person moves country, it can be challenging to adapt to a new culture. If there are new people at work or school, you can interview them and ask how they are coping with their new environment. How different is this from what they have been used to, and what unique traditions do they find interesting?

Focus on an art piece that is a source of pride and identity to your country’s culture, much like the Tinikling of the Philippines or the Matryoshka dolls of Russia. Explore its origins and evolution up to its current manifestation and highlight efforts that are striving to protect and promote these artistic works.

The older generation did not have computers in their teen years. Ask about how they dated in their younger years and how they made friends. Contrast how the younger generation is building their social networks today. Write what culture of socialization works better for you and explain why.

Take in-depth navigation of existing policies that protect indigenous peoples. Are they sufficient to serve these communities needs, and are they being implemented effectively? There is also the challenge of balancing the protection of these traditions against the need to protect the environment, as some indigenous practices add to the carbon footprint. How is your government dealing with this challenge?

A large population is now riding the Hallyu or the Korean pop culture, with many falling in love with the artists and Korea’s food, language, and traditional events. Research how certain Korean films, TV series, or music have effectively attracted fans to experience Korea’s culture. Write about what countries can learn from Korea in promoting their own cultures.

Environments that embrace cultural diversity are productive and innovative. To start your essay , assess how diverse your workplace or school is. Then, write your personal experiences where working with co-workers or classmates from different cultures led to new and innovative ideas and projects. Combine this with the personal experiences of your boss or the principal to see how your environment benefits from hosting a melting pot of cultures.

If you aim for your article to effectively change readers’ perspectives and align with your opinion, read our guide to achieving persuasive writing . 

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My Cultural Identity Essay: A Guide to Writing about Who You are

October 12, 2015

A cultural identity essay is a paper that you write exploring and explaining how your place of upbringing, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, and family dynamics among other factors created your identity as a person. Even facts such as what activities you took part in as a child can be part of your cultural identity. Your culture identity is ultimately the group of people that you feel that you identify with. The thought process behind this is known as cultural identity theory. To get a better idea of this, take a look at this single paragraph blurb of information that you might see in a culture identity essay. After reading, you can easily  write my paper  and feel comfortable getting grades as high as you can imagine.

Tired of searching something you need reading blogs? We care about your time and money! Use this 15% OFF Discount on any service you need and save your time now!

I was born in rural Missouri, but my family moved to St. Louis before I was a year old. My mother is 100 percent Irish and comes from a family that identifies very strongly with Irish culture. My father is Middle Eastern, but was adopted by an English family who moved to the United States when he was 5. We lived in a pretty big house in a subdivision. My parents had two more kids after me, they were both boys as well. My father wasn't religious, but my mom was a practicing Catholic. She went to mass every week. My brothers and I both had first communion and were confirmed, but stopped going to church as teenagers. We weren't really encouraged to play sports because our parents thought we should focus on our studies. They really emphasized math and science. I did well in these classes, but I didn't enjoy them. In high school, I became active in music and theater. Most of my friends were also into that as well. I earned a scholarship to study engineering on the East Coast, but I dropped out as a sophomore. I returned home to study music, needless to say my parents were disappointed. My brothers both pursued careers in technical fields. One is a mechanical engineer and the other is a software engineer. I am close with my family, but we do not have much in common. My circle of friends is fairly varied when it comes to race, ethnicity, religion, and economic background, but it consists almost entirely of people who are artists, musicians, writers, or people involved in those industries.

Keep in mind that your essay samples may look nothing like this. In our example, the writers choice of career, talents, and interests influenced his cultural identity more than his religious, ethnic background, or family values did. This may not be the case for you. Remember that when you are writing your paper there are no wrong answers. You just have to ask yourself insightful questions and keep the theory of cultural identity in mind as you write. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• How did the foods I ate as a child influence my identity
• Did I look different from the kids I went to school with? How did that impact me?
• Did birth order influence who I am as an adult?
• Does my life today match the life I was raised in?

While being committed to a number of charitable causes, like volunteering at special events or giving free art lessons to children, Marie doesn’t forget her vocation – writing. She can write about almost anything but has focused on time management, motivation, academic and business writing.

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October 12 2015

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612 Culture Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

If you are writing a culture essay, topics are easy to find. However, their abundance can quickly become overwhelming – so we prepared this handy list of culture title ideas, along with writing tips and examples.

🤫 Culture Essays: Topics and Writing Tips

🏆 best culture topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics about culture, 🎓 simple & easy culture title ideas, 📌 cultural topics and writing prompts, 🥇 most interesting culture topics to write about, ❓ research questions about culture.

Describing culture is a challenging task. You have probably stumbled across the concept if you study sociology, media, or a variety of other subjects. There are many cultural differences across the Earth. Each nation, community, and subgroup of people have its own values, vocabulary, and customs. In the 21st century, we can document and share them thanks to cross-cultural communication.

Since there is an almost infinite number of things to consider about this broad topic, our team has collected 582 topics about culture. Check them out on this page!

Culture essays present excellent opportunities for conducting extensive research. They allow students to analyze acute global problems and investigate the topic of diversity, customs, and traditions, as well as the significance of individuals’ cultural backgrounds. You can choose one of the many topics for your culture essay. You can find culture essay ideas online or ask your professor.

We suggest the following culture essay topics and titles:

• The significance of cultural identity in an individual
• Culture as a political instrument in the modern world
• The differences between the Eastern and the Western culture
• The role of culture in people from mixed origins
• The impact of religious views on culture
• Cultural diversity in the workplace
• Are there similarities among different cultures?
• The link between culture and gender roles

After selecting culture essay questions for discussion, you can start working on your paper. Here are some secrets of the powerful paper on the topic:

• Conduct preliminary research on the selected issue. Remember that you should find as much relevant information as possible while presenting a multifaceted perspective on the issue. Ask your professor about the sources you can use and stick to the instructions. Avoid using personal blogs or Wikipedia as the primary sources of information. Do not make a statement if you cannot support it with evidence.
• If you are writing a paper about a particular culture, think about whether you can talk to someone coming from this background. Such an approach can help you to include all the relevant information in your paper and avoid possible crucial mistakes.
• Remember that a well-organized culture essay outline is key for your paper. Think of the main points you want to discuss and decide how you structure your paper. Remember that each topic or subtopic should be stated in a separate paragraph, if possible.
• If it is necessary, check out essay examples online to see how you can organize the information. In addition, this step can help you to evaluate the relevance of the issue you want to discuss. Remember to include an introductory and concluding paragraph in which you will state the main points and findings of your paper.
• Avoid discriminating against some cultures in your essay. Remember that even if you do not understand the causes of some behaviors or norms, you should not criticize them in your paper. Instead, help the reader to understand them better and provide insight into important differences between cultures.
• Be accepting and try to be as accurate as possible. Support your claims with evidence from your preliminary research.
• If relevant, include graphs and charts to represent significant information. For example, you can visualize the presence of diversity in the workplace in different countries.
• Remember that the reader should understand the goal and idea of your paper clearly. Define all terms and avoid using overly complex sentences. Be concise but provide enough relevant information on the topic.
• Make sure that you use correct grammar and sentence structures in your essay. Even an excellent essay can look bad with grammatical mistakes. Grammar-free papers allow the reader to see that your opinion is credible. Check the essay several times before sending it to your instructor.

Do not forget to find a free sample in our collection that will help you get the best ideas for your writing!

