Momaday: The Influence Of Family On Cultural Heritage
A common theme in literature is the influence of family on cultural heritage. Family heavily influences an individual’s life from the moment they are born to the day they die. The impact the family has on people are responsible for making them who they are. Their personal identity comes, in part, from within their heritage. All of this is evident in “My Two Lives” by Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday, and the excerpt from The Lost City by Alan Ehrenhalt.
In “My Two Lives”, there is a case of identity confusion. Lahiri is heavily influenced at home to be Indian, yet expected to act American at school and in the public eye. According to Lahiri’s parents, she was not American and she would never be, regardless of …show more content…
The picture Momaday had of his heritage was painted solely by his grandmother. She had influenced everything he knew to be true of where he came from and what it meant to be Kiowa. When his grandmother was born, she was living the last great moments of Kiowan history (Momaday 675). She was immersed in the culture fully and was not expected to take on two separate cultural identities like Momaday. Now, later on that changed, but in her younger years, she got to experience true Kiowa life. Momaday felt disconnected from his cultural heritage when his grandmother died, so he returned to her homeland to see if he could reconnect himself. This is a great example of how family influences ones cultural heritage.
Family is not just limited to blood relations in some cultures. In the black culture, community is family. In the excerpt from The Lost City, Ehrenhalt paints a promising picture of the black family in the old ghettos. The black community has very strong influences on its members. As one prominent community member stated “People took a great deal of pride in just being where they were” (Ehrenhalt 518). The ghetto in which the black culture lived was “spiritually and socially rich” (Ehrenhalt 518). The black culture heavily influenced personal identities of its
In “My Two Lives”, there is a case of identity confusion. Lahiri is heavily influenced at home to be Indian, yet expected to act American at school and in the public eye. According to Lahiri’s parents, she was not American and she would never be, regardless of …show more content…
The picture Momaday had of his heritage was painted solely by his grandmother. She had influenced everything he knew to be true of where he came from and what it meant to be Kiowa. When his grandmother was born, she was living the last great moments of Kiowan history (Momaday 675). She was immersed in the culture fully and was not expected to take on two separate cultural identities like Momaday. Now, later on that changed, but in her younger years, she got to experience true Kiowa life. Momaday felt disconnected from his cultural heritage when his grandmother died, so he returned to her homeland to see if he could reconnect himself. This is a great example of how family influences ones cultural heritage.
Family is not just limited to blood relations in some cultures. In the black culture, community is family. In the excerpt from The Lost City, Ehrenhalt paints a promising picture of the black family in the old ghettos. The black community has very strong influences on its members. As one prominent community member stated “People took a great deal of pride in just being where they were” (Ehrenhalt 518). The ghetto in which the black culture lived was “spiritually and socially rich” (Ehrenhalt 518). The black culture heavily influenced personal identities of its