What Culture Means to My Mexican Heritage - Essay Example

Regarding culture, what I believe culture to be is how we each define ourselves. Culture throughout history has dictated beliefs, behaviors, and other characteristics familiar to the associates of a particular community. A person’s culture includes many societal aspects such as language, customs, values, rules, and technologies. Differences in culture mean diverse cultures having various values in which they believe. The language and the symbolic interpretations also vary among cultures. Cultural differences also bring in certain regulating norms that manage behaviors as well as the institutionalization of norms that alter among the cultures. There is a presence of culture in every social action that people of that culture take and hence cultural interventions affect levels of education, trade, and industrial customs, as well as languages. A classification of such areas is generally known as socio-cultural distance. In this paper, I have tried to describe the symbiosis of culture and health sciences with special emphasis on Mexican/ American folk medicines and beliefs about health care (Wagner,2008, pp.1-2).

I have seen that ‘Folk’ concepts of ailment are still very vital to the Mexican- Americans who are mainly second and third-generation Americans of Mexican descent and these ‘folk’ medicinal treatment concepts still continue to manipulate their health mechanisms. The ‘folk curing’ techniques generally mean therapeutic practices, which are mainly derived from Mexican treatment systems based on Mexican theories of ‘folk diseases’. Folk treatment therapy usually comprises oral supervision of different herbs and mixtures of purgatives; topical usage of ointments, oils and mixtures that are mainly herbal in nature; guideline of proper diet, massage and cupping (Sentosa's) and different medical cures. One or a combination of these things can be used for a particular set of symptoms. While interacting with some Mexican-American Hispanics, I came to know that folk cure can be either performed by anyone including the ill person himself or some of his friend or relatives who has certain knowledge of these treatments, some basic knowledge of herbs and other cures, or they can visit a ‘curandera’, - an expert in identification and treatment of folk diseases. Curanderas accept small remunerations for their services. Similarly, folk diseases are categorized into certain types like those of “hot and cold” imbalances, illness regarding internal dislocation of body organs, diseases from supernatural causes, diseases whose origins are traced to emotional disharmonies, certain other folk diseases, and other general “scientific “diseases. Regarding “hot and cold” diseases, the curanderas are of the view that imbalance of hot and cold elements of the human body results in illness. For cure, they prescribe proper diet regulations since some of the edible foods are operational in raising or decreasing the body temperatures. Regarding herbal treatment, some of the prescribed herbs are sweet basil, camphor leaves, lavender, garlic, poppy seeds, the bark of cinnamon, apricot, coriander, cloves, cumin, rosemary leaves, etc. Regarding dislocation of internal organs, sometimes organs can get detached from bodies, which can be diagnosed in case of excessive vomiting and diarrhea. As a treatment, plastering of organs is prescribed. This plastering can be done by applying an egg’s germinal tissue on a cigarette paper and pressing on the affected part until it gets stuck there. After a few days, the disease gets completely cured. For certain lumps arising in bodies, proper massage is being prescribed to cure the disease (Clark, 1970, pp.163-180; Paredes, Bauman, 1993, pp.49-59). Although effective in some cases, these treatments hardly have any scientific truth about them. The medical practitioners with whom I have met are of the view that such treatments are not only baseless but can even prove fatal to the diseased.
Lack of proper education and rationalization instigates these people to take the help of such folk treatments. One thing that I have noticed during the tenure of this project is that cultural beliefs are still deeply rooted in the Mexican- Americans, which does not let them come out of the smaller sphere they live in to face the entire world. An appropriate term that I think can be used in this reference is ‘Acculturation’. The term ‘Acculturation’ signifies the method of getting insights into different cultures and can be regarded as a continuum of cultural symmetry and identity. Intertwined with it, are the conventional ethics and values together with the procedure of getting acclimatized to the mainstream cultural dominance. The level of acculturation highly influences the extent of endorsing the Mexican/ American valuation of culture or beliefs of health. There is a distinction of thoughts on the ways in which cultural values of beliefs of health are viewed and acted upon, which many consider as intergenerational. Read More