• How Does Media Influence Culture and Society? The media has been instrumental in trying to explain to the people the meaning of culture and in the end enabling them to have a cultural identity.
• How Do Celebrities Influence Society? Celebrity Culture Positive Effects Introduction Negative Effects Positive Effects Conclusion Student Name Professor Name Course Date
• There Is No Place for Traditional Values in Modern Society Essay The value of culture in society is rapidly fading away as people continue to adjust to the patterns of modernisation. Modernisation, on the other hand, is the process of adopting new trends of life in […]
• Raymond Williams’ “Culture Is Ordinary” Williams discusses the Marxist’s ideas on the interpretation and discussion of the culture and disagrees with some of the raised views.
• Is Culture Essential? The Role of Culture in Human Life Culture is an integral part of human life, and its significance may be observed from several perspectives: as a powerful means for people to adapt to the environment they have to live in, as a […]
• Relationship Between Language and Culture Essay The purpose of the essay is to clearly highlight the issue of intercultural communication with reference to language. Language is the first element that helps an individual to distinguish the cultural orientations of individuals.
• 6 Barriers of Intercultural Communication Essay Cross cultural or intercultural communication is a part of the interaction of different people from different backgrounds and heritages. In this way, prejudice is inevitable blockage of cross-cultural communication as it is a source to […]
• Impact of Culture on Communication Reflective Essay And also the differential consideration by the society to men and women, the approach of people in the lower strata of the society towards the social difference and the attitude of people to avoid uncertainty […]
• What Is Popular Culture? Definition and Analysis Therefore, Storey observes that the incorporation of the true meaning of the word culture as a way of life and culture should be in the form of ‘signifying practices’ named above.
• Filipino Food Essay However, because of the Spanish and American influence, meat, especially pork and chicken, are also served. So, Philippines is a country of festivals and a diversity of traditional dishes and beverages.
• Festivals and Their Importance for Modern Culture Thematic festivals are trendy and vital for today’s culture: different music festivals, art and design festivals, and even sex festivals. Modern-day festivals are widespread around the Earth, and they often combine the elements of local […]
• James Rachels’ The Challenge of Cultural Relativism Essay The article “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” by Rachels explores the issue of ethics. According to Rachels, cultural relativism fails to support the existence of universal moral standards.
• Culture and Anarchy by Mathew Arnold This is due to the lack of awareness to the new culture. The entire book of Arnold takes culture as collection of everything what is the best and perfect in the world.
• UAE and Culture UAE’s society is multicultural. UAE culture has been defined by the Islamic religion as it is the most dominant in the region.
• Cancel Culture: The Adverse Impacts Only recently, Gen Z created the term cancel culture to refer to the modern form of public shaming. Topic Sentence: The increased awareness of cancel culture has promoted sudden judgments and simplified complex problems.
• Culture in Human Behavior Essay The act of changing a culture can only be minimal because of the complexities of the study complexity Culture, serving as a categorical idea of people, is a school of thought that has anthropologists all […]
• Social Cultural Impacts of Tourism The tourist-host relationship and thus the social cultural impact of tourism is affected by the differences between tourists and hosts, the type of contact between tourists and hosts, the importance of tourism in a community, […]
• Food Habits and Culture: Factors Influence The food habits of a group of people/community can be described as the reasons for eating, the methods used while eating, the types of food eaten, and the mode of storage.
• Attend a Cultural Event: Different Ethnic Communities’ Identities The warm and incredible welcome of the Turkish citizens adds spice to this event and helps the visitors to be more enthusiastic throughout the festival.
• Cultural Influences on Students Academic Performance Indeed as the definition is rightly put, practicing our culture is akin to cultivating our lives, with the help of tools and symbols that the society has bestowed on us. Others are of the opinion […]
• The Advantages of Living in a Multicultural City Living in a multicultural city provides one with multiple benefits such as having opportunities to learn about other cultures, developing a better understanding of different cultures, and having more chances to improve one’s personality.
• Tolerance and Respect for Cultural Differences The author concludes the essay in the third section by revisiting the thesis statement and highlighting the various approaches used to develop attitudes that promote respect and tolerance.
• Celebrity Culture Is Harmful to Society In this paper, it is argued that celebrity culture is harmful to society because of its effects on childhood development and the glorification of wrong behaviors based on its tendency to nurture bad role models.
• Culture in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe I also kill a cock at the shrine of Ifejioku, the god of yams” Ibo culture is shown through the world look of the Western society that is why the aspect of behavioral brutality was […]
• Cultural Comparison: The United States of America and Japan First of all, it is important to note that both the United States of America and Japan have notable similarities as far as their cultures are concerned.
• Pakistan: Culture and History Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a large culturally diverse country located at the crossroads of the strategically significant expanses of South Asia, Central Asia and Western Asia, and borders Afghanistan and Iran […]
• Zara: Corporate Structure and Culture In Luthans, due to the large size and diversity of the organization, Zara has departmentalized itself in terms of the services and products it offers in the market.
• Four Types of Corporate Management Culture After studying such aspects of the work of large organizations as the relationship between employees, the subordination system in the company, and employees’ attitudes and views on the development of the MNCs, Trompenaars states that […]
• Nok Culture’s Main Characteristic Features One of the most significant pieces of art is the Nok art, a testament of the Nok culture. Discovery of the sculptures in 1943 indicate the use of iron, the practice of smelting for tools […]
• Pashtun Culture: Cultural Presentation This presentation will overview one of such groups – the Pashtun culture and the challenges a nurse may face working with its representatives.
• Cultural Diversity in the UAE: Social and Economic Development This view is in line with Rabah’s emphasis on the importance of respecting cultural diversity in the process of nation-building because the concept is useful in solving conflicts and developing solutions that are beneficial to […]
• Chinese Traditional Festivals and Culture Of all the Chinese festivals, the Spring Festival has the greatest value to the Chinese people with its value equated to the value of the Westerners attachment to Christmas.
• Apple’s Cross-Cultural Problems in China In the case of Apple, the main issues have to do with employee management issues mostly associated with working conditions and compliance to Chinese labor laws.
• Religion and Cultural Belonging: “The Flea Palace” by Elif Shafak The old and the new, the Christianity and Islam, the East and the West are shown closely interconnected for example in the description of the two ancient cemeteries in Istanbul and in the development of […]
• McDonald’s Cultural Issues in India Some of the issues which are discussed include Mcdonald’s historical background, the cultural and ethical issues at the organization’s operations, and the social responsibility issues in different regions where the organization has operations.
• USA And Nigeria: Hofstede’s Six Cultural Dimensions Comparison Considering the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, the U.S.and Nigeria are similar in terms of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long- term orientation, the half of all the suggested factors by Baack.
• Globalization and Food Culture Essay The interviewee gave the examples of France, America, and China in her description of how food can affect the culture of a place and vice versa.
• Coca-Cola Company’s Cross-Cultural Management The company also possesses a vision, which is a guiding factor to the units of the business, which is achieved by laying out whatever they need to achieve in order to sustain their progress and […]
• Power and Culture: Relationship and Effects The relational determination in a particular society is a product of the role and function of power in a designated society.
• The Literature of the Renaissance Period The main features of the Renaissance culture which also determine the elements of the Renaissance literature are the philosophy of humanism, the secular character of the art pieces, and the orientation on the antique patterns.
• Importance of Cultural Diversity Campaigns such as the Black Lives Matter may be attributed to lack of inclusion and appreciation of different cultures. For instance, the discussion of inclusivity in the 1970s focused on primary and secondary dimensions of […]
• Egypt’s History, Culture, Religion, and Economy Over the next three millennia, Egypt would see the rise and fall of several civilizations, including the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom.
• Cultural Competence: Indian Culture and Healthcare They also believed that, the disease was heredity and that if one member of the family suffered from one of the diseases, chances that somebody from the same family would contract the disease are high.
• Celebrity Culture and Its Influence on Society Before discussing the way Angelina Jolie and other celebrities affect modern society, it is necessary to identify the origins of the celebrity culture.
• Japan vs. Germany: Cultural Differences The first aspect of the matter is people’s activity in Japan and Germany within businesses as determined by culture and their habits and preferences in terms of distinguishing their work time and families.
• Heritage Tourism and Cultural Tourism In the preservation of the sites for tourism purposes, it is clear that what is termed as the “culture of today” becomes the heritage of the future. There is a need to unveil the complexity […]
• The Luo Culture of Kenya The Luo people are the indigenous people of Kenya living around lake Victoria, which lies in the western part of the country.
• The Mughal Empire: Culture and Heritage The combination of the regions’ economic independence, the tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and the penetration of the subcontinent by the European economic powers led to the decline of the Mughal Empire.
• Intercultural Communication Essay: Differences in Cultural, Religious, and Ethnic Backgrounds Identity management theories are also a form of intercultural communication theory developed to explain the cross-cultural aspect of communication where intercultural communication under this theory is seen to originate from the intercultural and intracultural types […]
• Indian Custom and Culture Community For example, there were various activities used to illustrate this marking, and these would include invitation and welcoming of the bridegroom, exchange of flower garlands, presentation of the would-be wife, the ceremony of the sacred […]
• Cross-Cultural Management Major Theories The study of different languages helps one in comprehending what people have in common and also assist in comprehending the diversity that underlies languages, methods of creating and organizing knowledge and the several different realities […]
• The United States of America’s Culture These are however just general views on what the American culture really is, the next section of this paper will go to the specifics, and zero in into the following factors that determine the true […]
• Amazon Corporate Culture Issues Term Paper Problem Scenario: Amazon’s employees report about multiple cases of workplace disregard, the lack of benefits and praise as well as unfair ranking system that creates the need to analyze the corporate culture of the organization […]
• Porsche’s Strategy, Structure, and Culture The change of the legal form of the company allowed other people who were not members of the Porsche family to become members of the Executive Board of the company.
• Wal-Mart Company’s Cross Cultural Communication This system of operation has resulted in one of the labor activists called Wang Shishu led demonstrations in order to convince the management not to cut the pay of the employees.
• The Influence of Ramayana on the Indian Culture If one considers the image provided in the work with the work itself, one notices the detailed depiction of the life and activities of the protagonist.
• The Bhagavad Gita: The Role of Religion in Relation to the Hindu Culture From this point, it is important to focus on the Bhagavad Gita and its role for the Hindu culture in the context of the role of religion in the Hindu society because the scripture contains […]
• Reasons for Not Appreciating Different Cultural Point of View One of the reasons why people may not appreciate the cultural point of view of others is because of the differences in cultural values.
• Diverse Contexts and Intercultural Communication at Work As the world moves to the global environment, the modern workplace becomes more and more diverse. When individuals are educated about intercultural differences are more likely to alter their communication styles to suit the needs […]
• Cultural Differences Between Turkey and USA Spanish, Polish and Greek languages are also part of the oral communication of the people in America. The use of suffixes in Turkish language is very important and we can feel the grammatical functions of […]
• The Effect of Globalization on a World Culture The net result is a global culture; the effect and extent that global culture has gone in the world varied among nations and continents; developed countries have their culture more diffused and uniformity can be […]
• The Zulu Nation’s History and Culture The Zulu people live on the continent of Africa, in the southern part of it, which is known as KwaZulu-Natal. In this family, the husband stands for the chief, and institution of marriage is hallowed.
• The Jarawa People and Their Culture One of the most interesting areas of study not only to the anthropologists but also to the modern and contemporary human race is culture.
• The Kikuyu Community: Religion and Culture The community speaks the Kikuyu language. Kenya’s Kikuyu people are the most popular and largest ethnic group.
• Birthing Traditions and Practices Among Russian-Speaking Cultural Group Many things about Russia, its people, and its traditions remain a mystery for the average American, as a history of geopolitical and military confrontation, as well as the distance between the two countries, cause many […]
• The Importance of Organizational Culture Essay Organizational culture and change is most valuable to an aspiring manager because it they form the basis of organizational success. It is imperative for managers to introduce change in the organization to encourage innovation and […]
• Culture and Development in Nigeria The following are some of the organizations that are concerned with cultural developments in Nigeria:- The African development bank is involved in major activities in the water sector and in sanitation projects across Nigeria.
• Campinha-Bacote’s Model of Cultural Competence It is valid to specify that the original title of the model is the Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Healthcare Services.
• Japanese Animations’ Effects on the Japanese Economy and Their Cultural Influence on Foreign Countries These artists incorporate the characteristic anime stylizations, gags and methodology in their piece of work to produce animations that are a bit similar to Japanese anime. The growing interest among foreign artists in anime is […]
• Comparison of US and Germany Cultural Differences Power distance is the degree to which power is shared evenly in a community as well as the extent in which the community recognize and accepts this variation in power distribution among itself; this is […]
• Cultural Norms: Fair and Lovely and Advertising Is the advertising of Fair & Lovely demeaning to women or is it portraying a product not too similar to cosmetics in general?
• Philippines Dressing Culture and Customs The country borders South China Sea to the North and West, the Sulu Sea and Celebs Sea to the southwest, and the Philippines Sea to the east.
• The Nature of People and Culture The first key point is the understanding that culture is the framework of life and influences the aspects of life for every individual.
• Managing Cultural Diversity: A Case Analysis of Hilton Hotels Corporation The hospitality industry, in particular, is at the core of recent developments in globalization and labor migration as can be witnessed by the increasing mobility of the workforce and attempts within the industry to expand […]
• How to Avoid Ethnocentrism – Essay on Promoting Cultural Relativism In an effort to understand ethnocentrism which is defined as, the tendency to believe that one’s cultural beliefs and their culture’s ethnic values to be superior to others.
• Cancel Culture: A Persuasive Speech Cancel culture is a phenomenon of modern society that has arisen thanks to the development of social media. However, in this situation, it is difficult to determine who sets the boundaries of the morally correct […]
• Managing Cultural Diversity in the Hospitality Industry This is common due to confusion and the inability to interact with others in the society. This refers to the level of integration in the society.
• Importance of Cross-Cultural Management in International Business As earlier pointed out, a vital requirement for success in an international business setup is the ability of managers to comprehend and appreciate other cultures across the world.
• Political and Cultural Impact of Alexander the Great’s Conquests Due to many territories that he conquered, the dominion that Alexander the Great had was regarded as one of the greatest in the history of the world.
• Social and Cultural Aspects of Pre-Colonial Africa in Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart The novel emphasize on the encounters of the pre-colonial Africa and the effect of British colonialism during the 19th century. Gender disparity is clear in this village and the crimes are identified with gender where […]
