Cultural Identity In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Cultural identity is the identity of an individual, or a group. It’s part of one’s self-conception and self-perception. Everyone has a different culture and every person has a different view on the world because of that. One major reason why people view the world different could be family. Family can have several impacts on one’s cultural identity and the way they interact and view the world by setting expectations, morals, and beliefs.

One way a family can have impacts on one’s cultural identity and their perspective on the world around them is by setting expectations. Families can set expectations that can push one out of their comfort zone and make them feel bad about themselves. Like in the story “Two Kinds”, Jing-mei’s mother had very

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the mother of Maggie and Dee(Wangero) passed down her morals but Maggie and Dee had different morals. In “Everyday use” the narrator said, “Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school...She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts... At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was”(Walker 12). The narrator also said “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs…. She thinks her sister had held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her”(Walker 2). These two quotes shows how different Maggie and Dee are. Dee has morals for herself and therefore wants a wealthy life and will do anything to succeed. However, Maggie took after her mom. She doesn't want what Dee wants. Maggie doesn't have the same morals as Dee. Also “Two Kinds” chunk 6, paragraph 10 she said, “You want me to be something i'm not...I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be”. This shows how Jing-mei has morals for herself and she won’t let her own mother even change who she

An individual's family's beliefs are a huge impact because usually if someone's parents believe in something like God, they’ll probably believe in God too. In the document “What is Cultural Identity”, by Elise Trumbull and Marai Pacheco. They talked about how one can have the same culture with someone else but a different belief. In this document the authors said “Members of the same culture vary widely in their beliefs”(Trumbull and Pacheco 8). This exemplifies how members with the same culture but different beliefs are unalike. People in a family have the same culture and usually have the same belief which can impact one’s perspective of the world. Also, some beliefs have certain expectations, arranged marriage could be one. In “What is Cultural identity” the authors said, “arranged marriage has long been a cultural practice in India based on the belief that the families of potential spouses best know who would make a desirable match”(Trumbull and Pacheco 9). This demonstrates how a family’s belfies can impact the way one interacts in this world. So because of certain rules and beliefs family’s have, individuals may not be able to choose everything in their own lives. Like arranged marriage, one isn’t even allowed to choose their own