Our Cultural Identities

Thanksgiving in a Monsoonless Land, Rustomji 336

America supposedly has a distinct culture as a melting pot nation that combines different cultures into one “American culture,” though “every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings,” (Williams 93). What do we think about when we ponder American culture? Maybe football games or red, white, and blue clothing? Fireworks on the Fourth of July? These are not inherent to America as a nation, but these things have come to symbolize American pride. Being American is like being Hispanic, French or Chinese; it’s simply an idea that unifies a group of people who might otherwise see themselves as individuals.

I interviewed Itxel regarding her family’s history. Surprisingly, Itxel’s family is from Jalisco, Mexico; the same place my family is from. They migrated from there to the United States where they settled down in Los Angeles. She explained that her family life was pretty typical, as they lived comfortably among their basic necessities. Her family originally lived in a bad area of the city that was affected by gang violence. Unfortunately, this tends to be a big association with Los Angeles culture, and my own mom dealt with the same issues as she got to high school. An altercation between her mom’s sister and gang members (Itxel’s tia was constantly harassed by gangs and was eventually attacked) forced them to move to Paramount, California. When Itxel’s mom was about 10 years of age, she was sent back with her grandparents in Ameca, Jalisco, Mexico because her parents needed time to grow financially to be able to support themselves. Itxel’s mom explains that her time in Jalisco was fun and safer with her parents than back in Los Angeles. She enjoyed being with her cousins and was able to be comfortable contrary to the neighborhood back in LA. However it was sad being away from her parents. A year later, after much over time and hard work from her father, the children returned to their parents in Paramount. Itxel’s mother interacted with many different people of Latin culture and American given that she went to school in Mexico and the U.S. Being Mexican, my family and Itxel’s faced many of the same cultural expressions and socioeconomic obstacles. Both of our grandparents were hardworking and were able to provide for their families in order for them to live comfortably, but not luxuriously. Paramount is another borderland community among cities like Downey, South Gate, and Compton.

Growing up, my grandmother faced prejudice simply because of the color of her skin. Being treated like a haole, or a non native white person to the Hawaiian island, my grandma faced a stigma that many white people on the island at this time faced after the colonization of the Hawaiian islands. Much like Patricia Limerick’s belief that “the lands were not vacant but occupied” (Davidson and Lytle pg. 141), my grandmother lived on land that had become the property of the whites. The land was not free, but rather they took the land as their property by force which in turn led to my grandma’s experience of segregation from her own people. And while she did not face the difficulties that African Americans faced at the same time, she did face prejudice amongst her own community. My grandmother did not have the dark tanned skin tone like that of her cousins and friends, but a pale complexion. This led to people telling her she was not Hawaiian, despite her familial background and history. When she reached adulthood, she moved from the main island to Oahu where she raised her seven children after having served for a little bit at Pearl Harbor. After she had divorced from her husband, she moved from Oahu to California where she remarried. Here however she found that while she was not “Hawaiian enough” on her homeland, she was not “American enough” in the mainland. When she joined the church of Latter Day Saints, she found her people. It was at church that she found people of her same background and culture. To this day, my grandma continues to demand that my family get the recognition for who we are, to believe in where we come from. She makes it a point to visit her home every year, and encourages her children and grandchildren such as myself to practice the culture of our people, through luaus, cooking traditional meals, and the simple tradition of the grandparent providing the middle name of their grandchildren such as passing down her middle name of Lehua to me.

- Taylor Chesley -

Gillian interviewed her grandmother, Barbara who she calls Grammy Barbara. Barbara was born in a Hungarian community in Connecticut after her parents had migrated to the United States from Hungary. It was there in Connecticut that Barbara was raised religiously at a Hungarian church where her grandfather was a pastor. Growing up, she spoke English at home but knew Hungarian as she grew up listening to it constantly from her family and the community she lived in. She only went to University for one year before dropping out, and married her husband, a United States Naval Officer. Barbara and her husband moved to Japan after they were wedded, where her husband was stationed in the Navy. Here, she learned the Japanese language and culture as well as took an officer position in the military. After her husband’s term in Japan was over, they moved to New Hampshire where she gave birth to twins; one of which is Gillian’s mother. When Gillian’s mother was two, Barbara and her husband divorced and as a result she got involved in opera and choir. With her choir, Barbara toured across Europe, leaving her children with her parents. At one point, her children stayed with their father and they took a road trip across the country while she toured Europe with her choir group. Later on she became an accountant. Gillian says her grandmother was employed as an accountant for over 30 years before she retired a few years ago. However, Barbara had said that while she was working as a single mom, she didn’t face any hardships along the way. Now, Barbara lives in California where she continues to pass on her knowledge of her Hungarian background and culture to her grandchildren. She also makes it a common occurrence to teach her grandchildren a little bit of the Hungarian language when the when the opportunity to do so presents itself.

During the time they live there they learned more about their culture, and when they returned they noticed how many aspects of their culture was present in the United States. When her and her siblings returned they continued on with their school, and this is where she met some of her closest friends. Majority of them were hispanic but her friend’s parent were from different parts of Mexico and Latin America. Her other relations/connections were with people who had completely different cultures. Due to this my mom was introduced to different cultures.