• Adolf Hitler’s Cultural Theories in “Mein Kampf” So, according to Adolf Hitler, the foreign Aryan spirit was the awakener of Japanese people hence the bore a culture that they did not create.
• Ramen Culture as a Vital Part of the Traditions in Japan Studying the history of the transformation of ramen culture and the role it plays in modern Japanese popular culture helps to explore the uniqueness of the phenomenon and understand the origins of its immense popularity.
• Ethnicity Essay: Cultural Background in the Daily Lives of Children and Young People The idea of a child according to Montgomery and Kellett refers to a representation of a whole category of young people that are identified by their age and intellectual development and also their social maturity […]
• Material and Nonmaterial Culture of Middle East The cultural heritage of the Middle Eastern countries is rooted in the deep history of humanity. The states of this territory almost entirely belong to the countries of the eastern part of the Islamic world.
• Communication Challenges in Intercultural Interactions This essay aims to show that communication in intercultural interactions is hindered by the communication style, body language, stereotypes, the tendency to evaluate, high anxiety, and differences in ways of completing tasks.
• Convergence vs. Divergence of Culture and Literature – Examples The notion of culture emerged for the first time in the course of the 18th century. It was used to identify the culture of the people.
• Saudi Arabian Culture In this view, observation of Islamic beliefs, norms, values, and traditions enables people to understand the Saudi Arabian culture and adopt it.
• Communication Culture: Hall’s High and Low-Context Model of Culture The differences in the modes and styles of communication are due to diverse cultures of the people from different countries. The aim of this report is to evaluate the concept of different communication cultures through […]
• A Comparison Between Swedish and Australian Culture Impact of Culture on Life Experience and Belief System The interviewee explained that having been born in Sweden, where Lutheran is the main church, he followed the teachings of the Lutheran church.
• Cultural Pride and Cultural Baggage One of the articles that was written by Kincaid gives her experiences in England which portrays her cultural baggage as she finds it quite hard to fit in this society and to adopt a similar […]
• Cultural Differences Among Families in the “Hotel Rwanda” Film Arguably, the existence of cultural differences between families across the lifespan is the most significant problem affecting the family of Rusesabagina as he attempts to play the role of a corporate manager and a family […]
• The Fashion of the Hippie Culture Studying the fashion of the hippie culture is important because it illustrates the changes that society had undergone in the 1960s not only with regards to the style of clothing that people wore but also […]
• ABC Manufacturing Company’s Organisational Structure and Culture So, the owner has vast knowledge in this sector, which helps him to contribute the company for future development; Resources: Now, the company has two brand new large and modern CNC centres with all essential […]
• The Effects of Modern Popular Culture on Personal Beliefs and Values I persisted with this behavior until I was admitted to the university where the modern culture dwells on wearing casually. This essay has showed that modern popular culture changes the beliefs and behaviors of people […]
• Jamaican Family Cultural Practices The history of the Jamaicans in the United States began in 1619 when some blacks from Jamaica, as well as from the Caribbean islands migrated to the United States.
• Cultural Identity in “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith Exploring the thematic significance of the novels title “White Teeth” it would be instrumental to argue that the title touches on the aspects of cultural identity.
• The Culture Industry According to Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry refers to the collection of all the aspects of technology in the modern society that brings change in the lifestyles of many.
• Kazakhstani Culture Through Hofstede’s Theory The purpose of the research paper is to discuss cultural similarities and dissimilarities, challenges of acculturation, helpful patterns of behavior, and look at the featured culture through the prism of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory.
• Cultural Assimilation: Benefits and Challenges The mass migration of people leads to the fact that the population of the country is constantly growing, new nations come, and cultures are mixed, forming the so-called “melting pot”.
• Cultural Identity and Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker In the broad context, Walker designs the story to underscore the conflict that African Americans faced concerning their cultural identity and heritage after the abolition of slavery.
• Socialization for the Transmission of Culture Cultural transmission is one of the basic constituents of recreating cultures and passing values from one person or group to others.
• Toyota’s Culture and Leadership Strategy Toyota’s Leadership and Culture Irrespective of numerous difficulties, the company is still one of the leaders of the industry. To understand the essence of the lean leadership, it is crucial to consider some peculiarities of […]
• British and Brazilian People: Cultural Differences It is critical to make appointments in advance, not to begin business discussions before the host, and to be on time for a business meeting.
• Geography, Peoples and Culture Areas of Oceania Oceania is a geographical region of the planet that is located in the central and western parts of the Pacific Ocean and is mostly composed of a large number of small islands and atolls.
• Existential Therapy and Multicultural Perspective Paying attention to the entire idea of existential therapy, the exploring meaning and values of the issue will be considered referencing to the authenticity of the ideas, priorities, and values.
• Western Culture Impacts on the UAE Local Lifestyle One of the countries that observe the impact of western culture on the life of the young generation in the United Arad Emirates.
• Italian Culture There is no post of the vice president in Italy and in the event that the president dies, elections will have to be held.
• Comparison of the Australian and Indonesian Culture On the other hand, Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest population in the world and it has over two hundred ethnic groups who use different languages. Marriage is also important in the […]
• Cultural Role of Crepes in France French crepes have a long history of celebration. February 2nd was the day when every home in France would make twelve crepes to eat together.
• eBay in Japan, Its Strategic and Cultural Missteps Its strategy of purchasing local companies in target countries as a measure of the quick establishment made it thrive in the European and the American markets.
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) Cultural Analysis And the root of the word Miller is Greek and means apple in Greek. Overall, the treatment of the Greek culture in the movie is inelegant.
• IKEA Company’s Organizational Culture Thus, every worker is a carrier of the propagated IKEA culture, which in turn forms the basis for the success of the organization as a whole.
• Impacts of Culture on Consumer Behaviour In addition, the impacts of the environment on the conduct of these consumers are made evident. For example, in the field of marketing, the phrase refers to acts and patterns of purchasing and buying.
• Multicultural Education Benefits: Functioning in a Pluralistic and Egalitarian Society Students are thus required to acquire knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in a pluralistic and egalitarian society. The teacher is thus able to enhance socialization and transmission of culture while providing academic skills […]
• Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism: Objections and Differences The key difference is that relativism relates the human experience to the influence of culture, while subjectivism states that right and wrong is a matter of personal opinion.
• The Beautiful Country of Kazakhstan: Kazakh Culture The report on the culture must broaden the audience’s ideas about the country and explain some of the most respected traditions every Kazakh follows.
• Cultural Identity Theory: “How to Be Chinese” by Celeste Ng Thus, while recognizing the role that the specified cultural signifiers have for Asian American people in their attempts to retain their cultural identity, Ng also demonstrates the urge to introduce immediate change to prevent the […]
• Gang Culture in the USA: Symbols, Norms, Values The term culture refers to the norms and social behavior of a given community or group of people. Having the objects makes them feel brave and ready to act in the interest of the group […]
• Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality Madeleine Leininger was a famous American nursing theorists, whose main contribution was the creation of the theory of culture care diversity and universality in 1991.
• Cultural Traditions and Practices in the Novel the Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri One of them is the so-called mourner’s diet or fasting which is aimed at showing the grief of the entire family at the loss of the father.
• The Role of Ethnocentrism in Intercultural Communication The only way to control ethnocentrism is to avoid biases as we find better ways to understand other people’s point of view.
• Cross Cultural Management and International Business In this essay we will focus on the role of culture in international business situations and also the strategies and frameworks that are appropriate in cross-cultural management.
• Society, Culture, and Civilization Thus, culture is a flexible feature of non-animal communities that penetrates their subsistence and helps to adjust to the surroundings. The last concept, civilization, is the consequence of the constant changes of the first two […]
• Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective by Brettell & Sargent Islam accorded equal opportunities to both men and women in the society when it realized the important roles that women play in the society.
• Culture and Agriculture: Nature and Significance Understanding Seeing that agriculture shapes the society and defines the course of its further development, promoting the ideas of environmentalism and sustainability, it will be reasonable to assume that agriculture belongs to the domain of cultures.
• Cross-Cultural Environment Negotiations: Japan and America Based on this understanding, this paper shows that understanding the need for neutrality, cultural sensitivity, and flexibility is the key to having a positive outcome in a cross-cultural business negotiation. To have a proper understanding […]
• Hofstede’s Cultural Model in Negotiations It is important to include terms and conditions of the relationship as a measure of reducing conflicts where third parties are involved.
• Hamlet’s Renaissance Culture Conflict The death of Hamlet as the play ends indicates that though he was the definite answer to all the questions before him as he faced death, he was not in any position to give any […]
• Cultural Prostitution: Okinawa, Japan, and Hawaii In the 19th century, Okinawa ceases to be the subject of the Satsuma clan and acquires the status of a Japanese prefecture as a part of the program of imperial expansion.
• Football Impact on England’s Culture This paper will study the various impacts of football both on the social life of people and on the economy of the country.
• Social Cultural Causes of Crime There is need to highlight the social cultural factors of crime and describe the necessary positive measures to prevent the occurrences of crime.
• Culture and Identity: “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros The past is a driving force for the future and it is hard to erase that part of an individual’s life.
• East Meets West: Culture Differences He described the Japanese as the best people known among the heathens.[2] “Portuguese Views of Chinese”[3] is an account of the first impression the Portuguese had upon encountering the Chinese.
• Adorno and Horkheimer ‘The Culture Industry’ Review The underlying principle of this theory was to encourage the liberation of the user from the oppression of the manufacturers by inducing the user, to subject attitudes and beliefs to questioning.
• Culture of the Dominican Republic In the end, we attempt to relate the relationship between each aspect and the developments in politics, economics and social lives of the Dominicans.
• Porsche Brand’s Cultural Biography This resulted in the creation of the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the iconic cars of the century. By the end of the 30s, the company has built three racing prototypes, but the progress in the […]
• Roman & Greek Mythology in Pop Culture: Examples, Referenses, & Allusions One of the most famous examples of the use of the characters taken from Greek mythology in pop culture must be the mentioning of the famous goddess, Venus, in advertising, which is, in fact, based […]
• Organizational Culture & Leadership: Whirlpool Corporation At the heart of the discussion of management and leadership are the concepts of goal setting and results. Common to both managers and leaders is the focus on the results they produce, which are based […]
• Google Inc. Employees’ Intercultural Competencies The actual purpose of this selection procedure is to serve as an instrument to gain insight into the qualitative aspects of the tested applicant’s perception of the surrounding corporate reality and the individual’s place in […]
• The Impact of the Internet in Culture and Daily Habits The growth of the internet has greatly improved our culture and society today with services it offers in the enrichment of our lives at work and at home.
• IBM Company’s Multicultural Project Team Management Such practice would also give me a chance to easily adapt to cultural diversity and polish my problem-solving, networking, and team-work-related skills because teamwork can be regarded as one of the most effective ways of […]
• Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Styles Across Ethnic and Cultural Backgrounds In the essay, I discuss verbal and non-verbal communication styles across ethnic and cultural background, communication styles that a counselor may come across when dealing with culturally diverse clients and how a therapist can succeed […]
• Cultural Pollution:Traditions and Historical Concepts The cultures traditions and historical concepts of the Middle East have over the centuries been characterised as by a distinct sense of variety that stems from a whirlwind of customs and traditions.
• The “Brave” Intercultural Film Analysis In their discourse in the forest, the princess and her mother realized the need for relationship rebuilding, mending the bond that led to a solution for the kingdom’s survival.
• Muriel’s Wedding as a Representation of Australian Culture The cultural identity of an individual is formed through the perceptions and traditions of the whole country. Muriel admires the typical glamorous girls and wants to be part of the community and bear a group […]
• African Cultural Traditions and Communication Unfortunately, there are a lot of countries with the shortest life expectancy rates and the low quality of life in Africa.
• Three Stages of Cultural Development The main goal of this paper is to describe my personal experience along the lines of the stages of cultural development.
• Cultural Diversity and Cultural Universals Relations: Anthropological Perspective Thus, the cultural anthropology and the discussion of the people’s culture as the phenomenon are based on the unity of such notions as cultural diversity and universality.
• Hall Stuart: Questions of Cultural Identity Hall states that it is important to theorize the notion of identity to make it more applicable. However, Hall still claims that it is important to understand what identity is.
• Culture and Health Beliefs in Korea Buddhism and Confucianism have had the most profound impact on the spiritual world and the life of the Korean people, and more than half of the country’s cultural heritage is associated with these two religions.
• The Importance of Understanding National Culture These days when more and more organizations strive to operate globally, it is essential that managers understand the specificities of each country their company sells to or establishes a brunch in.
• Leading a Culture of Excellence in Healthcare Industry The concept of a culture of excellence is to maintain personnel’s conviction that their work is meaningful and requires to be performed with superiority and be continuously improved.
• Cultural Analysis – China and the Us In a bid to survive in such a market, it is crucial for the American investors to conduct a broad analysis of the cultural differences between China and the United States.
• Concept of Globalisation and Cultural Diversity The Concept of Globalisation Globalisation can be defined as the minimisation of the differences between people of the world and the maximisation of their similarities through interactions, cooperation and communication.
• Cultural Heritage of Oyo Empire in Africa The brightest period of this ethnic group’s development is the time of the Oyo Empire which impacted the Nigerian culture and today remains the largest and most influential state.
• Disney and Its Impact on Popular Culture and Society A waitress who is a cast in The Princess and the Frog undertake to begin saving to fulfill her dreams and the dreams of her late father of owning a restaurant.
• Taiwan and the U.S. Cultural Elements An evaluation of the cultural differences between Taiwan and the US is conducted in an effort to develop a comprehensive understanding of the cultural variation between the two countries.
• Visual Culture Understanding in Modern Society An essential component of a painting, apart from the visual form and the medium used, is the story behind it or the context in which it was created.
• Compare and Contrast the Political Culture of Australia and Saudi Arabia The king heads the nation and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The judicial branch of government in Australia creates room for the founding of law courts in the nation as well as the […]
• Chinese New Year Foods: Chinese Culture and Traditions This piece of work will give an in depth discussion of Chinese culture with the central focus being on the Chinese New Year Foods and its relationship with the changes that have been experienced in […]
