Self-ethnology

6 Pages 1404 Words

Self-Ethnography
Anthropology is the study of humankind. Within this study, there is a subfield that focuses on the study of contemporary societies, which is called cultural anthropology or ethnology. On February 25, 1980, I was born into this world where there exists numerous different societies. Twenty-one years later, I am going to discuss the aspects and experiences that has made me who I am today. These aspects and experiences all started from my parents and their background, the culture which I was brought up in, and then into the family I grew up with, my friends, education, American society, and other personal experiences. They have all contributed to my enculturation and continue to expand into my future. Enculturation is the process of social interaction through which people learn and acquire their culture. It starts from the day a person is born and works until the person dies because people can always learn new things. Culture is a shared way of life that includes values, beliefs, and norms transmitted within a particular society from generation to generation, and a person should be proud of their culture and where they came from.
I was born into an Asian culture with a Vietnamese ethnicity since both of my parents were born in the country of Vietnam. Ethnicity refers to the cultural
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differences among populations usually based on attributes such as language, religion, lifestyle, and cultural ideas about common descent or specific territory. The difference with me was that I was born in a town east of Houston named Channelview, Texas. Both my parents immigrated to America in the late 1970s as a result of the Vietnam War. They fled over here in search of freedom and opportunities from communism. By doing that, they have opened doors and allowed my sisters and I a better life. We have had the chance to live life the “American way” in certain aspects, but the majority of our enculturation is still ...