Personal view on Culture, Past and Present.

Definition of Culture, in your personal view would be described how?

"Culture is learned, integrated ideas and behavior patterns shared with other members of society. Culture is the way I express myself and how I deal with my enviroment. Culture is ideas, more mental than material. The function of culture is to make life both logical and practical."

What about heritage?

"As a cultural being, my nationality is American. My cultural heritage includes both European and Native American Ancestry. My father was a mix of German and Native American. My mother was Native American, possibly Jewish somewhere but I haven't looked into it. My stepmother was first generation Norwegian.

My cultural heritage consists of violence, genocide and objectification. I was born on the graveyard of my ancestors. Violence and the preperation of violence plays a large part in my national life.

As mixed blood, I experience a blood tie with the frontier and its dangers and a blood tie mixed with guilt for the treatment of the Native American. I carry the seeds of the oppressor and the oppressed as a legacy."

What was your cultural experience, growing up?

"As a young child I worked in the fields with migrant workers, both Mexican and Native American. My parents had a small house behind our home where, each summer, Migrant families would live. My earliest playmates were Indian and Mexican children. There were few other ethnicities living in our small town. I was taught hatred and distrust of foreigners and strangers. I was taught Catholicism was the one, true religion and all others were evil. Fear and guilt were instilled in me at a very early age."

Culture of your family, what was that like? Values and socialization?

"The philosphy of genocide, which is the foundation on which the United States was founded was incorporated into the philosophy of family life. The white man's right to dominate "inferior" races, to be ruthless and brutal became standard practices within my family. The traditional patriarchal values of the white man's dominate culture were rigorously enforced. The cultural ideas about raising children included callousness, anger, selfishness, self-centeredness, lack of empathy and violence.

I grew up in a war zone. My mother was docile, inferior and submissive. She never expressed her needs and aspirations. Her existence seemed to be totally centered around my father's needs and wants. My father was deliberate, ruthless, cruel and ambitious. He had total control and dominance over the family.

The traditional values of wife beating and child abuse formed the basis of my socialization. My self-concept was unconciously formed by the image that perpetrators had of me. I internalized the beliefs of my perpetrators, violators of children. I lost my self-awareness or understanding of who I was meant to be. The culture of silence created by this objectification blocked my ability to perceive choice and rendered me non-existent. These family values were also reinforced in school and encouraged by the church."

How has those experiences changed as an adult, or have they? In what ways?

"I also learned to integrate the behavior patterns and ideas shared by the members of the white man's society. I learned that women are hostages of a culture that encourages violence against women. I learned when a woman is independant from a man, when she can live without a man, going her own way, fighting for her rights, demands equal pay, says no to violence, is self-asserting, then she is against men and is perceived as a threat. She threatens the staus of men and is without the white man's protection. (from male institutions).

I learned that having a number of degrees and an impressive educational background are prerequisite to prestige. The symbols of status for the white man determines my place, role and importance in society. My language, clothing, food, car and house reflect society's values and the socialization process. To be properly socialized I must have: a house, a car, a computer and a man. I must listen to the proper music, watch the appropriate movies and pay lip-service to the white man's god. The more material goods I am able to buy and consume, the more valuable I become. I have learned the importance of self-centeredness. More importantly, I learned that the survival of the fittest belongs to the person who is the richest, biggest, loudest and most obscene."

What impact could you say that your cultural experiences and lessons have had on your personal development? What else might you want to share from your personal lense with others and the next generation to come?

" The rewards and punishments in my youth failed to socialize me entirely into the white man's world. During my adolescence I rebelled and defiantly set out to break as many rules as possible. I got attention by stealing, lying, using my body. I was attracted to "friends" who were also rebellious of societies rules and regulation, and agressive. I believed the attention I received, the violence, was what I deserved. The more intense the violence, the more I felt cared for. My self-image was extremely poor.

As I grew older I did try to be normal. I wanted to be an accepted member of society. I wanted to follow the rules of society. I married several times and gave birth to four children. During my marriages I was dependant, submissive and gave total control and dominance over to my husbands. I behaved as I was socialized to behave, following the rules my mother and father had taught me. I was compliant and silent. I believed the marriages, the husbands and the children were supposed to be my sole purpose and meaning in life.

Again, I failed. My hostility and anger began to surface. Tormented and confused, I went blindly to "experts" for answers. I searched for years among counselors, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Relief was always momentary. I was not a symptom to treat. I was not a theory to analyze. I was not a physiology to bring to base-line. I knew I was angry and with justifiable cause.

Today I have learned that violence in the white man's world is morally acceptable. Assassination, murder, suicide and war are common words and have become part of America's daily routine. Violence is the ultimate solution to problems.

I refuse to accept white values and eternal truths. I am struggling to discover the old family patterns that have echoes in the past. Every day I make the conscious decision not to listen to the lessons of my youth. As an adult I began to search, explore and experience my Native American ancestry. I choose the values of the Native American culture over those of the white man's culture. Such anomalies as starvation in the midst of plenty indicates to me that my ancestor's ways are probably better for me."

Now that I am an adult, having been raised by a strong and powerfully spirited woman, I have no illusions about our current state of society. Although much seems to have changed since my mother's day, if you look closely, nothing really has changed. Only the labels, the packaging so to speak and the manner in which the cultural norms my mom described are still very much the foundation of this nation, the United States of America. And of course every generation after another is socialized more and more saturated in materializm and classism, and "individuality" that if one were to ask someone to set down their phone and tell you their own opinion on what is going on in our country today, you would get a very basic, almost scripted type of response echoing the current Media narrative.

Children today are not taught to critically think, question the narrative, or authority at that. We program our youth to grow up and earn lots of money and buy nice houses and cars and that is what success means in this world. Do you see the similarities?

Rather than teach greed, lust for paper that soon will have zero value (personal opinion) we ought to be teaching our children and the coming generations about what it means to be Human. How to co-exist in harmony, to not destroy our earth, to grow food, feed everyone, if we cannot feed them then we can at least teach them how to grow their own food. Give the gift of knowledge, share. We have all become literally divided.

I once heard, the strategy to controlling a nation or a large group of people is to "divide and conquer", as well as "if you control the food and water, you control said people". I don't know about you, but I stay away from the latest headlines and scandal's going on, and I darn for sure do not feed into the Media hysteria of the latest racial "movements" as those are just another tactic to distract and divide us as a nation and as people.

My outlook is one of simplicity, mystery and wisdom. I prefer to judge a man by what he is, not what he owns. Today I practice tolerance when I refuse to laugh at a racist joke. I speak out when someone uses derogatory labels to describe members of any group, racial or ethnic, class or educational level etc. I felt a strong resistance to writing this. I believe before someone can relate to me the must forego the pleasure of defining me.