• Cultural Diversity in the Play “Othello”
• The UAE Cultural Analysis: Adherence to Traditions, Cultural Beliefs, and Values
• The Erosion of Cultural Differences and Globalised Consumer Culture
• Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution
• The Influence of Heavy Metal on Japanese Culture
• The Renaissance and Its Cultural, Political and Economic Influence
• Tesco and Global Supermarket Chain in Hungary: Cultural Issues
• Dubai’s Food, Dress Code and Culture
• Cultural Aspects in Different Societies
• Culture and Communication: Egypt
• The Marriage Traditions of Wolof Culture
• Culture and Health Correlation
• Sushi: History, Origin and the Cultural Landscape
• Anthropological Approach to Culture
• Korean Culture: History and Principles
• Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
• Diversity of Jamaican Culture
• Culture, Subculture, and Their Differences
• Cross Cultural Management Strategies: Brazil vs. America
• The Overall Effects of Cultural Diversity in the Hospitality Industry
• How Geography Has Impacted the Development of Ancient Cultures
• What Role Does Food Play in Cultural Identity?
• American Culture Pros & Cons
• Cultural Hybridization: The Beliefs, Language, and Social Habits
• Identity, Language, and Culture
• Handy and Schein Models in Organizational Culture
• The Preservation of Our Cultural Heritage: Music for Entertainment and Communication
• Indigenous Australian Culture, History, Importance
• Cultural Assimilation, Acceptance and Identity in Julia Alvarez’s Poetry
• Dance Analysis: Social and Cultural Context
• Cross-Cultural Management and HRM in Walmart
• Culture of Simping and Why One Should Stay Away From It
• Intercultural Communication Led by UNESCO
• Adorno’s Concept of Culture Industry
• Youth Culture and Globalization
• Arab Culture and Teenagers
• Exploring the Human Culture
• Cultural Competence: Jamaican Heritage
• Food, Eating Behavior, and Culture in Chinese Society
• Servant Leadership in Indian Culture and Hindu Religion
• Cultural Identity: Problems, Coping, and Outcomes
• Cultural Convergence: The Interactions Between Different Cultures
• Cultural Diffusion: Factors and Effects
• Culture Comparison Between China and Japan
• Principles of Effective Cross-Cultural Communication Essay
• Cultural Revolution and Education in China During the 1960s-1970s
• Cultural, Political, Economic and Legal Aspects of Doing Business in France
• Deaf in America: Voices From a Culture by Carol A. Padden, Tom L. Humphries
• The “Friends” TV Show as a Cultural Artifact
• The History of the Hippie Cultural Movement
• Building High Performance Culture: Zappos
• Cultural Factors and Their Influence on Individuals
• Greek Culture and Traditions
• Issues in Contemporary Media and Culture
• Western Pop Culture and Street Fashion of Japanese Youth
• Columbia Under Hofstede’s Cultural Analysis
• Multicultural Education: Action Plan for Professional Development of the School’s Staff
• Heritage Tourism vs. Cultural Tourism Definition
• Celebrations in School Culture
• History: Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Period
• Cross-cultural Comparison Between the US and Japan
• IKEA’s and Home Depot’s Cross-Cultural Management
• The Essence of Cultural Ecology: The Main Tenets
• Sustaining a Culture in Multinational Corporations
• Local Museums and Their Cultural Heritage
• Coping With Cultural Shock and Adaptation to a New Culture
• Influence of Political, Social, and Cultural Issues
• American Culture and Indian Culture Comparison
• Cultural Conquest in “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe
• Cross-Cultural Management in Emirates Airline
• Cultural Significance of Flynn Rider in “Tangled” by Greno
• Discussion: Cultural Roots and Routes
• Differences in Culture between America and Sudan
• The Cross-cultural Construct of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems
• Racial and Cultural Identity Development Model
• Japanese and Emirati Cultural Differences
• Cultural Intelligence by Christopher and Elaine Mosakowski
• Music and Its Effects on Culture
• Technology as a Form of Material Culture
• Nacirema Culture
• Multicultural Diversity Conceptual Study
• Culture and Public Administration Relationship in Canada
• Themes and Culture in Li Bai’s Poetry
• Cultural Linguistic Autobiography: An Experience of a Second Language
• Hofstede and Trompenaars Theories of Culture Diversity
• Haiti History and Culture
• Subculture Theories: Response to the Dominant Culture
• Taylor Swift’s Depiction in Genre, Culture, and Society
• “Food Colombusing” and Cultural Appropriation
• Bombas Firm’s Organizational Structure and Culture
• Islamic Culture and Civilization
• Starbucks in China and Cross-Cultural Values
• Cultural Belief System: Experiences and Traditions
• Authenticity in Cultural Tourism Sites: A Critical Discussion
• An Academic Critique of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory
• International Movements and Cultural Barriers
• Culture Identity: Asian Culture
• The Business and Cultural Practices of Japan
• Intercultural Communication Patterns in the U.S. and UK
• Culture, Power and Representation in Ideology and Language
• Gulf’s Indian Ocean Connections and Cultural Exchanges
• Cultural Differences in International Business
• Culture and Identity as Depicted in Kay’s “Trumpet”
• History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki
• “High” and “Low” Culture in Design
• Ugandan Culture, Traditions, Holidays
• Cross-Cultural Communication Between the French and German Communities in Switzerland
• Cultural Diversity in Hotel Industry
• Body Ritual Among the Nacirema: Cultural Study
• African and Western Culture in the “Touki Bouki” Film
• Religion in Intercultural Communication
• Cultural Adaptation Plan: Comparing Canada and the Philippines
• Cultural Change: Mechanisms and Examples
• Colombia’s and the US’ Cultural Dimensions
• Chinese Restaurant: Cultural and Aesthetic Perspectives
• Popular Culture and Art Definition, Brief History and New Opportunities
• Stephen Hawking: Visionary and Cross-Cultural Leadership
• Abu Dhabi Tourism and Cultural Authority
• Vanilla: History, Culture and Production
• Language and Culture Interaction in English Language Teaching
• The Problem of Expatriate Management in Multinationals – Adaptation to Foreign Culture
• Effect of Economy on Culture and Social Structure
• Cultural Event: Worship Service in World Changers Ministries
• Tribal Tattoos: Cultural Appropriation and Appreciation
• Emerson’s, Whitman’s and Thoreau’s Cultural Impact
• Cultural Traditions: Arranged vs. Autonomous Marriage
• Consumerism Culture: Challenges and Solutions
• Cultural Diversity in Correctional Facilities
• Cultural Products in Strategic Plan Development
• Intercultural Communication in “Gran Torino” Movie
• The Role of Chinese Hats in Chinese Culture
• Ways in Which an Organization’s Culture is Transmitted to its Members
• Punjabi: the Culture
• Intercultural Awareness and Multicultural Society in a Global Village
• Angels and Insects: The Issue of Incest in the Pop-Culture
• Five Cultural Dimensions for Understanding the Values
• History of Children’s Literature in Western Culture
• Cultural Relativism: Impact on Individuals
• Non-Material and Material Culture
• Indian Culture, Food, Temples, and Clothing
• Race Matters, Cancel Culture, and “Boys Go to Jupiter”
• The Spread of European Culture
• Implications of Korean Culture on Health
• Qantas Airways: Cross Culture and Safety Management
• The Depiction of Cultural Conformity and Moral Values in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
• Intellectual, Scientific and Cultural Changes in Europe Towards the End of 19th Century
• Marriott International: Analyzing Culture
• Cultural Family Assessment in “Under the Same Moon” Film
• Culture, Globalization and Intercultural Adaptation
• Conflict in a Multicultural Context
• Marriott Hotel’s Promotion of Intercultural Synergy
• Enron Company’s Organisational Culture Problem
• Culture Influence on Intimacy and Human Relationships
• Genius of Western Culture – Lionel Richie
• Pop Culture and Print Media: Trends Propagated by the Print Media
• The Impact of the Culture on the Project Management
• Global Business Cultural Analysis: Japan
• Cultural Diversity Management in the Workplace
• Juno and Political, Social, and Cultural Ideology
• Cultural Criminology: Inside the Crime
• Cultural Diversity and Cultural Integration in Western Societies
• Paisà (1946) by Roberto Rossellini: Style, Theme, and Cultural Value
• Assumptions, Experiences, and Lessons Learned in Cross-Cultural Communication
• Gender Roles and Family Systems in Hispanic Culture
• Umm Al-Nar: Geoarchaeology and Cultural Heritage
• Cross-Culture Project Cooperation
• The Role of Culture in Gospel Communication
• Hospitality Industry: Coping with Culture Shock
• A Discussion of Key Challenges Faced by MNCs in Developing a Cohesive & Inclusive Culture
• Disneyland’s Cultural Dimension: USA v. France
• Critique on Throsby’s Article Cultural Capital
• Threats of Globalization on Culture of Individual Countries
• A Scarf as a Cultural Metaphor
• Somali Culture and Its Impact on Communication
• Culturally Informed Psychological Assessment
• Cross-Cultural Effectiveness of Ministry Engagement with the Elderly
• American and Lithuanian Cultural Environments
• Henry Jenkins’ Theory of Convergence Culture
• The Western Cultural Narratives
• Multicultural Communication and Its Origin
• The Bushmen: Culture and Traditions
• Culturally Sensitive Care For Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Matthew Arnold’s and Raymond Williams’ Ideas About Culture
• British Colonialism and Its Impact on Indian Culture
• Japanese Popular Culture: Anime, Video Games, and the Film Industry
• Communication in a Cross-Cultural Project Team
• Visit to France: Cultural Experiences Description
• International Marketing Decisions: Culture Significance
• Intercultural Relationships Importance
• Singapore’s Cultural Policy on Diversity
• The Egyptians and the Hindu Cultural Rites Comparison
• Cultural Diversity: Diversification and Integration
• Does Copyright Enhance Creativity and Culture?
• Procter and Gamble: Culture and Diversity in Decision Making
• Culture and Employee Management
• Leading Culturally Diverse Teams: Optimal Performance and Productivity
• Kinship Organization of Yanomamo Culture
• Hofstede’s Cultural Classification Framework and International Business
• Stereotyping in the Human Culture
• Culture and Conflict
• Concept of Cultural Differences in Society
• The Influence of the Cultural Current “Modernism” on the Conception of Music in the 20th Century
• The Role and Influence of Women in Western Culture
• Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective
• Value and Meaning of Culture and Religion
• Culture and Communication Problems in HRM
• Construction and Culture: The Forestiere Underground Gardens in California
• John Donne’s Poetry Relate to the Culture
• Cross-Cultural Sleeping Arrangements in Children
• Civilization and Barbarism in Modern Culture
• Cross-Cultural Promotion. Hazelton International
• TV Culture: The Oprah Winfrey Show
• Cultural Hybridity in Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street”
• Food Preferences and Nutrition Culture
• Cross-Cultural Differences Between the US and Pakistan
• The Culture of Smartness in Education
• The Culture of the Nacirema Society
• Navajo Ethnographic and Ethnological Studies
• Organizational Culture of Google Incorporation
• Cross Culture Management
• What Is the Relationship Between the Social Definition of Deviance and the Media’s Role in the Dissemination of Popular Culture?
• Culture Clash as a Great Conflict
• Cultural Influences on Big Five Personality Traits
• The Importance of Culture in Nursing
• Organizational Culture in Educational Institution
• Culture and Language: Impact on Reflections
• Cross-Cultural Communication: Challenges and Solutions
• Organizational Culture and Physical Structure
• Impact of Religion and Culture on Development
• Linguistic Repertoire: Language Identity and Culture
• The Origin of Organizational Culture
• Social and Cultural Influences in Nursing Practice
• Diverse Culture in the “Ongka’s Big Moka” Film
• Nissan Motors Company: Cultural Change
• Cultural Assimilation of International Students
• Consumer vs. Organizational Buying and Culture
• Cross-Cultural Management: Decision-Making
• Starbucks Corporation Organizational Culture
• Google’s Corporate Culture and its Success
• Ideologies and Popular Culture: A Popular Television Commercial
• GLOBE Initiative: How Cross-Cultural Management Has Affected Airbus?
• Cultural Diversity in Women and Sport Participation
• How Chinese Culture Influences Foreign Businesses
• Cultural Shock: Visiting Eastern, Arab, Muslim Countries
• Billboard as an Element of the Popular Culture
• The Myth of the Culture of Poverty
• Clovis People Origin and Culture
• Caribbean Rum: History and Culture
• Complexity of Managing Multinational Corporations: MNC Culture
• The Importance of Cultural Research
• Punjabi Culture and Threat to Survival
• Pokémon Go as a Pop Culture Phenomenon
• Brazil Food Culture and Dietary Patterns
• History of Pop Music in the World: Cultural and Social Changes
• Intercultural Communication: Paul Haggis’ “Crash”
• Multicultural Literature. Juliet Kono’s “Sashimi” Poem
• General Motors Company: Organizational Culture and Strengths
• Food Culture in Mexican Cuisine
• James Rachel’s Speech About Cultural Relativism
• Cultural Relativism and Ethics: Ethical Issues and Context
• The Western Culture in the Early 21st Century
• Effects of Globalization on Native Non-Western Cultural Practices
• The White House as a Cultural Symbol in US
• Socio-Cultural Approach to Psychology
• Singapore Geography and Culture
• Teaching Cultural Identities: A Lesson Plan
• The General Motors Firm’s Cultural Crisis
• Intercultural Understanding in Hala Alyan’s Poems
• Ancient Greek Civilization: Culture and Arts
• LGBTQ Co-Culture: The Key Aspects
• Feminism: Reflection of Cultural Feminism
• A Maslenitsa Festival as a Cultural Event
• The Impact of Ancient Greek Civilization and Architecture on Modern Culture
• Influence of African-American Culture on Rock n Roll Music
• Challenges of Cultural Humility in the Healthcare
• The History of Guqin in Chinese Culture
• Organizational Culture and Organizational Effectiveness
• Cultural Approaches to Healthcare Delivery in the US
• Cross Cultural Issues in International Business
• Cultural Property and Its Protection in Armed Conflicts
• Cultural Diversity in the Management of Pain: Complementary and Alternative Practices
• Appropriations, Prejudices and Cultural Cruise Control: Overview
• The Impact of American Popular Culture on Society
• Impact of Globalization on the Maasai Peoples` Culture
• Police Officers and Cultural Differences
• The Influence of American Popular Culture on the Heroes of “The Bluest Eye”
• Venezuela Analysis: Economic, Political, Financial and Cultural Perspective
• Mexicans in the US: Multicultural Interview
• Li Bai and Du Fu Poetry Meaning in Chinese Culture
• Effects of the Language Barrier on Intercultural Communication
• Culture and Characteristics of Success or Failure
• Food and Culture Links
• The Impact of Fashion Marketing on Culture
• School Climate and Student Culture
• Ethical, Legal and Multicultural Challenges in a Crisis
• Famous People and Culture
• International Business and Domestic Culture
• Chicano Culture in “First Communion” by T. Rivera
• The Japanese and the US Cultural Dimensions
• Symbol: The Basic Element of Culture
• Cultural Assimilation in the “Spanglish” Movie
• Cultural and Social Pressures in the Caramel Film
• Orientalism in the Middle East Cultural Studies
• Multicultural Literacy: Patricia Polacco and Roald Dahl
• Intercultural Business Negotiations: Japan and America
• Negotiation Within a Diverse Cultural Environment
• Intercultural Communication Barriers
• The NBA 2K Game as the Element of Popular Culture
• Canadian Material Culture
• The Role of a Cultural Hero in Narrations
• The Meaning of Cultural Consumption and Influence of Cultural Backgrounds
• Cultural Bias in Counseling Practices
• Hotpot Concept and Cultural Value
• Cultural Revolution in China in “Hibiscus Town”
• Cultural Differences: Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Devi, the Great Goddess – Nonwestern Culture
• Defining Culture in Marketing
• Tourism & Cultural Change: A Critical Analysis
• Classroom Behavior and Culturally Diverse
• Effects of Culture on People’s Learning Styles
• The Key Cultural Clashes Between Disney and Its French Labor Force
• Intercultural Communication and Success at Work
• How Cultural Beliefs, Values, Norms and Practices Influence Communication
• Arab Music and Cinema Development: Western Culture Impact
• Culture in the UAE
• Report on Culture’s Values
• Disney Culture in China and United States
• Cultural Representation of Social Class
• Challenges of Effective Intercultural Communication
• Portuguese Language and Cultural Facts
• The Culture of Francis and Clare
• Christianity Social and Historical Impact on Western Culture
• Cultural Misunderstandings in Communication
• Singapore’s Culture and Social Institutions
• Struggle to Retain Culture: McDonaldization in China
• Nike, Inc.: The Corporate Culture
• Food, Customers, and Culture in the Grocery Store
• Disneyland Hong Kong Company: Cultural Adaptation
• Bahrain Fashion: Culture and Antiquities
• Etic and Emic Culture in Communication
• Human Emotions Psychology: Rooting in Biology or Culture
• The Educational Organization’s Culture
• A Lesson Plan For the Multicultural Learning of Science
• The Impact of Nineteenth Century Photography on Visual Representation and the Development of Visual Culture
• Acadian Culture in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia
• Cultural Differences in Arranged Marriages
• Business Culture and Muslim Financial Institutions
• The Concept of Cultural Relativism in Nursing
• The Tumultuous 1960s-1970s and the Reshaping of American Popular Culture
• Switzerland’s Economics and Culture
• Honour Killings in the Yemeni Culture
• African Folktales as a Reflection of Culture
• The Dining Out Culture in America
• The Culture of Fast Food Consumption
• Diversity and Intercultural Backgrounds
• Indian Culture and Its Distinctive Qualities
• Culture Values Expression through Humanities
• Vulnerability and Resilience as Cultural Factors That Affect Health
• Patient Safety Culture and Communication
• Multicultural Roman Empire History
• Canadian Cultural Protectionism Article by Klassen
• Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism Differences
• Cultural Appropriation: Christina Aguilera in Braids
• Foodways: Cultural Norms and Attitudes Toward Food
• Limitations in Intercultural Communication
• Multicultural Consideration in Project Management
• Siemens Company’s Corporate Governance and Culture
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Essay: My culture should be appreciated but not appropriated

