“The White Man will never be alone” (Chief Seattle 120). Chief Seattle is correct when he says that the White man will never be alone because there will always be other cultures in America. Culture is the presentation of the values from generation to generation, which reflects the history of a country’s mode of life, heritage, and tradition (Kalman 1). People find every Individual within the vicinity of the culture learns it difficult to understand and accept cultures other than their own.it. It is also shared as the people have common values norms and language. For this reason, culture indentifies one with a certain country or livelihood (Kalman 1). .
Culture sometimes can be a reason of discrimination or underrating for a group of people. An example on how people can be devaluing because of their culture is the essay “Silence” by Maxine Hong Kingston she states “I drank out of a toy saucer when the water spilled out of the cup, and everybody laughed, pointing at me” (Kingston 204). For Kingston, having a different culture makes her life miserable. She was in a different cultural environment where things were done differently to what she knew. The Chinese girls in Kingston’s public school did not talk much; they felt different from the American kids because of their culture. Imposing other cultures thinking that one’s culture is superior to others can be very devastating.
Through Zitkala-Sa essay “From the School Days of an Indian Girl”, she quotes “Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy.” Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled by cowards!” (Zitkala-Sa 158). Everyone in this new environment had what he or she called short official hair. Zitkala-Sa is exposing her struggle to keep her culture in times where the white race thought their culture was superior therefore stripping people from their values. Indeed Martine Luther King in his essay “I Have a Dream” declares “We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating ’For Whites Only’” (King 200). According to the white culture, people were not equal, and are not expected to achieve the same heights as people of the white race. The consequences resulting from thinking that other cultures are superior to other can lead to the rejection of one’s culture as noted on Elizabeth Wong essay “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl” she quotes “Her humor was raunchy, her Chinese rhythm less, pattern less. It was quick, it was laud, it was unbeautiful” (Wong 115). Wong did not want to accept her culture. She thought her culture was inferior to the American culture. (Martin 5). Accepting the fact that America is a country form with diverse cultures can help to accept other people’s cultures. People must adapt to other cultures and environments.
Environment describes the surroundings or conditions in which a person lives. People from varied environments judge others based on a lack of understanding. The difference in the environment is a big contribution in the way people think different from others. Different environment have different adaptation thus different thinking perspectives (Raven, Peter, Linda, and David 35).
In many cases people who have problems with their present environment finds themselves moving from place to place in the search for a better life. Consequently Alice Walker in her essay “The Place Where I Was Born” explains how content she was in the new environment she found. She expresses “All this—the beauty, the quiet, the cleanliness, the peace—is what I love. I realize how lucky I am to have found it here” (Walker 112). She moved from an environment, which in that time was surrounded, by racist oppression and economic impoverishment.
Walker would feel nostalgic for the place she left behind. A place she loved but was forced to leave. Similarly, Maya Angelou was forced to grow on an environment full of discrimination and oppression. In her essay, “Champion of the World” Maya Angelou remarks, “It wouldn’t do for a Black man and his family to catch on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people of the world” (Angelou 68). The white man thought victory was not created for the Black men; they saw black people as a lower type of human beings. On the other hand, Loren Cary on her essay “Welcome to St. Paul’s” describes, “Like other St. Paul’s building, the Hawley’s’ house had alcoves, staircases and a courtyard, that presented to me a facade of impenetrable, almost European, privacy” (Cary 248). Cary as an African American decided to expose herself to an environment where probably she was the only African American and one of the few females. Cary knew this was necessary because this will lead people to the acceptance of each other.
In order for people to understand each other’s environment, they must be open-minded and understanding, not quick to judge others. Misunderstanding environmental differences can lead to stereotyping. The whites for this reason will always have companion due to their cultural influence over other races. They culture on the other hand is interactive.
References
Kalman, Bobbie. What Is Culture? New York: Crabtree Pub. Co, 2009. Print.1
Huntley, E D. Maxine Hong Kingston: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Print.
Raven, Peter H, Linda R. Berg, and David M. Hassenzahl. Environment. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012. Print.pg 35
Walker, Alice. The Third Life of Grange Copeland. New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011. Internet resource.
Joy, Anna. We Are America: A Thematic Reader and Guide to Writing. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Print.
Martin, Charles D. The White African American Body: A Cultural and Literary Exploration. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.
