Exploring Surface and Deep Culture: Latinos and Jamaicans in DFW - Essay Example

Exploring Culture Exploring Culture Latinos in DFW Cultural variance has been my of keen interest all the way since my early school days. My present life has lot many things to look back and evaluate the events I came to experience various cultures. Years long study with my friends of different ethnic groups caused an experimental transformation in my life choices. I feel nostalgic about the moments I spent with some immigrant groups like Latinos and Jamaicans, specifically in Dallas-Fort Worth area. Before moving to further details of these groups I must say the reason for choosing these groups for my description. My experience with Latinos began with my occupation at Wells Fargo Bank where I met Tayde whose parents had hailed from Mexico. The friendship with Tayde was of great significance in my cultural experiments on Latinos. The cultural knowledge I gathered through my interactive sessions can be summarized below. Although Latinos are predominantly Roman Catholics, Protestantism has gained considerable dominance over the religious belief of Latinos for the recent decades. However, even among Catholics religious practices vary as a result of traditional influences of native places. This variance can be observed among the various Latino groups in the United States with regard to Rituals including baptism, marriage, and funeral ceremony. My interests in cultural studies imbued my friend Tayde with self-esteem for he explained more about the uniqueness of their artist culture. The Latinos keeps diversity in their artistic traditions and are capable of competing with any other artistic cultures. Folk art paintings, music, sculpture work, oral lore, and pottery are the some of the elements which make the Latinos’ artistic culture rich. ‘Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican Percussion instruments’ has affected the rhythm of Latinos’ music very much and it becomes their inevitable part of life. There has been a noticeable increase in the Latino plays, theatres, and cinema; the sociopolitical elements of these works brought revolutionary changes in the culture of Latinos’ art. Another area of Latinos’ uniqueness, according to my findings lies in their traditional folk treatment methods. However, the emergence of modern medicinal practices has considerably altered their traditional folk methods of treatment. The most notable aspect of the traditional medicinal practice is that they rely on medicine only at the situations of serious injuries or severe damages. It seems that they tend to avoid the use of medicine at every possible situation because their folk healers who are known as curanderos treat patients with herbal methods and often prescribe physical remedies for illness. As I often visited my friend’s family I could come very close to their religious practices as well. His parents like most of the Latinos followed Christian beliefs and thereby they strongly believed the concept of afterlife. They shared their religious notion with me that every individual will be rewarded or punished according to goodness or evil of his/her life. One of the most interesting events I took part was the Mexican American celebration of the Day of the Dead which they called ‘El Dia de Los Muertos’. I observed people giving gifts all decorated with the structures of skulls and skeletons. In addition, funeral ceremonies of Latinos also were characterized with its own distinct features. As far as the education is concerned, Latinos of all races achieved tremendous growth in education field during the last few decades. However, this growth rate is lower than their population rate. The graduation rate of Latinos is less than Whites, Asians, and African Americans (Hurtado, Cervantez & Eccleston, 2010, p.284). Let me suggest that culture brings us identity. Each single thing you do in your social life brings you to the notice of others. People recognize others easily with cultural practices, attire and articulations. Hence, an individual is rated good, average or poor with these sensual parameters of which sometimes he may not be personally responsible. This is one of the notions that I developed through my cultural studies. Jamaicans in DFW My cultural experiments on Jamaicans started inadvertently as I talked with Ms. Elaine who is the owner of Elaines Kitchen in both South Dallas and Ft. Worth. I met Ms. Elaine at my barbershop. She was getting a manicure and pedicure done by the manicurist in the shop. I went to eat at her restaurant and enjoyed it to the fullest. It was from her I came to know that the drinking tea is the morning meal of Jamaicans, which contained ingredients such as boiled bananas and herbals. Since she had been familiar enough with the eating habits of people of all segments, she could clearly explain the food culture. Jamaicans, according to her like light fried foods; and take the main meal in the evening which includes roasted beef or rice and peas. They consider rice as a delicious food along with yam, sweet potato, or green plantains at ceremonies. The curried goat is also used for the functions of dances, weddings, dances, and funerals. Although Jamaica had mainly concentrated on large scale agricultural exportation, now its major portion of income is realized from mining and manufacturing. Jamaicans’ commercial activities mainly include tourism and peasantry which contribute a major part to their national income. The meeting with Miss. Elaine encouraged me to go further deep into the Jamaican way of life. I realized that the upper class of the Jamaicans adheres to the Anglican Church whereas the middle class is highly fragmented into several religions. The most important difference I could notice between the religious practices of Latinos and Jamaicans was the varying concept of the holy place. For instance, to Orthodox African Jamaicans a holy place can be any place where the religious ceremonies are performed. Their rituals also included thanksgiving, veneration of the dead, and other memorial ceremonies. Their rituals and ceremonies normally take place at churches, balm yards, and silk cotton trees. I could attend the funeral of a Jamaican at Dallas-Fort Worth that helped me know more about their religious perceptions on life after death. Although death is considered as a natural phenomenon, it has been attributed to some other aspects like the violation of cultural norms, evil spirits, or envy. The most appreciable thing about them I found was their cooperation they demonstrated at funeral. Normally, the whole community gathers together near the dead body to support and help the dependants of the deceased. ‘Set up’ is a ritual function associated with the funeral ceremony. Jamaicans depend on traditional and biochemical healing methods rather than western medicinal techniques. Another notion has been found prevalent among Jamaicans that diseases are caused by the spiritual forces. So, many of them rely on spiritual aspects for treatment. The various art forms get a well support from the public as well as from the state. Graphic arts and performance arts mainly constitute the artistic ideologies of Jamaica. The graphic art originated in Africa from ancient period and it continues with the African tradition in the United Sates too. Majority of the performance arts are shown in festivals, religious rituals, and other cultural programs. As far as their education is concerned, the rich class of Jamaicans gives better education to their children; whereas, the poor and middle class people do not have sufficient access to good education (Mordecai & Mordecai, 2001). Cultural attributes may be seen less effective as the Jamaican people believed in the sanctity of their tradition and loved to live their ancestral kind of life. This could have been great reason for their educational backwardness. They were religiously united in different format of worship patterns, but the demonstrative style of attempting sacramental sessions are more practically adorned with supporting system of music and rhythmic dance forms. Religious implications of their worship choice might be of a great influence on their social concern for improved life styles and option for quality education. Generally, the ethnical track of Jamaicans shows a depreciated tendency to force them to set high standards of thinking. A rather sportive people as Jamaicans are, they practice a positive life different from most other ethnic groups. While these are the significance of the Jamaicans, there are various identifications to specially detect the Latinos. Their worship pattern, religious faith, worshipping model and educational standards are all superior in appearance when compared to the Jamaicans. Medical treatment system and rituals during important occasions of socio-religious celebrations are different from that of the Jamaicans. It can be seen that the Latinos have been an ethnicity formed by a cluster of different faith models and social implications based on religious and educational standards of European and Mexican culture. Among all the conditions, difference in educational level stands the greatest indicator of the bifurcation line between the two ethnic groups. References Hurtado, A., Cervantez, K., Eccleston, M. Infinitive Possibilities, many obstacles. [In the book Handbook of Latinos and education: theory, research and practice. Eds. Murillo, E. Villenas, et al (2010)]. New York: Roultedge. Mordecai, M & Mordecai, P. (2001). Culture and customs of Jamaica. Westport: Greenwood Publications Group. Read More