When I was growing up in a mixed race family, my Korean ethnicity always felt like it was second to being White.

I’d only see Hangul, the written form of Korean, at a church where I went to Korean school on Saturdays or on the menus at the handful of Korean restaurants where I’d eat with my immigrant Korean mother and sister. Most of the predominantly White community in my part of Pennsylvania knew very little about Korea, let alone the Asian continent. Growing up, most people would ask whether I was Chinese or Japanese, as if all Asians were the same.  This may explain why Korea is commonly characterized in American history as the “ hermit kingdom ” or “the shrimp between two whales.” But despite how seemingly tiny Korea is, it has brought about monumental contributions to society that people must learn to appreciate, not appropriate.

Korea has come a long way from being a former Japanese-occupied colony and a war-torn nation, into which my mother was born, to now the 12th largest economy in the world. The country’s major successes come from the recent emergence and popularity of Korean smartphones from Samsung, high-end luxury cars from Hyundai, K-Pop music from BTS or award-winning films like “Parasite.” Everyone, including Koreans, has benefitted from its worldwide success.

But as a result of its success, non-Koreans have become obsessed with anything Korean, claiming the very historical and traditional parts of our culture that date back 5,000 years. People have worn traditional attire of the Hanbok in a lot of places I’ve never seen before – proms, fundraising events and dinner parties that have nothing to do with Korea or have Korean people in them. This phenomenon is so widespread that this group of non-Koreans has been dubbed “ Koreaboos ” around the world. While non-Koreans are allowed and should be able to appreciate Korean culture, they by no means have a right to appropriate centuries-old clothing or use certain Korean catchphrases like it’s an accessory for their daily fit of the day.

As a Korean American, I find it negligent and disrespectful for others who don’t know much about Korea to exploit components of my culture like it is a trendy phase. My culture deserves more respect than watching non-Korean people spit out Korean phrases as a means to annoy other non-Koreans on TikTok for views and likes.

Take, for example, the Hanbok – the term for a traditional two-piece attire that Korean men and women used to wear daily centuries ago, now in present day for ceremonial purposes, festivals or other events of great significance in their community. Wearing the Hanbok inherently shows a sign of respect to other attendees at the event as well as for the event itself. It is not offensive when a non-Korean person wears a Hanbok to events at places like historic Korean palaces, or are posting about the Hanbok itself to recognize its great significance. But if someone is taking a selfie or wearing it to a party for people to tell them they look good, it’s disrespectful. If you took the time to purchase a Hanbok to wear at any kind of event, you should’ve looked more into what it was before treating it like another Halloween costume.

Instead of rushing into things that social media would condition you to think are fashionable, slow down for a second and consider the implications of your choices. Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance or advice online or from a friend. You won’t know what you’re truly doing unless you acquire the knowledge to make these kinds of informed decisions like wearing a Hanbok warrant. Replace the impatient, defensive tone of “what’s the big deal?” to “how can I listen and do better?” when someone is trying to have a meaningful dialogue with you about changing questionable behavior. Be a better ally by separating appreciation and appropriation, and remember Korean is more than “funny sounding” words or memes that go viral on the Subtle Asian Traits page on Facebook.

My own grandfather was a starving teenager because of both World War II and the Korean War, dealing with the unforgiving fallout in Korea. To redeem a seemingly obliterated land, he among many hard working Koreans grappled back to prosperity and would be ashamed to see how fetishized his culture is by the West today. Determined people like him helped make Korea what it is today, and that should never be trivialized. While Koreans, including myself, are indeed here to laugh with you and unite us all as we openly share Korean culture, I think we can all agree that Koreans deserve the same respect my people constantly afford others.

Liam Studer, a junior majoring in political science and sociology, is a columnist.

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Importance Of Culture Essay: Get Inspired By Our Samples and Tips

By: Tasha Kolesnikova

Every student exploring cultural and other social studies may face the task of writing a thematic essay. This type of educational activity is an independent reflection of a person on a scientific problem, using ideas, cultural backgrounds, associative images from other areas of their own culture, personal experience, and social practice.

Good Essay Sample

Why is it a good essay, an interesting start: let's intrigue the reader.

• Body: The Most Informative Block 

Logical Conclusion

Speech culture, clothing culture.

• Religion Culture 

Food Culture

The result of such work can affect a lot of things, including the final grade or the teacher's impression. So, we have prepared some of the most important guidelines for writing an essay. Of course, we will try to give specific examples. Well, let's go for an A +!

This is a good essay on the topic "The Culture and Society" written by Chloe. Some of the principles of creating a first-class work will be explained taking the excerpts from this text as a reference:

"Culture plays an essential role in the life of a person and society. It acts as a means of accumulation, storage, and transmission of human experience. It is the culture that shapes people into who they are as they gain knowledge, learn the language, symbols, values, norms, customs, and traditions. It is the glue that holds all these achievements. To prove this, I conducted research and found out what culture really gives to society.

First, culture helps to develop a variety of skills. Cultural involvement and creative potential were essential to the "universal man" of the Renaissance. One of the most famous examples is Leonardo da Vinci. He combined scientific and writing activities with art. In the modern world, many celebrities agree. Jared Leto is a prime example. He created a rock music band, then developed his acting skills over time. Thus, the desire to master new knowledge in the culture of cinema, music, art helps to develop.

Second, culture creates new needs. The culture of energy-saving and rational use of natural resources covers for such needs as:

• creation of infrastructure for sorting and utilization of various types of waste;
• installing solar panels on homes;
• access to budget electric transport.

For example, in 2017, Tesla Motors presented buyers a model of an electric car worth 35 000 dollars, while now the cost of cars is about 100 000 dollars. Therefore, it is essential for people to preserve nature and not deplete resources, so people are inspired to create new projects to satisfy their needs.

Third, culture contributes to the economy. The turnover of the cultural and creative industries is $1,3 trillion, and the growth rates are outstripping the industries of production and services. Cultural tourism accounts for about 40% of the global industry's revenues and has shown steady growth over the past decade. Thus, throughout the world, culture is an increasingly important source of employment and income.

Fourth, culture helps cities. In 1997, the Guggenheim Museum was opened in the city of Bilbao in northern Spain. The design's originality turned this place into a vibrant landmark that breathed new life into the provincial town. In the first three years of the museum's operation, tourists who visited Bilbao left more than $110 million in regional taxes. This influence of architecture on the urban economy is now called the "Bilbao Effect."

Fifth, culture preserves and transfers knowledge to the whole world. For example, culture conveys knowledge about society's life in southern England in the first half of the 19th century. From what dances were popular to the traditional daily routine. You can glean such information not only from history books but also from the novels of Jane Austen. You can already find London life details at the end of the century in a series of books about Sherlock Holmes.

Thus, culture is truly the glue that holds all achievements together. It is not only complex and diverse but also highly mobile. It is a living process, constantly moving, developing, changing. Culture helps the world to be better in every way. You can draw strength and inspiration from it. I advise all people to learn about culture because it is of great value to the modern world."

Generally speaking, Chloe managed to create a good written work, which is likely to receive a B grade. Her work is concise and covers a variety of cultural aspects.

In Chloe’s essay:

• 534 words or approximately 1 typed page;
• An average reading time is about 4-5 minutes.

Such a volume is enough to concisely explain the importance of cultural features. On the other hand, reflections on cultural differences and the value system are not too long, which will allow the professor to study the work quickly. And this is great because no one likes lengthy "everything and nothing" essays.

However, there are no clear criteria for the volume of essays on cultural studies, as they highly depend on your educational institution. Sometimes short essays are highly rated, and the long ones don't impress the teacher. After all, the most important role is played not by the number of pages of the essay but by its content.

Creating an A+ Importance Of Culture Essay Structure

Writing a good length essay is not enough to prove an understanding culture of the issues. An essay focusing on such a vast topic should have a clear structure. It doesn't matter if you write about material culture, health care, cultural traditions, or globalization — your text should contain an introduction, a body, and a conclusion for an excellent mark.

It is important to gradually reveal the topic but not lay out all the trump cards immediately — that is why any essay about socialization or even cultural identity needs an interesting intro.

Let's analyze Chloe’s essay introduction in detail. The advantages are:

• It gives a brief overview of what culture is;
• The reader is smoothly led to the main body of the essay.

However, there are some disadvantages as well:

• The introduction doesn’t hook the reader, it appears monotonous;
• There is no focus provided in the intro, making it unclear what the essay is going to be about

In fact, you can do better! The main key — make the introduction more specific. The introduction should be able to explain why a student is exploring a topic of, for example, cultural values or ethnicity.

Also, don’t make the introduction too small. Regardless of which cultural heritage you are going to write, 1-2 sentences will definitely not be enough. Here is an example of what an A+ introduction would look like:

“Culture plays an essential role in the life of a person and society. We feel its presence from early childhood, as it gradually shapes us into who we are. It acts as a means of accumulation, storage, and transmission of human experience, making it a fascinating and diverse topic to study. In this essay, I decided to focus on figuring out how cultural aspects influence our lives nowadays. “

Here the author not only gives the reader a general idea of the topic but also provides information on what the essay will be focusing on in a brief yet intriguing manner.

Body: The Most Informative Block

When creating an essay about material culture, the values of different groups of people, enculturation, and other similar topics, it is important to structure the text. If you have any arguments, main thoughts or provisions, it is better to highlight them at:

• Paragraphs — if the essay is quite small (up to 500 words);
• Subheadings — if the essay is long enough (more than 500 words).

For example, in Chloe’s, each cultural component of cultural influence on human beings has a separate paragraph.

Here are some additional tips for improving the body of the essay to receive an excellent grade for it:

• Make sure it contains enough examples. This will allow you to write about the sense of belonging to different cultures more clearly.
• If you are sharing any socialization research, do not forget to attach a link to the source. You can do this in the "Sources" section, or you can highlight a couple of keywords in the text with HTML.

Likewise with the intro, when writing about the daily lives or globalization issues, remember to use linking words .

Let’s take a look at how Chloe’s essay’s main body could be improved using one paragraph as an example:

“Also, culture plays a crucial role in urban development. For instance, in 1997, the Guggenheim Museum was opened in the city of Bilbao in northern Spain. The design's originality turned this place into a vibrant landmark that breathed new life into the provincial town. Notably, in the first three years of the museum's operation, tourists who visited Bilbao left more than $110 million in regional taxes. Since then, this influence of architecture on the urban economy is now called the " Bilbao Effect ."

You can see that the use of linking words ensures a better flow of thought in your written work, contributing to a clear and logical structure. Also, note how the term now contains a link to a reliable source.

We have come to a very important part of the essay, the conclusion. It will allow the professor to understand how deeply the student has understood the topic. Unfortunately, the conclusion of Chloe’s essay is watery and doesn’t provide value to the reader.

Worry not! We will give other ideas for completing your essay on organizational culture or different ways of life topic. As a rule, there are three good tricks for creating a logical ending:

• Citations. The most common and easiest way to complete an essay, but not always the most actionable. The teachers are already a little tired of quotes from great people. So, you should do your best with the choice of a suitable quote.
• Rhetorical question. Firstly, although rhetorical questions do not require an answer, they involve an invisible dialogue with the reader. Thus, you should present your perspective after the question, and the reader can agree or disagree with it.
• Summarizing the author's position. It is a good way to outline the main idea of the work. Make sure that the summary doesn`t turn into a retelling — be brief and just generalize. The goal is to bring the reader to a new level of thinking on a given topic.

Here is an improved variant of Chloe’s essay, providing its summary:

“My research has proven that the importance of culture is difficult to overestimate. A variety of cultural aspects are the glue that holds members of society together. It has been this way in the past and keeps being true until now. Culture is a living process, constantly moving, developing, and changing. Our goal as human beings is to acknowledge its impact on society and contribute to its development.”

Well, the structure is clear! Are you ready to write about Asian culture, modern values, or other interesting topics?

Best Ideas For Culture Essays

Sometimes the head is ready to turn into a melting pot while choosing a suitable topic for writing a culture essay. In fact, you can choose any country or nation from different parts of the world and write about their customs. Also, you can reveal one of such topics:

• Material culture in the 20th and 21st centuries
• New generation cultural values
• Cultural change: how moving to New York will change the norms of human behavior?
• The ritual culture in the ancestors’ lives
• Globalization and the cultural impact
• How to identify a person's culture by dialogue?
• Why did the culture of the ancient peoples praise various gods?
• Why do some modern people appreciate the culture of ancient traditions?
• Will the new cultural norms completely destroy the old traditions?
• A cultured person is a good person — is that true?

However, culture is not only about traditions, habits, and upbringing. You can write about certain parts of human life, such as clothing, religion, speech, or food.

Speech is a reflection of a person's inner world. When we feel bad or good, we always try to share it with a friend or family. On the other hand, speech is an indicator of how a person relates to the world around him and how he was brought up.

That is why the culture of speech is a great topic for an essay in which you can reveal the following points:

• the impact of the rapid language modernization on the speech culture
• profanity and where did the taboo on swearing come from
• culture of formal and informal communication

The main points of such essays are usually concluded in a similar thought:

«Speech represents one of the essential characteristics of humanity from other living beings in this world. At the same time, people have figurative speech, so they can transmit some elementary signals and fantasize, use logical thinking, and much more. In fact, having the ability to speak makes us human.»

There are many aesthetic education methods, but the culture of clothing is considered one of the main ones. You can write an essay about:

• the formation of aesthetic preferences depending on the particular country culture
• business dress culture
• the clothing culture in different decades

In addition, the formation of aesthetic taste is influenced by personal characteristics, i.e., age, lifestyle, specialty, place of residence — this topic is also perfect for a culture essay.

