Running Head: CULTURAL IMPACTS 1

Cultural Impacts

Eric J. Allen, Reagan G. Baughman, Cy N. Burkhart, Benjamin D. Jacoby

Tri-Valley High School

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Abstract

This collaborative essay grants the reader with new perspectives on how one’s culture

plays a part in his or her life. It makes the compelling claim that a person’s cultural identity

causes their opinions of the world to be altered, but this is due to the fact that the world is exactly

what shapes their culture. This argument serves to educate the reader of the different cultural

aspects of one’s life, where he or she comes from, how greatly one’s culture affects his or her

life, and how it affects their views upon the world. With textual evidence from the influential

American novels Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Kite Runner, and The Grapes of Wrath,

and the short stories “Two Kinds” and “Where Worlds Collide,” this essay establishes a solid

argument in favor of cultural identity. It also contains the personal experiences of students with

different cultures in order to further support the claim. The reader of this article will leave

enriched on the subject of cultural identity and conscience of the role it plays in their life.

Cultural Impacts

The fundamentals of one’s culture make an impactful difference in one’s perceptions of

the world. How and where a person is raised, their parent’s beliefs, and many other factors affect
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how they view the world. The factors that affect a person’s culture are the same factors that

affect how they view the world. Therefore, how and where a person is raised directly affects

one’s culture and one’s view of the world.

For many, home is where they were raised, or it is where they place their comfort;

however, it is also the primary source and foundation for their culture. If a person is unwillingly

removed from an environment in which they are attached to, damage upon their identity is very

apparent. One area of literature that highlights these effects is John Steinbeck’s novel, The

Grapes of Wrath. One of Steinbeck’s characters, Reverend Casy, states, “‘Fella gets use’ to a

place, it's hard to go … Fella gets use' to a way of thinkin' it's hard to leave’" (Steinbeck, 1939, p.

61). The theme of this book rests highly upon the effects a drastic cultural change can have on a

person.

When people realize they have lost a part of their identity, they feel as if they have lost

everything. People are not themselves without their identities. If they lose that, they frequently

question themselves and often life itself. Within Steinbeck’s novel, we see people wandering

aimlessly and fitting out to become “bull-simple” (Steinbeck, 1939, p. 244). When the Joads are

forced to leave their homes, a feeling of emptiness sets in. They are being forced to abandon

everything they’ve ever known and start new from scratch. Stripping a person of the things that

make them who they are will have a detrimental impact on their view of themselves and their

cultural identity.

One’s upbring aides in determining one’s decisions, thus impacting his or her perspective

on other cultures throughout the world. In a child’s youth, their prime example is their parents.

Children learn how to talk by listening to their parents. They try new things because their

parents do. Every child acquires habits from observing their parents. This shapes who the child
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is and that child’s culture. As children age, they tend to follow one of two common routes; they

either turn out exactly like their parents, or they rebel and are the exact opposite of their parents.

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Amir and Baba are a prime example of the

influence a parent has on their child’s culture. Baba and Amir both made life-altering mistakes,

and they both attempted to dull their guilt by being benevolent to everyone. Hosseini writes, “I

think everything he [Baba] did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving

money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself” (Hosseini, 2004, p. 302).

Amir similarly attempts to vindicate himself of his mistake by saving Sohrab. Because Amir

grew up observing Baba, they have parallel cultures; therefore, they handled similar situations in

the same manner.

In the story “Two Kinds,” the mother-daughter relationship is a prime example of a child

rebelling against their parents. Jing-mei’s mother deeply desired for her daughter to be a genius,

but “she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable” (Tan, 2014, p. 24). This

caused a massive divide to form between the two. Because of her mother’s outrageous

expectations, Jing-mei resented her mother and became the opposite of what her mother had

hoped she would become. This rebellion results in the difference in Jing-Mei and her mother’s

cultures. Jing-Mei’s mother is a woman with high expectations, and Jing-Mei is a girl with no

drive or care. Whether a child’s culture is similar to their parent's or opposing their parent’s,

their culture considerably affects their outlook on the world.

