Re: brushing shoulders with Holden Caulfield?

What's so funny about "family dynamic"? Some families encourage their
kids to pursue different options more than others, that's all.

The other question was pretty good, though. I would say our home
environments were all very different, but the environment external to
the home -- church, school, grocery store, etc. -- were all shared.

For example, in the Chinese family that lived down the street, for as
long as I hung out with their kid, I don't remember the father -ever-
being able to speak English very intelligibly at all. The mother could
communicate well in English, but you had to get used to her manner of
speaking. Chinese was the main language spoken in the home, and their
kid (my friend) grew up speaking both Chinese and English. He spoke
English very well, with a slight accent when he was younger.

When it comes down to it, if you change language spoken, food eaten,
decorations in homes, entertainment (they probably watched whatever they
could find in Chinese and their music was Chinese too), books,
newspapers....well, do we really have a shared culture anymore?

My own family was very much like this in a Puerto Rican way, with the
main disadvantage being that I didn't learn to speak Spanish growing up.

What I would argue is that many of us were occupying two cultures. A
public culture that we all shared when we walked out of our doors, and a
private culture that existed only within our homes. This was more
pronounced with some families than with others, of course, and some
homes were just mirrors of the "outside" culture.

Jim

Yocum Daniel Civ 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

>"Family dynamic", you crack me up Jim. Concerning 'things'; you spoke of a
>multicultural environment that you grew up in with your friends but apart
>from the decorations in their homes, the style of food they ate and the
>language their parents spoke what made their culture different from yours?
>It seems that you guys had a shared culture, but I may have just misread
>your essay.
>Daniel
>
>-----Original Message-----
>I understand the second sentence but don't quite understand the first,
>or how the two are related. Can you elaborate a bit?
>Jim
>
>

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Wed Oct 29 15:33:23 2003