Religion Culture

For thousands of years, religion has been an important factor in the cultural life of people. Without faith in something divine, most likely, no nation would exist now in the form in which our contemporaries see it.

For a long time, religion was the only worldview culture system. However, the world does not stand still, so now God`s existence is a huge question — this is why agnosticism and atheism appeared.

In your essay, you can cover the following topics:

• How does the country of residence affect the culture of religion?
• How do modern culture and religion interact?
• Culture in Christian and Muslim families

In general, you can write on any other similar topic because religion is a very wide area with many unanswered questions.

When a tourist arrives in a new country, the first thing to do is trying the local cuisine. And this is the first step towards a foreign culture! Food, its type of presentation and the way of eating, its taste — this is a whole complex of cultural characteristics of a particular nation. For example, in India, you cannot eat with your left hand, and in Muslim countries, pork meat is prohibited.

Thus, you can easily write a culture essay about:

• tabooing certain products in different countries
• food intake culture and features of national dinners
• dining etiquette

All the examples and tips provided will allow you to choose the most interesting topic for creating the perfect culture essay. Enjoy the writing!

Check out our other web pages for more essay help and essay editing . Alternatively, you may wish to use our proofreading services for polishing and perfecting your essay to give you that extra grade boost!

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My Cultural Story, Essay Example

Pages: 10

Words: 2845

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You are free to use it as an inspiration or a source for your own work.

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is highlighting a personal view of the world, through self-examination of cultural values as represented by how they differ from other people’s cultural values, as well as how they influence working relationships, adhere to personal beliefs, influence personal experiences, and reflect cultural backgrounds.

Becoming aware of one’s cultural background is important on any occasion, but becomes crucial when one is an educator, because when an educator interacts with his or her students, it is actually a culture which interacts with another culture. Culture is defined by Ginsberg & Vlodkowski (2009) as “the deeply learned confluence of languages, values, beliefs and behaviors that pervade every aspect of a person’s life and it is continually undergoing changes” (p. 9). In order for the interaction to be meaningful, the educator must be aware of his or her own system of beliefs and values. Adult students, unlike children, come with baggage loaded with life experiences, each of them affecting the way they view the world. Children form in the collectivity, and are shaped to a large extent by their educators, and by the experiences they have in school. On contrary, adult learners are already formed when they enter the collectivity and they must interact with each other, and with their educators, which does not always lead to successful learning experiences, due to the conflicting worldviews that might characterize the teacher and the students.

Experience, as a learning method, is not treasured in the contemporary Western Educational system. Rather, education is based on theoretical knowledge and abstract thinking and experience is ignored, or neglected in the learning process. However, as Merriam & Grace (2011) explain, “much of our learning is embedded in the experiences we have in our everyday lives” (p. 311). Experience, therefore, not only shapes us as individuals, but also defines their learning experience throughout their lives. Formal education stops at a given moment, but we continue to learn throughout our experiences, and, to a great extent, our learning experiences are cultural experiences. For this reason, culture is a very influential part of any person’s life and our behavior reflects, to a great extent, our cultural background and our beliefs, which were shaped by experiences. People are unique and their experiences are very different and so, their beliefs and values differ to a great extent depending on what they have learnt to respect, to treasure and to practice.

Therefore, the educator’s task is to learn about himself or herself, before being able to interact successfully with adult learners. This is because, as Ginsberg & Vlodkowski (2009) argue, “educators exert a powerful influence over classroom norms [and so] it is important to make explicit those values that are most implicit and profoundly affects students in our classrooms”. The educator must understand which of his beliefs and values are shared with the representatives of the dominant culture, and which reflect his own unique background. He must understand how his background influences the way he sees the world and how much of these beliefs are transmitted through teaching and interacting with students.

A Precarious Equilibrium: Between Two Worlds

How My Past Influences My Present

My past is not past. My past is present in everything I do and has a significant share in every decision I make. What I came to be today, where I situate myself in society, the life path I chose is to a great extent the result of my past. As an American citizen of Spanish and Puerto Rican ancestry, who was born and reared in Spain, I have certain values and beliefs that are different from dominant American culture. However, having been educated in the United States, and having seen my parents working extremely hard to achieve the American Dream, I also adopted the American society’s values and ideals and therefore, I consider myself both the product of the values of the dominant culture and of my own cultural heritage. I am the sum of my varied experiences: some were painful, some were extraordinary, and some were hard to learn. All these experiences have taught me something about the world I come from, and the world I live in today and have made me the kind of person I am.

Since I was a child, I saw my parents working very hard to make a better life for themselves and especially for me and my brothers. I looked up to them, but especially to my father, who was a strong and very firm man. My family lived in Spain when I was very young but we relocated to the United States, eager to live the American dream. In Spain, we were not poor but as immigrants, our lives in America were as difficult as those of almost all immigrants: difficulty in understanding the language, in finding and keeping a job, in adapting to the new culture and to the problems that are inherent to the American society, such as racism and stereotyping. My parents filled our minds with stories of success and told us how we were going to succeed because we had the advantage of growing up American. All my childhood and teenage life, I worked towards accomplishing this goal. I truly believe that hard work will lead one to success and my own success on both personal and professional plans are to a great success due to my commitment and hard work.

Even though I am a disciplined and hardworking individual, being productive and disciplined is not a goal in itself for me. In this respect, I am influenced by the values of my Spanish culture, in which the family is the most important treasure of an individual and comes before career. Therefore, there is a conflict within me between my desire to achieve success in my career, and my deep commitment to my family. I am married, and I have a daughter, even though I am an officer in the U.S. Army, and I am also working very hard to obtain my Masters degree. Despite so many challenges, I always find time for my daughter, and we also visit my parents twice each year. Being productive, disciplined and active are very important values to me, but my cultural heritage helps me to balance these values with a very strong sense of the family, of my environment and of my culture.

Where my commitment to helping others is concerned, I strongly believe in the equality of chances and social justice. However, my life experiences have taught me to respect people that help themselves, rather than being committed to the dominant culture’s traditional dedication to helping the needy, I believe that people must first do their best to succeed and help should be earned rather than received unconditionally. This belief was shaped since childhood. As I came to the United States, I did not speak English and I was very scared of school. I had a hard time adjusting and my teachers did not make things easier for me simply because of my background. I had to work very much in order to earn their sympathy and their respect, and their sympathy regarded my hard work, and not my persona, or my poor situation. It was only when I began to demonstrate that I am willing to work hard and I am very ambitious that they also began to help me in this direction. Also, my parents refuse to rely on social assistance and worked very hard on low-paying jobs, under their educational level, in order to demonstrate their value.

The concepts of right and wrong are very important for me and I largely believe that the world is split between these two notions. As an officer, I learned that what is right for my country is right in general is good for me, and I was taught never to question orders regardless of my own judgment of a situation. Trying to be non-judgmental does not work for me because, in order to respect orders and be able to believe in what I am doing, I have to truly believe that there is right and wrong in the world and that, by choosing to serve in the U.S. army, I chose to be on the side of the good.

Also, by choosing to serve in the army, I not only followed my father’s example, but also demonstrated my devotion for my adoptive country. I am as much American as I am Spanish, and I believe that patriotism is one of the most important values a person can learn and teach to his children. For me, there is a very particular American identity that all of us share, regardless of our race, religion, or class. This is apparent to me every time I return to Spain. Even though Spanish is my native language, and I have a strong sense of belonging to the Spanish culture, I feel very ‘American’ when I am there. I am able to connect much better with my African- American husband than with my Spanish relatives, because of the sense of the American identity we share.

My Public Image vs. My Private Life

While I was at the academy, I learnt the value of being efficient and practical. For my teachers, I did not matter how I got there, what matters is to be there in an exact time frame. Efficiency and ‘getting things done’ are very important for me and I try my best to work efficiently and make the most practical choices. In one’s career and in the professional and public life in general, what matters is the product and not the process, because efficiency is a value of the dominant culture. However, in the private sphere, I value the process more than the product, and this demonstrate that I am a complex individual and that I was shaped professionally by the dominant culture in which I work, and personally, by the cultural heritage carry. My public image is a practical and efficient one, but at home, I value the things we do together, rather than the result. For example, even though it would be much more efficient to bake a cake, or do chores alone, and the result would be much better, I always involve my daughter and allow her to be an active part in the process, because the quality time spent together is more important than being time efficient and having the best result.

Progress is also part of my public image, and is an important concept in the dominant culture. Progress drives society forward and it is assumed that both the individual within the society, and the society, and indeed, the world, must constantly aim towards progress. As an educator also, progress is an important concept and one of the goals of education. Thus, according to Grace (2011), “liberal adult education is focused on the progress of the individual who uses different perspectives to analyze social and personal location as the first step in building new knowledges and understandings” (p. 42). Even though progress is not always beneficial for the environment, and for the culture, human beings have the capacity and should balance progress with the preservation of our environment and our culture. We should, therefore, take what is best from both concepts: from Native Americans and other culture, we should learn to maintain traditions and to preserve our heritage, but in the same time, we should strive towards personal progress. Once, I asked my father why he wanted to move from Spain to the United States, and he answered that people constantly try to improve their lives and to ‘make things better’ for themselves and for their families. My parents’ desire to progress therefore is what allowed me to be in America today, and from them, I learnt what progress meant.

How I See the World

Material comfort is also one of the goals that drove my parents to leave their country and move to the United States. Material comfort is a major value in most western societies and living a comfortable life is what makes people feel ‘rewarded’ for being productive in the society. Once, my father gathered all children, and asked us, “Do you want to be able to afford everything you see in the show window, or you want to spend your life worrying about money?” We all answered that we want to have a good life, and this question haunted me and pushed me forward. Material comfort is therefore one value of the dominant culture that I value.

Freedom is another fundamental value that is inherently American. Americans believe in freedom more than anything else, but, as an officer, as an educator and as a parent, I know that freedom is sometimes dangerous. In Horton & Frieire (1990), the idea of freedom is linked to that of authority, because, “we need limits, and in experiencing the need for limits, we are also experiencing the respect for freedom and the need for exercising authority” (p. 142). Therefore, freedom is not to be assumed, but has to be respected as a valuable and important notion. It implies so much danger that, even though it is one of the principles of the American society, no one is ever entirely free and, as you assume more responsibilities in the society and at home, you are less free, and more responsible with limiting the freedom of others.

Along with freedom, individualism is yet another important value of the American society. Unlike societies in which the ‘group’ is more important, in the U.S.A, each person has to fight for himself, and has to make it on his own. This is contradictory to the Spanish culture, which emphasizes more on the relationships between individuals, and in which helping each other as a group is very important. Instead, the American society is a very competitive environment, in which the individual is always alone. This was easy for me to adapt to in the education system, and later in the work environment, but for my parents, it was much harder. I believe that this environment promotes economic progress and that it encourages individuals to overcome their disabilities and their weakness.

However, there are spaces in which I see the world as Spanish rather than as an American. As compared to the average American, I am much more religious and this is all due to my Catholic education. I believe that science does not have all the answers, and that there are limits as to what we are allowed to do with science. For me, the Earth is sacred and we should strive to maintain it in a good shape, instead of modifying nature to fit our needs. Science is not always the best option, and in my commitment to nature, I try to buy natural food products for myself and my family.

Both as a Spanish person, and as an American, I deeply trust in the power of democracy to give equal chances to everybody, and promote social justice. I travelled all over the world as an U.S. army officer, and I had the occasion to see what dictatorial regimes actually mean. Those experiences taught me to value democracy as a system that sets people free and gives them the right to develop as individuals and to be part of the decision making process in the society. In a democratic system, everyone has the right to try to reach success, and oppression of certain classes in not allowed, although it does occur. Racism exists in our society and it cannot be ignored, but we must struggle to overcome it. Being married to an African-American person, and being of Spanish and Puerto Rican heritage myself, I did confront racism and it represented a challenge for our family, both on a personal and on a professional level. However, racism is not a reason to fail, but merely a new challenge to overcome.

My unique background and my experiences created me as a person with a dual character, who assumed the values of the dominant culture in what professional life is concerned, but maintained the characteristics of my own cultural background in my personal life. As the child of my father, I undertook a military career which further shaped my view of the world. As a parent, I try to transmit to my daughter the values I was taught, and to teach her to be proud of her multiracial heritage. Finally, as an educator, I will try to perceive my students as the sum of their own experiences, and to allow them to teach me, as I teach them.

Grace, A. (2011). Building a knowledge-base in academic adult education (1945-1970). In Merriam, S. and Grace, A., (eds.). The Jossey-Bass Reader on Contemporary Issues in Adult Education. (pp. 33-57). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Ginsberg, M. & Wldodkowski, R. (2009). Diversity and motivation: culturally responsive teaching in college (2 nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Willey & Sons.

Horton, M. & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Merriam, S. & Grace, A., eds. (2011). The Jossey-Bass reader on contemporary issues in adult education. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

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• Your Impact

Peacemaking May 31, 2020

What Is Cultural Appreciation (And How It’s Different From Cultural Appropriation)?

Preemptive Love

Halloween costumes. Sports mascots. We’re surrounded by examples of cultural appropriation. But where’s the line between appreciating another culture and appropriating it? What even is cultural appropriation, and why is it a problem?

It’s relatively easy for us to experience another culture today. Film, television, and social media keep us connected at all times, giving us a glimpse into how other people around the world live. How they dress. What they eat. What holidays and traditions they celebrate.

All this connection can inspire genuine cultural appreciation. But experiencing another culture doesn’t automatically mean you understand it, or that you should start claiming elements of that culture as your own.

