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Fiqws Guided Essay
Fiqws Guided Essay
Guided Essay
Within
Autumn 2019
October 17 2019
Words: 2,170
GUIDED ESSAY 2
Description:
Benecia is a 49-year-old woman. I observed what a day in her life consists of. Many of the daily
tasks that she completed throughout the day are not considered to be an American norm.
Something which I noticed immediately, is that Eliza uses the bathroom with the door open. In
fact, throughout the whole day, all the lights in her house remain off until it is dark outside which
is when indoor light is necessary in navigating yourself around the house. When cooking she
opens cans manually by hand with a knife, rather than with a mechanical can opener and when
people enter her home, they make sure to knock on the door instead of ringing the doorbell in
order to avoid getting scolded since she strongly detests hearing the loud doorbell ring. I also
observed Dorka (Benecia’s younger sister) who is 47 years old. Dorka’s day consists mostly of
her performing tasks the exact opposite way of how her sister does. Dorka uses the bathroom
with the door closed, and the lights are turned on in the house as soon as she wakes up. Along
with this, people who come to her house ring the doorbell. On the contrary, like Eliza she opens
her cans manually with a knife. Dorka migrated to the United States of America single and with
the purpose of having a better future while continuing her education. Benecia migrated to the
United States of America married and pregnant with her first both with the purpose of having a
better future that was more financially stable for her family and with the purpose of more
opportunities for her kids than she had in her home country.
Mystery:
Benecia demonstrates habits that help her complete her daily tasks which are non-western
tendencies, while her sister Dorka, who grew up with her in the same countryside environment,
Research Question:
What in Benecia’s and Dorka’s developmental stages and processes, can help explain why
Benecia didn’t acclimate to the American way of doing these tasks once she moved to the United
Stage:
Benecia is forty-nine years old. She has a full-time job and provides for and takes care of her
four children. Benecia is in the Adulthood stage. Dorka is forty-seven years old and also has a
Soma Processes:
Benecia and Dorka are in Procreativity part of their psychosexual development. Benecia
is raising her kids on her own with minor help from her husband since they are separated. In
contrast, Dorka is raising her kids with the help of her ex-husband.
In Benecia’s home, she tells her children to do certain tasks. But only one of her
children does the chores. So, the labors of the house are split and shared between her and
her oldest daughter. Part of the reason why her other three children do not complete the
chores is because she scolds them for not completing the task the way she does it. Her
kids (who were all born in America) complete the task in an Americanized fashion, while
she does not. In Dorka’s home she distributes the tasks of the house between her and her
two children. Dorka cooks and cleans and organizes the house while her kids clean their
GUIDED ESSAY 4
room and organize the house. Her children complete it in their own way, but they get
done.
Ethos Processes:
Benecia has taken time while raising her kids to teach them about her culture.
However, because of the language barrier she has had a hard time teaching her kids in
depth about their culture. In addition is not trying to Acculturate to the western way of
completing daily tasks. Acculturation is when morals, values, and norms of an outside
culture are acquired. She instead stays with her enculturated ways. Enculturation is
acquiring the basic morals, values, and norms of one’s own culture. Despite Dorka
acculterating to the American culture, Dorka is always talking to her kids about her
culture and embedding it to them. This is easily done for her because there is no language
barrier between her and her kids. Dorka speaks English and Spanish fluently, while
D. Ritualization: Generational
Out of the two sisters, Dorka is more generational, meaning not in conflict about
learning and applying new ways (more westernized way) to go through her daily tasks.
Dorka is a firm believer and practicer in communication. She is teaching her children
things in life and about their culture thoroughly and frequently. And if there is a
misunderstanding in the translation of knowledge from her to her kids, she makes way to
teaches her kids about life and her culture in the same ways that Dorka has but her kids
E. Ritualism: Authoritism
As mentioned in the section before Benecia does teach her kids about her culture
and things about In terms of things of life, sometimes her kids do not practice things the
way she has taught them. Because they do not do things the way she wants them to she
gets upset and tells them to stop and does it herself, making her a person who practices
Authoritism. Authoritism is when the person teaches something by doing it and doesn’t
take time to find the best way to teach it to the person. In Dorka’s home, when she asks
for a task to get done, it doesn’t matter if the kids don’t complete them the way she taught
them to...her goal is for the task to get done, regardless of the route they took to complete
it. If the kids do no complete the task, the task is left unfinished until they complete it.
