My Family Culture

My Master's class, Perspectives on Diversity and Equity in ECE, has a special assignment for this week...

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

I must admit, this exercise sparked some deep thoughts and feelings about the three items that I would choose to represent my family culture.  Culture is not just about race or religion, it permeates every aspect of how we live, behave, and express ourselves from our language, gestures, food, clothing, traditions, music and so on.  Having had some experience living overseas in communities very different from my own culture, I reflected on those experiences and what familiarities about my own culture I longed for the most.  

The first item I would choose would be a seed pouch filled with various seeds collected from our family gardens.  Food is such a rich aspect of any culture and is an important part of my family.  Ever since I can remember, there has been a garden in my family that we used to grow many of the herbs and vegetables used in family recipes that not only marked our celebrations but flavored our everyday lives.  Traditional southern ingredients such as corn, beans, squash, black-eyed peas, heirloom tomatoes and collard greens would certainly be included.  While our traditional family recipes can be carried anywhere in our hearts and minds, having the ability to cultivate and sustain the ingredients necessary to re-create these dishes in a foreign country would certainly always allow us a familiar taste of home. 

The second item I would choose is my Granny's cast-iron skillet.  This particular piece of cookware has been in my family for generations and is seasoned with love. The foods we like to eat are just as much a part of family culture as the way we like prepare them.  No matter where our family was displaced, foods prepared in a traditional way with a familiar family heirloom will remind us of many family gatherings, traditions, celebrations and special moments we have shared together and with those who are no longer with us.

The third item I would choose would be the family photo album.  Photographs collected over our lifetime document many aspects of our family culture that I would want to preserve.  Photographs often inspire stories about specific memories of events, timelines, and family values.  By using the photographs to spark our memories and share our stories, we help preserve our family culture not only for ourselves, but for future generations.

If, upon arrival, I were required to give up all but one item, how would I choose? Given my experience living overseas, I recall the joy of finding a familiar food item in a grocery store and the pleasure of improvising to re-creating my family recipes so far away from home.  However, Gran always said, "Never forget who you are and where you came from."  Taking that lesson to heart, I would have to choose my family photo album.  Having a concrete reminder of my family history, photos to jog our memories and inspire us to tell stories in our native language would give us all great comfort in a foreign land.  For even though I longed for a taste of home while living across the world, nothing was more satisfying than re-connecting with my family through language, stories and photographs.  By saving our family photo album, we are reminded of how united we are as a family, are able to celebrate our specific culture and traditions, and can preserve our memories of our heritage for future generations.  In this way, hopefully, we can follow Gran's advice by keeping our family culture alive...no matter where we find ourselves. 

This exercise helped me to see some of the tough decisions and realities facing many of the immigrant and refugee populations becoming displaced from their own culture. Recognizing how important it must be for their families to preserve and celebrate their own culture and sense of belonging in the world, I now also recognize on a much deeper level how comforted, appreciative and touched they would be to find that their child's preschool teacher is not only willing to work to help preserve, honor and celebrate it with them, but also willing to welcome their unique perspective into the community.