Cultural appreciation can easily turn into cultural appropriation. Instead of honoring another culture, appropriation demeans and dishonors. It perpetuates harmful stereotypes and deepens divides between communities.

But it can be avoided. We can honor and celebrate other cultures without inadvertently diminishing them along the way.

What Is Cultural Appreciation, and How is it Different From Cultural Appropriation?

Cultural appreciation is when you earnestly seek to learn about or explore a different culture.

You learn. You listen. You strive to understand. You seek to honor its beliefs and traditions. Not for your own personal gain—money, fame, or the Instagram photo. But to simply honor the culture and its people.

Appreciating different cultures like this is a fantastic part of being alive today. The problem is, there’s a fine line between appreciating a culture and appropriating from it.

But what exactly is cultural appropriation? It’s something many of us are just recently coming to understand. It wasn’t until 2017 that the term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defined it as:

“The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the practices, customs, or aesthetics of one social or ethnic group by members of another (typically dominant) community or society.”

There are many examples of cultural appropriation, easily visible in pop culture, sports, the arts, and even the fashion industry. But it isn’t just celebrities that get stuck. All of us are susceptible to this.

For example, it’s popular to refer to your group of friends as your “tribe.”

It’s meant to express closeness between you and your friends, but it can actually be a form of appropriation, perpetuating a harmful stereotype of both African and Native American cultures—specifically, the notion that they are somehow less “civilized” than other cultures. Used this way, the term demeans these cultures rather than honoring them.

This is the fine line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.

Appreciation is to learn more about a culture so you can better understand it. This quickly transforms into appropriation the moment you try to use that culture for yourself. Appreciation has you looking to others to guide the conversation. It keeps you clearly in the role of  student.

Appropriation is where you take from others and then put yourself in a position of authority.

A lot of the time, this goes unnoticed. When you use the word “tribe” to describe your friendship group, you don’t actively going out of your way to hurt Native Americans. You may not mean to cause any disrespect, yet taking from another culture for your own gain is a form of stealing, just as taking someone else’s words and using them as your own is plagiarism.

Cultural Appreciation vs. Cultural Appropriation: How To Honor Other Cultures

Step 1 : give more than just credit.

Credit alone is not enough. This is where celebrities and brands alike often go wrong—for example, when they hold a  fashion show and dedicate it to a certain culture. They do so as a form of honor and celebration, yet referencing someone else’s culture isn’t enough.

You need to go beyond giving credit to a culture and instead involve them in the conversation.

A white male in his fifties dedicating a fashion show to Indian culture can be seen as cultural appropriation, especially if most of the models are white and not from India. Having Indian models, on the other hand, and including Indian designers from the very start might go further toward fostering cultural appreciation instead of appropriation.

This works on an individual level, too. If you want to celebrate a culture that isn’t your own, don’t go it alone. Involve people in that culture, ask them questions (assuming they want to be involved), and invite them to share their stories and experiences.

Step 2 : Be Conscious and Intentional

Ignorance isn’t bliss. Apologizing later won’t help. So before you do anything, think about what you’re doing and who it may impact.

Ask yourself:

• Do I understand the significance of what I’m doing here?
• Am I honoring this culture or simply imitating it?
• Am I perpetuating a stereotype that might hurt those who belong to this culture?
• Am I doing this as a personal opportunity to interact with and experience another culture, or am I doing this for a photo I can post online?

Imagine you’re attending a party and want to celebrate your love of Japanese culture. Will the clothes you wear honor or hurt people? Are you playing to a certain stereotype? Do you really understand the culture you’re trying to honor, or do you just have a basic knowledge of it?

Why are you doing all this? What’s your intention? Take the time to ask yourself the hard questions.

That alone can be enough to make you step back and think. After all, cultural appropriation often comes more from ignorance than hate.

Step 3 : Don’t Borrow What You Don’t Understand

It may sound obvious, but do you actually understand the culture you’re trying to celebrate? Or do you simply have a basic knowledge of it from an article you read or a Netflix documentary you watched?

A good rule of thumb is to only honor cultures you understand in-depth, that you’ve taken serious time to study. Have you spoken to people who are a part of that culture? Can you openly discuss this culture in detail, or would you struggle to hold a conversation?

If you don’t understand a culture, you’re far more likely to fall into cultural appropriation rather than cultural appreciation. People often fall into this trap when getting a tattoo that features a symbol from someone else’s culture, for example. Again, ask yourself your intention of using that symbol. Is it for your gain or are you honoring someone else?

Do you know about the symbol in question, or does it simply look good on your arm?

Understanding a culture in-depth doesn’t make you immune to cultural appropriation, but it is essential to genuine cultural appreciation.

Step 4 : Educate Yourself!

So many aspects of life today were stolen from other cultures.

This is especially true for white cultures, who have laid claim to so many certain foods, dances, figures of speech, and music that originated elsewhere. It’s important we educate ourselves to this fact, whatever culture we’re a part of.

What do you take for granted today that originated from a different culture?

How well do you know your own culture and its relationship to other cultures throughout history?

The reality is, most of us are largely unaware of what happened before us, even if we’ve studied history. Most of us learned about racism and slavery, but do you know the words, customs, and practices that are wrapped up in this part of the American story? Did you know, for example, that popular terms like “peanut gallery” and “uppity” have racist origins?

Once you educate yourself about your own culture and where it came from, it’s easier to practice genuine care and concern for others.

Step 5 : Do It For The Right Reasons

Good intentions alone are not enough to steer clear of cultural appropriation. But they do matter.

Those questions again:

• Am I honoring this culture, or simply imitating it?
• Am I perpetuating a stereotype and hurting people who belong to this culture?

Ignorance is not bliss. Cultural appropriation is a real issue in today’s connected world. Everyone is capable of connecting with almost everyone else. It’s easier than ever to gain a basic understanding of many cultures. Yet time is sparse, we’re more easily distracted, and we often don’t do the work to discern the good information from the truly Snopes-worthy content on the internet.

Which leads us to merely scratch the surface (at best) instead of going a mile deep. We set out with the intention of appreciating another culture but it transforms into cultural appropriation if we don’t do it the right way, for the right reasons. Get clear on what your reasons are.

3 Great Examples of Cultural Appreciation

1: visit a mosque.

In 2016, a group of Christian pastors visited a mosque  for the first time.

They, like many other Americans, didn’t personally know a single person of the Muslim faith. They had never visited a mosque before and didn’t understand the culture. They also lived in a world where headlines were dominated by ISIS, Islamophobia, and toxic stereotypes.

So they committed to learning more, and, more importantly, to gain a real understanding of a new culture. They didn’t just read about it or speak to a single person. They, as a group, visited a mosque so they could experience the culture firsthand.

They asked questions. They listened. They allowed themselves to be taught.

It wasn’t a one-way street. Their Muslim counterparts listened to the pastors’ stories and values, too—their understanding of what it means to be Christian. This is an example of two cultures coming together, leaders building bridges and setting a positive example. Appreciating one another’s culture and embracing their differences.

Most important of all, it was done to learn, share peace, and to instill greater love.

2: Dress Appropriately

If you’re ever invited to a wedding or a celebration that honors a different culture, think about how you can fit in.

Wearing a sari with a choli top for your friend’s birthday party just so you can stand out is appropriation. Whereas wearing a colorful chiffon saree to a Hindu wedding may be a sign of appreciation, because it shows deference to (and appreciation for) the host’s culture. (But make sure you ask before you make a decision.)

Remember, you’re the student. The more you can hold that posture, the more you will learn to genuinely appreciate other cultures and the people who inhabit them.

3: Bless Your Neighbors

One way to appreciate others is to recognize the holidays and traditions that are important to them.

For example, honor your Muslim neighbors during Ramadan  (and other holidays).

Acknowledging other cultures’ holidays isa chance for you to learn and show solidarity with your neighbors. Not by mimicking their traditions, but by looking for ways you can honor them.

Ask your Muslim neighbors what Ramadan means to them. Instead of throwing a Cinco de Mayo party, learn about Mexican culture and history, and how the holiday came to exist.

Learn about the Native American nations that once lived on your land. Educate yourself on their customs, language, and art.

Appreciating Culture and Building Bridges

Cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation often come down to one thing: intention.

Wearing henna for a summer music festival can quickly turn into cultural appropriation.

But wearing henna to your Indian friend’s wedding may be a sign of cultural appreciation and respect.

Cultural appropriation divides people and reinforces toxic stereotypes. It leads to misunderstanding and prejudice. And it sets us all up to be at odds with one another.

The differences between cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation are often fine.

What begins as a celebration of another culture can quickly transform into appropriation because it’s done for the wrong reasons or because we don’t take the lead from the  right  people.

We live in a beautiful and diverse world. We should celebrate and enjoy the many different and contrasting cultures. They help give texture and creativity and diversity to our world. But as we appreciate other cultures, let’s be sure we’re doing it with the right intentions—to learn, to gain understanding, and to ultimately show honor and value.

Tagged: Culture Peacemaking

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• Relationships

At Our Queer Wedding, We're Honoring Our Cultures — and Creating Our Own Traditions

I didn't start dreaming of my wedding until I got engaged — and even then, I didn't know where to start. I'm Pakistani, and most Pinterest searches for South Asian weddings showed couples wearing colorful outfits during days of celebrations, surrounded by hundreds of family members and practicing choreographed dances in venues decorated with enough florals to fill a garden.

Most of these photos didn't reflect my own experience as a queer Pakistani woman. My partner is Filipino, and as a queer Filipino-Pakistani couple, we didn't envision ourselves carrying out many of the typical wedding traditions. I didn't see myself walking down the aisle with my family, and we didn't want a rukhsati , a South Asian tradition in which your family "hands you off" to your future partner. We've been living our own lives for a long time, so there's no reason for us to be "given away."

We learned to dream of what a wedding day could look like that centered us, not one based on these far-off ideals or Pinterest boards that told us what the day should look like.

Even after getting engaged, we put off wedding planning for a while. Part of me was afraid that my friends and family wouldn't prioritize our celebration or accept us as a queer couple. I remember talking to my dad about the idea of having a Western ceremony and a Pakistani reception in an effort to bridge my identities, and his reply was, "Why? Nobody would come anyway." And after looking through a few wedding vendor forms that only had name fields for the "bride" and "groom," it became clear that we needed a strong advocate in an industry that wasn't made for us.

Thankfully, we found support and community in The Gay Agenda Collective , a queer wedding and event planning company that my partner had been following on social media for years. In a time when we felt really alone in the wedding planning process, which was supposed to be the countdown to the happiest day of our lives, the founder Zabrina Zablan-Duvauchelle and her team made it feel like there was a place for us. We learned to dream of what a wedding day could look like that centered us, not one based on these far-off ideals or Pinterest boards that told us what the day should look like. In this liminal space, we found a place to make traditions for ourselves. And knowing that The Gay Agenda Collective was based in Hawaii and that so much of my partner's family had lived there, everything felt like it was falling into place.

One of our new traditions was born out of discussions between me and my partner about approaching our entrances during the ceremony. I had dreamed of entering the wedding ceremony under a phoolon ki chadar , or flower canopy, which is held over the bride by her loved ones as she walks down the aisle. Given the logistics of getting one made in Hawaii, and the fact that not much of my family was coming to the wedding, I initially brushed off this idea as superfluous. But my partner was determined to give me this moment and ended up creating a canopy that she built and covered it in flowers I loved like hydrangeas, hibiscus flowers, and marigolds. I'm excited to have my friends hold this canopy overhead as I make my way to my partner, serving as a reminder that my chosen family is just as important to me as the one I was born into. And it also serves as a reminder that I deserved to be celebrated, grand entrance and all.

My partner and I have also been thinking about how our cultures can show up in our attire too. In my partner's case, she's wearing Cambio & Co jewelry from the regions of the Philippines where her parents were born, as well as my grandma's bracelet as an anklet and a handpiece that matches my tikka , a headpiece worn on the forehead. I'll wear jewelry that my mom got me from Pakistan and a white lehenga from the incredible South Asian designer Seema Gujaral , bringing my Pakistani culture into a modern outfit that still feels like me. And my partner and I are both wearing mehndi , or henna, as a sign of our unity as a couple.

The wedding traditions we've chosen are born out of our third culture identities, bringing our Filipino and Pakistani customs with us to our life in Seattle, where we live authentically as queer women of color. Still, not everything is joy and rainbows. While planning the wedding, we realized we often needed to come out to vendors and people we meet, which is something that we'll probably need to do for the rest of our lives. In these moments, my partner and I learned to lean on each other to remember that we're blazing our own trail. We are forging a new life together, and just because we haven't seen it before in our family doesn't mean that we can't create something new.

At the end of the day, having a union matters much more to me than having a wedding. I'm grateful that I get to build a life with someone who loves me wholly and embraces all aspects of my culture. And when I envision myself walking down the aisle to my partner with my sequins and gold jewelry glowing in the O'ahu sun, surrounded by my closest friends, I remember why I'm doing all of this in the first place: queer love is powerful, and our story deserves to be celebrated.

Aleenah Ansari is a queer Pakistani writer based in Seattle. She covers travel, entrepreneurship, mental health and wellness, and representation in media for PS, Insider, The Seattle Times, Byrdie, and more.

• Wedding Planning

My Story of Domestic Violence Got Redacted, So I Wore It Instead

After parts of comedian and screenwriter Chelsea Devantez’s memoir, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This, were blacked out, making a dress out of her old journal entries allowed her to speak.