Generativity is the pressure to teach culture so that we can learn how to be better
humans, this is important because it is biological for humans whom need culture to
survive. Benecia seeks comfort in her daily life, living in a country which she did not
grow up in by completing tasks the way she did in her home country. Even though, her
kids have a hard time taking in the culture that she teaches them she still finds it
important because her culture is a part of her identity. This is the same case for Dorka. To
both Benecia and Dorka teaching the culture isn't a hard pressure because it is something
that they do naturally. In terms of Self-Absorption or Stagnation, both mothers don’t just
care about themselves. Both mothers spread their knowledge and are not just wrapped in
GUIDED ESSAY 6
their own world, which if they would, would lead to the culture not continuing passed
their kids generation. In that case, the death of culture is because they chose not to spread
the knowledge of their own culture. However, that scenario is not the case for Benecia
and Dorka.
Benecia and Dorka take time to pass down information and culture onto their
daughters. Dorka tends to take time out of her day to do this, while Benecia passes on the
knowledge while completing daily tasks because she finds ways to relate it to the tasks
she is completing and because she spends more time at home. Even though Benecia does
not have to take extra time for it since she has good time management, she still spends
time teaching her kids. Both mothers cannot do it as often as they would like. For Dorka
it is because her children are older and have their own responsibilities along with the fact
that her jo is far from home, and for Benecia it is because her children do not like to do
H. Antiapathy: Rejectivity
Rejectivity is stopping the process. Benecia tends to stop the process once her kids
begin to complain or when the kids do not complete the task to -- in her opinion, the best
of its ability. Dorka does not stop the process. She makes sure her kids complete the task
whether it is done correctly so that they can learn. Not only are they learning how to do
the task, they are also being exposed to the Hispanic culture of doing your own
Conclusion:
In essance, both sisters have different ways of going about their lives. Dorka and Benecia were
similar mostly in their previous stages: Infancy, Early Childhood, Play Age, and Adolescence
because these were the years of their lives where both grew up in the same household with the
same morals and living conditions. What launched a difference in their developmental stages and
processes and eventually that one sister acculturated to American culture better than the other
was an occurrence in the School Age stage. In terms of competence, school went well for Dorka,
but not so for Benecia. Yet, at the same time Benecia did well on picking up the ability to
complete tasks around the house quickly and efficiently, which made up to the fact that school
wasn’t her forte in her eyes and the eyes of her family and community, and eventually dropped
out of school and got married. In contrast, Dorka was babied and appeased in their household
since she was not only the youngest but also did well in school. Her scholarly attitude and
success made up for her lack of home skills. Proof that it was not in an earlier stage, is that in the
stage right before School Age, which is Play Age, both sisters had will: wanted to do and
purpose: and had a reason to do, along with autonomy: work hard at what must get done. Once
migrating to America both landed into a co-ethnic community. However, Dorka was able to
learned American vocabulary with a large population of her own ethnic background. Dorka
intigrated fully, through education while Benecia did so partially. Not all children succeed in
school. This is can be cause by the idea that the School Age stage, or as William Shakespeare
calls it in his writing As You Like It (1600), the schoolboy stage, which moves slowly and kids
tend to complain about it (Shakespeare). Benecia when trying to communicate with non-Spanish
speakers at her job or professionals whom worked with her kids learned English and
GUIDED ESSAY 8
acculturated partially to the American culture through the enculturation's of her kids. She also
believes that was drove her away from fully acculturating was fear. Fear of being judged, of
failing the way she did in school, and out of fear of being disliked because she was non-
American. In the past immigrants have been and at times are still are not liked in their new
countries based on their race, religion, and stereotypes. They are also disliked because of the
citizens fear of the immigrants joining the opposition. All of this makes it harder for them to be a
part of the culture of the nations they migrated to (Kenneth C. Davis). This information also
instilled fear and set back Benecia. She chose to not try to continue her education once migrating
to America. This choice can also be explained by the idea that the unbalance between
enculturation and acculturation makes the education of immigrants harder (Milstein & Lucic).
Benecia stuck on to her Dominican culture and did not really change who she was when she
moved to America. This ties into the idea that you are your past (Erikson pg. 88) and for
Benecia, her past (her Dominican culture) is who she was and still is. This is magnifies why both
mothers have raised their children differently and passed on their cultures in dissimilar amounts
and ways. In prediction of future stages, the only stage left for Benecia and Dorka is that of Old
Age where both women will be content with their life decisions. They will reflect on their actions
and with their wisdom, Dorka will suggest for people to not only have a focus on education, but
on being attentive and master home tasks, while also staying true and not letting go of one's
culture. Benecia will suggest for individuals to not only have discipline in household chores, but
to never let go of the right of education no matter how hard it seems, to take time to get out of
one’s comfort zone, to explore and understand the cultures of others, and if applicable to learn
and live the culture of one’s new location, while not forgetting your own.
GUIDED ESSAY 9
References
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/opinion/03davis.html
Erikson, E. H., & Erikson, J. M. (1998). The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W.W. Norton.
Milstein, G., & Lucic, L. (n.d.). Young Immigrants A Psychosocial Development Perspective.