CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Faculty of Humanities
ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET
To be attached to all assignments
(ALL SECTIONS MUST BE COMPLETED)
STUDENT NAME:
GOVINDEN Shaya
STUDENT ID:
17883421
UNIT NAME AND NUMBER:
Culture to culture 102
DUE DATE:
22/08/14
WORD COUNT:
572
TUTORIAL DAY AND TIME:
Thursday 12:30 – 15:45
TUTOR’S NAME:
Dr Babita Thanoo
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOUR TUTOR’S NAME IS ON ALL SUBMITTED ASSIGNMENTS
DECLARATION:
I declare that I have retained a copy of this assignment.
I have read and understood Curtin University policies on Plagiarism
and Copyright and declare that this assignment complies with these
policies.
I declare that this assignment is my own work and has not been
submitted previously in any form for assessment.
Signature:………………s.l.govinden………………………
Date:………22/08/14…………………...................
Cultural Identity can be defined as an identity or a feeling of forming part
Of a self-conception and perception of an ethnicity, religion, social standard,
nationality, generation, neighbourhood or any kind of generation that have its own
culture. In this reflection I will discuss and analyse how the terms identity and “cultures
within cultures” has an impact in our society, our culture and how does it influence our
identity. The two texts are from the book “INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONby Holiday, Hyde and Kullman pp7-11 and 92-96 which are about identity.
In the first that I am reflecting, it deals with people thinking with an essentialist view on
Parisa, an Iranian girl, who worked hard at changing the way her colleagues view her as
an Iranian woman. What I appreciated more was the way she fought back her colleagues
beliefs that they had on Iranians women that is being all subordinated. People have a
stereotype thinking of Iranian people, even I shared the same view unit I read this
article; that is Iranian women are conservative, they wear hijabs and that Iranians
women were being ruled by the males. Parisa shows that she is independent, educated,
and worldly and does work and is still an Iranian woman. Parisa wanted to illustrate a
positive meaning of her religion and culture. She has a non-essentialist point of view,
whereas her colleagues had a negative judgment. This text make me feels that even
though we are living in a modern life we might believe that things goes in a convinced
direction, but in reality, is not what we believe it is. It is a fact that cannot be denied that
all of us are stereotype at some extent.
The second text again about identity raise a question of “sub cultures” or “Cultures
within cultures”, as in the text, the main character, Lopez believe that he would his life
be better by Americanising himself. According to me for Lopez being or looking like a
Peruvian is inferior to Americans. Lopez believes that if he doesn’t americanise himself
he will live a low standard life. To show that he does not believe that American life
style is superior to Peruvians, the author brings a second text in the first one, it is about
cultures identity. In the text it clearly demonstrate that the American -Indians are
considered as different being based on their culture, moreover in some way being
deprived of their right of being equals to American; to me it resume to the fact that their
identity is being taken away from them, as your rights are based on who you actually
are. I believe that the author is trying to make us understand that the identity of one self
does not come from how or where we were born but in fact that ourselves have created
it and we accept we belong to it. The author said “unfortunately for him, from a rosy
dream into a hellish nightmare” (Rybeyro, J.R(1972)). The author is trying to tell us that
Lopez might regret what he did. Lopez was being influenced by his surroundings at that
time.
To conclude, from reading theses texts have understood how identity can be stereotyped
and how sub culture might make anyone feel inferior to other’s culture despite not
wanting to. I have also understood that theses two, that is identity and the sub culture
are two things that work tighter.
References List:
Holliday Adrian, Martin Hyde and John Kullman –“INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATIONS” pp. 7-11
Ribeyro, J.R. (1972) “Barbara” from la Palabra del Mundo, collected short stories,
translated by D.Douglas (1986) from On Being Foreign: Culture Shock in Short FictionAn International Anthology, Lewis T.J and Jungman, R.E (eds), Yarmouth, Maine:
intercultural Press, from the book – “INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION pp. 9296”