Personal Narrative: My New American Culture

The majority of people, including myself had a misconception about what the term culture really means nor really stopped to analyze it. One can assumed that that culture has to do with customs, traditions or rituals. However, the text described culture as a specific system created by a group for their protection, survival, and well-being that is passed down from one generation to another (Matsumoto & Juang, 2013). In the PDF reading that described a variety of intercultural sensitivity stages was a very interesting read and it really broadened my perceptions of culture. I can categorized myself in many of those stages, it all depends on the different points within my life.
When my family and I emigrated here from Africa between the ages of seven to sixteen years old, I had a strenuous time assimilated into this new American culture that I started rejecting my own culture. It seems like whenever I tell people that I was from Africa, people either had negative things to say, ask condensing questions or try to educate me with common sense things. However, I was really fond of this new American culture to the point that I wanted to change my own culture. During that time, I can say that I was at the Defense Against
Also, I found that America was an actual “melting pot” made up of many distinctive cultures. Afterward, my views began to fall into the Minimization of Difference stage. I perceived everyone as human with unique cultures that has similar goals in life. We are all different in some ways, but similar in many ways. If everyone respect, accepts and received one another as each individual are, despite our differences, we can make this world great because God uniquely created all of us as we are (The Intercultural Development Research Institute,