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When I fell in love for the first time, I was sure we’d be together forever, but forever turned sour in just a few short months. I’d heard that my boyfriend cheated on me, so I angrily confronted him in a park. ​​He looked off to the side and started shuffling backwards, as he weakly offered: Are you just gonna believe everything people tell you? The breakup happened fast. My heartache felt dramatically poetic, but it was actually quite cumbersome: I had to set my backpack down and wiggle my trembling arms free of his denim jacket one by one and hand it over. Then I had to reach behind my neck, pull at the leather knot of his shark tooth necklace, and struggle to loosen it until finally I could pull it over my head and toss it at him. With that, I had turned in all my girlfriend accoutrements.

A few days later he began begging for me back, doing wildly romantic gestures and apologizing in long monologues and handwritten letters. I happily fell back into his arms. Then something terrible would happen in the relationship and we’d break up again. His romantic gestures turned into menacing threats, and this break-up-and-get-back-together cycle continued until eventually he did three drive-by shootings of my house.

Anytime I used to tell someone this story, horror would flash across their face, and I would quickly follow it up with, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.”

When we picture domestic violence, we often conjure a muted color palette, shadows looming in the corners, as brutal images tumble about to a vicious soundtrack. But that’s not what it like felt to live it. Abuse occurs in the mundane: It happens as you’re grabbing Skittles from 7-Eleven, and when he’s telling you how beautiful you look that day. Abuse sometimes feels like just another moment when you can’t believe what a shithead your boyfriend is, because your brain learned to ignore the red flags way back when you were even entering into the relationship. During the worst of it, I was not a shattered woman hiding in a closet; I was still wondering if my butt looked okay in my jeans or if I had left my flat iron on.

I told the story of my relationship and those shootings in my upcoming memoir, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This , which is out on June 4. But when I turned in the manuscript, I was told to delete the story of domestic violence. They said something like, “It’s too dangerous to share.” I was enraged at the decision and I couldn’t get out of bed for days. I called in sick to work as I wrestled with the concept of deleting the entire story I’d worked my whole life to have the stamina to share.

I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: (But I'm Going to Anyway)

I am not someone you would ever expect to have been a victim of domestic violence. I’m a comedian and TV writer for a living, I love a bold lip, and sadly, I used to quote Lean In back when I made other terrible decisions, like wearing peplum tops and Santa-sized belts out to the club. You would never expect me to have been in a violent relationship, but that’s because you never expect anyone you know to be a victim of domestic violence. But statistically, it’s one in four—it’s happening to the woman next to you at the grocery store, or it could be your best friend, your mom, your sister, your girlbossing annoying manager. No one looks or acts like your typical domestic violence victim, because our stories have lived in the shadows, so much so that most people don’t know what to look for, including the ones going through it.

.css-1aear8u:before{margin:0 auto 0.9375rem;width:34px;height:25px;content:'';display:block;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-1aear8u:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/elle/static/images/quote.fddce92.svg);} .css-1bvxk2j{font-family:SaolDisplay,SaolDisplay-fallback,SaolDisplay-roboto,SaolDisplay-local,Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:1.625rem;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;margin-bottom:0.3125rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.125rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.125rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.2;}}.css-1bvxk2j b,.css-1bvxk2j strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-1bvxk2j em,.css-1bvxk2j i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1bvxk2j i,.css-1bvxk2j em{font-style:italic;} They might tell me that I can’t tell my story, but it doesn’t matter, because I already did, years ago in the pages of my journals that now rest on my skirt.”

We relegate these stories to thrillers and Lifetime movies and murder podcasts. But the more intimate partner violence stories are kept in the dark and deleted from books, the harder it is to have examples in culture of how to say something, fight back, or survive. I had wanted to tell the story of my relationship in a way that could help someone inside one recognize themselves. I even wanted to make it funny, just to be able to tell one of these stories in a genre it’s not usually allowed into. (Now, you are probably wondering how in the hell I planned to make my story funny, but what if I told you that he and his friends called themselves “The Big Dawgs” and would bark in harmony along to 2Pac songs. I mean, c’mon, that’s at least kind of funny.)

So I refused to delete it. Instead, I redacted just enough words so that technically they couldn’t tell me no. Instead of telling my story, I used the black bars in my book to tell a new one, perhaps a more important one: the story of how our systems are set up to silence victims in the name of protection. And now, my comedy gal memoir is more blacked out than a bachelor party.

Before turning in my final draft, I fact checked everything in the book with the dozens of journals I had kept when I was younger. When I began to read through them, I found that a younger me had written pages and pages of details that would put Brett Kavanaugh’s so-called calendars to shame. As my fingers paged through each diary, I realized that despite thinking that “maybe it wasn’t that bad,” it was, in fact, far worse than I had ever remembered. That’s when I decided to do what any traumatized debut author slash comedian might: I scanned 900 pages of my journals via an app on my phone and sent them to the designer Diego Montoya to make into a dress for me to wear on my book tour.

They might tell me that I can’t tell my story, but it doesn’t matter, because I already did, years ago in the pages of my journals that now rest on my skirt.

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Guest Essay

Learning to Love My Father as His Mind Unraveled

By Cornelia Channing

Ms. Channing is an editorial assistant in Opinion.

When I was around 10 years old, my father started hiding bananas in our house.

We found them in the dishwasher, in the junk drawer, behind the potted plants. I once came upon an entire bunch hanging from the shower head. Too often, he hid them so well — tucked beneath a pile of blankets in a rarely opened closet, say — that we found them only when they started to smell. When confronted, Dad denied it, but we knew it was him.

On their own, the bananas might have been amusing. Like a surrealist art project. But they were part of a more troubling pattern.

He had started acting strange in other ways, too: making jokes that no one could understand and forgetting things, like where he’d parked or the name of the owner of the diner where he’d been a regular for years.

A wood sculptor, he had always been obsessive, almost rabid, about his work. He was up at 5 or 6 every morning and spent every moment he could in his studio, pausing only to eat, which was done standing up over the kitchen sink. But now it was as if someone had yanked out his batteries.

He took to spending large parts of each day sitting in his car in the driveway, poring over the newspaper, circling seemingly random words and scribbling notes that said things like “Welcome to the information age” and “There’s only one way to find out!” When we asked him what he was doing, he brushed us off.

My mother took him to the doctor. They ran some tests and said he was fine, but he was not fine. He was agitated all the time. Both listless and restless. He would wander from room to room as though he was looking for something. Or else he’d sit and stare blankly at some point in the middle distance, disappearing into himself for whole afternoons.

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What It Felt Like to Freeze My Eggs at 30

Emotional. Uncomfortable. Expensive. Worth it.

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I never thought that I would spend the first year of my 30s mourning the end of my seven-year relationship, downsizing apartments because I could not afford the rent alone, and considering, for the first time in a long time, what my future would look like—tomorrow, next week, and 10 years from now. And yet, that’s exactly what the last few months of my life have entailed.

I was raised by a liberal, badass mother, a loving dad, a feminist stepdad, and three six-foot-five brothers who escorted me on mall dates with terrified suitors—I was never taught to depend on a man for my self-worth. But nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of absolute loss I felt when I separated from my partner, the man I had silently but firmly decided was the love of my life, the soon-to-be father of my children. It was that sense of mourning over a future I was sure I would have, coupled with anxiety over both my actual biological clock and the more metaphorical timer we women, even in 2024, are chased with once we hit puberty, that led me to freeze my eggs this year.

I started injections on May 2, sitting on my couch in my Upper East Side apartment crowded with moving boxes. My mom flew in from Mexico City to be with me through this, and I’ll never forget the moment we looked at each other, needles in hand, wondering what on earth led us here. She, a Gen Xer who did the whole work-marriage-kids thing in the way that makes a Catholic proud, now potentially witnessing the making of what could become her grandchildren. I, a lifelong hypochondriac purposely injecting myself with hormones? For a baby with no dad? Without medical supervision?

My medicines were Gonal and Menopur, used to stimulate the ovaries to grow multiple follicles; and Cetrotide, to prevent premature ovulation. Once my eggs were at their peak, I would inject two trigger shots, which mature the follicles and release the eggs.

With each injection, I felt the liquid medicine flood into my insides like a river of hot sauce, burning for just a few seconds and leaving no mark. Each time, my palms sweated as I squeezed my stomach and willed myself to puncture my own skin. My nurses told me this would be the easiest part—that the bloating, the fatigue, and the mood swings that would come from the medicines would be harder—but for me, it was the opposite. I couldn’t get over the needles.

Because of the trauma of my breakup and of apartment hunting in Manhattan on a budget (which is almost as painful), I jumped into this process ready for the worst, assuming the hormones and the exhaustion and the near-daily hospital visits would make me feel more alone, more single . And in a way, they did. Walking into the fertility clinic each morning in my work-from-home sweats and seeing these couples glowing, so excited to be on their journey, it stung. But that, I would remind myself, was the point. That was exactly why I was doing this—because I want a giant career, and a great apartment, and more adventures, and a partner who chooses me through the downs, and eventually, a child. I want to be a mother even if it means I have to do it by myself. But I need time to prepare—more time than my body and current lifestyle allow.

Like a true millennial, I posted selfies in my robe, lying on the hospital bed, feet spread on the stirrups, on Instagram on the days leading up to my egg retrieval. I was unsure about sharing something so personal so publicly, but quickly I was swarmed with responses and words of encouragement from friends, colleagues, and silent followers I’ve met only once or twice—many who have either gone through egg freezing or IVF themselves, or who are contemplating jumping in on the movement. (It is, after all, a movement for us 30-somethings in New York City. And what a cool group to be amongst.)

The reviews from my loved ones on the matter were shockingly mixed. A Gen Z relative deemed it “controversial” and wondered if I should just let nature take its course. A recently married friend asked me if I plan to “settle down” soon or if this were another backup plan so I didn’t have to yet. Meanwhile, my 80-year-old grandma marveled at the freedom science now affords women, and my mom cried happy tears and called me brave for poking myself with needles for the sake of affording myself more time, more options.

For two weeks, I got blood drawn from my “good vein” every other day and watched as nurses measured my growing eggs on a screen with the help of a lubricated scanning device shoved up to my uterus. I crafted medical potions in my kitchen and set alarms at weird hours of the day to inject myself—first twice, then thrice—with the different medicines. I hobbled around my apartment feeling like a bloated fish tank, bruised and enormous, not wanting to make sudden movements for fear I might shake up my little fish.

The retrieval day was, in some ways, the easiest. While I was initially terrified of being put under anesthesia, the doctors comforted me, placed me on the operation table, and seamlessly knocked me out before I could even have a panic attack. I woke up 20 minutes later, groggy but proud that I had gotten myself to the finish line. Between tired blinks, I listened as a nurse told me they’d retrieved enough eggs for three to four babies; I was done.

I gained about 10 pounds of water weight, which I carried, heavily and uncomfortably, for almost a week following my surgery. But my babies are now on ice at NYU’s fertility clinic, and I’ll be paying about $1,000 a year for their storage until I’m ready to use them. While the entire process would have cost me roughly $10,000, my work insurance, from Progyny, covered about 70 percent of it.

A little less needle-phobia and a very bruised chunk of stomach later, what I feel is relief, and an unwavering belief that I can do whatever I decide I can. It was not easy. For the first time in my adult life I had to take a beat. I couldn’t ease my anxiety with exercise—or wine! Some days I was unable to keep my eyes open through the workday, while on others I couldn’t sit still. Some mornings I sang Taylor Swift songs aloud, pretending I was in a coming-of-age film; some nights I cried into my Sweetgreen salad and called my ex.

Now that it’s over, I still have moments of weakness. My Notes app still has the baby names he and I chose together. I still think about what would have happened if we had just made it work and I’d gotten pregnant the “normal” way. (And I still can.) But the reality is, I have never chosen myself the way I did through this process. And when I do have these children, they will know that their mom wanted them more than anything in the world, so much so that she put everything on hold in the most uncertain time of her life just to make sure she would get to meet them one day.

Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets. 

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Boeing Starliner astronaut has brought samosas and cultural items into space before

Sunita Williams, an Indian American NASA astronaut aboard the Boeing Starliner on Wednesday morning, has been known to bring items representing her culture with her to space. 

Williams, 58, was part of the first crewed launch of the Starliner capsule to the International Space Station with fellow astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore. Williams, a veteran of two other space missions, previously told reporters that she brings some essentials including sacred texts Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and, of course, samosas. 

“I really appreciate my Indian heritage and was glad I could bring part of it with me to space,” Williams said during a 2013 news conference at the National Science Centre in Delhi, before referencing the elephant-headed Hindu god. “Ganesh has always been in my house. Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve had Ganesh, and so he had to come with me to space, of course. And Indian food — you can never get enough of Indian food … so I had to make sure I had some samosas in space with me. Other types of Indian food we definitely had up there as well.”

Williams, whose father is Indian and mother is of Slovenian descent, has been open about the importance of her heritage. While on Expedition 32/33 in 2012, she also sent out a greeting from space during Diwali , the Hindu festival of lights.

NASA selected Williams as an astronaut in 1998. She has spent a total of 322 days and performed seven space walks across her two extended missions in space. She once held the record for total cumulative space walk time by a female astronaut, but that has since been broken by Peggy Whitson.

The latest launch made Williams the first woman to test an orbital spacecraft. The historic test flight — the third attempt after repeated delays — could pave the way for routine flights between Boeing’s Starliner capsule and NASA. Bonnie Pandya, Williams’ mother, told NBC News hours before liftoff that her daughter was in good spirits and was “so happy about going."

Minutes before the launch, Williams radioed a message back to mission control. 

“Let’s go, Calypso,” she said, referring to the name of the Starliner capsule. “Take us to space and back.”

Kimmy Yam is a reporter for NBC Asian America.

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The Importance of Culture in History

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