CRITICAL THINKING
Diversity of cultures: different lifestyles and customs by different people. Ethnic backgrounds or cultural beliefs tend to influence them wherever they go or professions they pursue. Acceptance of their ethnicity allows them to incorporate it into their professions and be more aware of cultural influence around them socially, politically and economically. Amongst cultures that are not well understood, they tend to face discrimination and derogating inquisitive conversations about their ethnicity. This results in feelings of being misunderstood as posited by Gomez-Pena (1996) and constantly seeking for their roots and ethnic identity. A deeper sense of searching for particular ethnic identities may lead individuals to carry out ethnographic studies to understand certain ethnic cultures, Murillo (1999). The complexities of different ethnicities have influenced ethnographers to develop new methods to research and study various aspects of ethnic groups. Two of such include observation and study of the ethnic group as an outsider while the other entails emerging into the ethnic group as an insider. These two approaches greatly influence the format in which a researcher writes his dissertation or report. eventually affecting how a third party after reading it perceives an ethnic group .so in light of this how many ethnographic studies have interpreted certain ethnicities in a different manner?
Ethnographic research affects political ideologies, especially in terms of pre-colonial and post-colonial aspects. Post –colonially resulting in differential classicism in terms of gender, race and location geographically. This has greatly affects how other ethnic groups perceive and interact with each other. This is clearly depicted in how Americans perceive and interact with Mexicans as they were allowed into America temporarily to work as a benefit of an agreement between the two countries for 22 years since 1942. In addition this type of stratification placed Mexicans quite low on the scale to a point of not receiving quality education as they spent most of the time laboring; high illiteracy levels constraining them to minimal wage unskilled labor. Despite of this negative disposition Mexicans have maintained their own culture in times of extensive modernization. Their own concepts to various issues such as marriage, living as a community and extended families are greatly visible amongst them.
Philosophically their epistemologies explaining their sources of knowledge within their cultural contexts have been preserved. In some areas they are even taught it their schools to help their younger generation better understand their roots, eventually better understanding who they are. Furthermore most schools are adopting books on indigenous cultures to expose their students to diverse and rich cultures. On the other hand the English language has also been influenced by ethnicity; new words borrowed from Spanish have been introduced, words like ‘avocado’ altered from aguacate. (Spanish) this has added to the English language. English as proposed by Fusco (1995) has borrowed some of its words from indigenous cultures resulting in different eras of the English language. The great impact that one’s indigenous background has on one’s lifestyle gears immensely influences me to endeavors me understand my culture and how I can incorporate it into my current lifestyle, mainly to improve it. Ethnicity helps explain why people act and interact as they do; explains social-economic and political structures within a particular ethnic group. Basically giving me a sense of identity and an explanation of why I am as I am.
REFERENCES
Murillo, Enrique G., Jr. 1999a. Growing Pains: Cartographies of Change, Contestation and
Social Division in North Carolina. Unpublished dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Fusco, Coco. 1995. English Is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in America. New York;
New Press.
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo. 1996. The New World Border. San Francisco: City Lights Bookstore.