It can be assumed that a person’s culture is greatly influenced by the time period they

grew up in. Many people assume that this causes a parent’s older culture to have less effect on

their children’s current culture, but this is not the case. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were

Watching God, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, receives the classic Southern culture of her
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grandmother and primary caregiver, Nanny. Nanny raised her to be a classic Southern woman

with a life run by a dominant man. This reflected the common view of many other Blacks in

Janie’s community: women were inferior to men and must be treated as property. This idea was

born of generations of male dominance, and it was eventually accepted as normal. This is how

Nanny viewed it as she passed this idea down to Janie during her youth. Nanny’s belief that ‘“De

nigger woman is de mule ud de world so fur as Ah can see”’ lead her to seek out a wealthy

husband to keep Janie free from labor and toil (Hurston, 1937, p. 14). Nanny did not consider

love when pairing Janie with Logan Killicks, as it was a meaningless trait in her eyes. Because of

this, Janie approached life expecting love to come naturally with marriage, a dangerous

misconception that turned out to be a deciding factor for many of her decisions. Therefore, a

person’s culture is influenced both by the time period they grew up in and the time period their

parents grew up in.

I, like many others, am able to identify the influence my parents have had on my life and

on my culture. For example, my conscience is driven primarily by my strong Catholic faith, an

attribute I derive directly from my parents. They’ve taken me to church my whole life, put me

through 9 years of Catholic school, and taught me the importance of faith and morals at home

and in society. The track they have set me on from day one has lead me down what has so far

been a morally straight life, and I hope to continue living my faith just like I’ve been taught. I am

very similar to Janie in the way that I have let my parents influence me, even though their advice

may be more sound than Nanny’s classic marital philosophies.

This truth that culture affects perspectives on life is never more evident than when a

person is faced with a new situation. This is especially evident when a situation involves total

immersion into a different culture. In the story “Where Worlds Collide,” the man that got off the
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plane is a prime example of how culture affects the way people perceive the world around them.

When the man gets off the plane, he is appalled by the amount of flashing lights and people

around him. One can draw the conclusion that back in the man's home, the culture is completely

different.

I had a very similar experience when I traveled to Belize. When I got off the cruise ship, I

was taken aback by how different it was from my home. When I got past the gates in Belize that

separated the port from the city, I was ambushed by native people trying to sell me their products

and services. I feel as if the man in the story felt very similar to how I felt: shocked by how

different people act with different cultures.

In Belize, they had soldiers from the military rather than a police force like in America.

When I arrived, I began to freak out because I’m not used to seeing guys in camo suits walking

around with automatic guns slung over their shoulders. The man in the story encounters a similar

situation; however, it’s the other way around. When he arrives in America, he thinks to himself,

“No khaki soldiers in fatigues, no instructions not to take photographs, as at home” (Lyer, 2014,

p. 51). The man feels very similar to how I felt in Belize. I was scared when I got to the port

because I’ve never been in a situation like that before. I didn’t know how to behave in such a

foreign place. I can easily relate to the character’s unease and need for familiarity. When a

person stumbles upon a situation they are not used to, it is their culture that affects the way they

act and feel. Therefore, one’s experiences significantly influence one’s perspective on the world.

One's culture plays an evident role in how one views the world. There are many factors

that affect a person’s culture; these include where and when they are raised, their parents, and

their personal experiences. These factors each play a vital role in determining one’s culture,

which, in turn, affects one’s perspective of the world.

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References

Hosseini, K. (2004). The Kite Runner. Toronto: Anchor Canada Riverhead Books

Hurston, Zora Neale. (2006). Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York :Harper Perennial

Modern Classics,

Lyer, Pico.(2014). Where Worlds Collide. In Betty Barnett & Doug Waugh (Eds.), Springboard:
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English Language Arts. (p.50-52). Indianapolis: College Board

Steinbeck, John.(1939). The Grapes of Wrath. Introd. Robert DeMott. New York:

Penguin, 2006

Tan, Amy.(2014). Two Kinds. In Betty Barnett & Doug Waugh (Eds.), Springboard:

English Language Arts. (p. 18-25). Indianapolis: College Board