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Describe A Significant Way That You Enact Your Cultural Identity Essay

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1. Describe a significant way that you enact your cultural identity.
Throughout daily interactions, I express my Hispanic culture through dialect. Being a native Spanish speaker living in a predominantly Hispanic society, the Spanish language is pervasive in my life. This makes me comfortable with speaking Spanish freely and without fear of being misunderstood. The concept of equal comfort between languages has lead to a hybridized language that permeates my everyday life called Spanglish.
2. What is involved? (What do you do or say to express it)? Spanglish requires a fluid, natural switch between English and Spanish that follows the grammatical conventions of both. When speaking English for example, a gender-neutral article and noun can be replaced for its gender-specific article and noun in Spanish, …show more content…

What about this helps establish your sense of identity? Spanglish not only establishes deep roots in community engagement through inclusive dialogue, but it reaffirms our cultural heritage to prevent erasure while assimilating to American culture. Children of immigrants like me have a particular role in our society to bridge our native culture to the new American culture. It is crucial to do this in a way that is sensitive to upcoming generations of multicultural people, and Spanglish is a safe way for new residents to familiarize themselves with American life.
4. Why is it important to you? Would you be willing to abandon this long-term if it made others around you uncomfortable? Why/why not? Seeing as the Spanish language defines my culture more distinctly than any other aspect, I would not be willing to abandon the practice of speaking Spanglish with those who understand it. Speaking two languages is something I was fortunate enough to be taught and could never be ashamed of. Blending the two languages is something I do on a regular basis with other native Spanish speakers as an understanding of one another’s cultures, struggles, families, and

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