- Itxel Candelario - 

I interviewed Matthew Vasquez about his family’s history. Matthew’s family originated from Jalisco, Mexico. His mother’s dad was the breadwinner for the family, and provided for his wife and his daughters. He was always known for being a hard worker, and due to his work ethic he was able to give his family a good life. Matthew’s mom was born in Torrance, California in the mid 1980s. At this time the city of Torrance was occupied by mostly whites, Polynesians, Asians, and in comparison there was a small amount of hispanic families. Due to the diversity many of the families that lived there were exposed to different borderland communities. The families that occupied the neighborhood where his mother grew up had different religions: some were Christians, others Catholics, and others were Jehovah witnesses. The differences that each family had played a huge role in school systems, and especially in society. As his mother grew up the most important relations she had was in Narbonne High School. She says that the friendships one had here were very diverse due to the diverse community. The food in her friend’s house was different than the one in her household, and this was perfectly normal due to the fact that the community was diverse so it was expected. However, throughout the years the neighborhood transitioned from a decent middle/high class neighborhood to a low income neighborhood, and was affected by gang violence. The transition did not have a great effect on their family because they were born to value the importance of hard work ethic that they had inherited from her father and it was something they continued to do.

- Gillian Duane -

When you boil it down, no two people are the same; every person has quirks or practices traditions that may be different from those around them, but that is what makes us individuals. The melting pot of America, while a myth, is rooted in truths that demonstrate how diverse “American culture” is. Just as Raymond Williams said in Culture is Ordinary, “every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, [and] its own meanings,” and what we perceive to be “American culture” is no different (Williams 93).

Her current husband is Puerto Rican, so she has learned Spanish and taken on some of his family traditions, mixing them with her Hawaiian customs.

My father is Ed Duong, who was born as a Vietnamese with Chinese descendants, in Vietnam on the 1st of January 1966. He lived on a rice farm with three sisters, a home staying mother, and a working father in an impoverished village called Bac Lieu (Bak Liew) located in the most southern half of Vietnam. His childhood life was full of hardships especially as the Vietnam War was ongoing. The daily life of my father was walking to a local school from Mondays to Fridays, then helping his father with tending the rice fields or selling homemade ice cream on the weekends. Free time to have fun was rare, and it mostly happened close to Vietnamese New Year or Tết. After they sailed to the United States in 1980, he and his family settled in Eastern Los Angeles in a rundown apartment. In Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, Renato Rosaldo mentioned his son – Manny – “came home day after day in tear” (29) when he went from a playgroup to “a nursery school shortly after his third birthday” (29). Thus, Manny was “suffering the consequences of moving across the line from days of relatively free play to a world disciplined far beyond anything he has known before” (29). Ed, like Manny, suffered culturally in his first handful of years residing in Southern California.  The neighborhood, high school, and much of the eastern section of Los Angeles were ethnically Hispanic with few Asians rarely seen. He mostly felt alone at Santa Fe High School, but only had a singular friend who luckily was also Vietnamese. Despite significant cultural differences, my father tried experimenting with American and Mexican ways of life from the food to entertainment out of boredom. An outcome of his cultural exploration, Ed began to speak English without a Vietnamese accent while also understanding some Spanish words and phrases. His family moved to Westminster in Orange County by 1985 where a tiny but growing, Vietnamese community settled. Thus, the entire family somewhat felt as if they were back in Vietnam as they reunited with past friends from the Vietnamese village. My father found internal tranquility when he prayed at a makeshift Buddhist temple during special occasions in a seemingly unusual, American house owned by a Vietnamese monk. The meager altar inside the apartment room, when the family resided in Los Angeles, did not provide a quality sensation for practicing the religion. Life for Ed was about laboriously tending the rice fields and selling ice cream anymore, but instead learning English and finding a career after high school. The concept of barely living in a village replaced with the American dream. Eventually, Ed discovered himself in a job as a truck mechanic for an American shipping company called Estes. He married a woman from the same village, started a family, and saved enough money to buy a two-story house with middle-class status.

- Kyle Vuong -

Joshua's mother, Maria Gonzales, was born in Durango, Mexico on the 25th of December 1962. As a Mexican, her primary language is Spanish and raised as a Catholic. Heterosexuality is the norm in her community due to the ethics taught by the religion; Maria identifies as being heterosexual. She migrated to Southern California when she was four years old, then soon enough she experienced the American way of life starting with understanding the English language. Her religious belief converted from Catholicism to Christianity as Maria exposed herself to other types of Christian denominations. Religion does not influence her life in the United States as much as if she were to still live in Durango, Mexico where Catholicism traditionally intertwined with daily life. Growing up, Maria understood how much opportunity exists in the United States that seem nonexistent in her old town. However, being that Southern California borders with Mexico, integration her new stage of life were smooth. Maria did not feel culturally isolated when multiple generations of other Hispanics already resided in California and sprung their Mexican-American communities. The food, Spanish language, forms of entertainment, and so on are familiar to her.

For my oral history project, I decided to interview my mother, Maria Gonzales. She was born and raised in a small city in Durango, Mexico. She was born on December 25, 1962, making her 55 years old today. She grew up in a small town with her mother, who was a single housewife. Her mother became divorced almost immediately after Maria was born, but she still went to work every day to supply for her family. In 1964, she gave birth to her first son, Jose. Because of this, Maria was forced to stay by herself at home when she was very young so she could take care of her baby brother. About a year later, at the age of 4, she moved to California with her mother. Her brother, however, was not able to migrate to the US until about two years later. In 1969, her youngest brother Fred was born. While in California, she noticed that the cities were very overpopulated compared to Mexico. “It felt like there were 335,000 people to the square mile in each city” (Davidson and Lytle, 206). Throughout the years, she attended high school, and eventually El Camino College. She worked for Mattel for nine years until 1985. In 1989, she married her husband Tony. In the year 1992, she gave birth to her daughter Heather. When Heather was 6, she had her second child, Joshua. Today, she lives happily with her husband and two children, as she can say that she has learned a lot from her journey to the land of opportunity was worth it.