As a child, I grew fond of family social gathering events. Birthday parties, engagements, barbeques, or the aftermath of a funeral was an opportunity to reconnect with family members I rarely seen. The repetition of seeing family members under these circumstances became a tradition I began to follow without question. Merriam Webster defines tradition as, “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior” (Merriam-Webster), which was the case for myself. The one family gathering I enjoyed the most was Thanksgiving. However, as I grew older as learned about the history of Thanksgiving, I began to question my own desire to be dedicated to such a tradition.
When I would learn that other family did not celebrate Thanksgiving and mine did, I foolishly would feel as if my family was superior to theirs. Little did I know, this was a form of Ethnocentrism. The meaning of Ethnocentrism is an,” exaggerated tendency to think the characteristics of one’s own group or race is superior to those of other groups or races”. (Pennsylvania State University 2018) I had believed that being connected to your family by a means of celebrating Thanksgiving made me better than other people because I had that experience consistency every year. Eventually, I started to question what made me view my family superior, compared to others and why would families choose to not celebrate Thanksgiving. Fortunately, I am grateful to my history teacher in high school, Mr. Larowe.
My history teacher had a philosophy that our education received in elementary school was fabricated and colorful. This was especially true with the subject matter of Thanksgiving. I can recall my childhood was based on making paper mache hats, hand turkeys and colorful decorations based upon the colors of fall. Mr. Larowe assigned students textbooks that detailed the actions of the settlers during the 1600s. I was appalled when I learned of the slaughtering of Native Americans, the exchange of useless trinkets, having their land stolen, and the introduction of foreign diseases. (Greener 2010) This changed my perspective on the colorful assumptions I had of Thanksgiving.
My family did not care to hear the truth behind Thanksgiving, for they were more concerned that I would finish my vegetables. Moran references how a tradition can have a powerful influence on your moral system for what is right or wrong, (Moran pg. 17 2014) which made me a fool for having such pride in this tradition. As time grew on, there was less attempts made to see various family members and we grew apart. As an adult now, my current tradition is to gather friends, whom I view as family and we have a “friendsgiving”. This consists of the same concept of gathering with loved ones to appreciate the time we have together, but we are not celebrating the actions of the settlers from the 1600’s.
References
Greener, R. (2010, November 25). The True Story Of Thanksgiving. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greener/the-true-story-of-thanksg_b_788436.html
Merriam, W. (n.d.). Tradition. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R., & Moran, S. V. (2014) Managing Cultural Differences (ninth ed.), New York: Routledge.
Pennsylvania State University (2018). Leadership in Global Context– OLEAD 410. Lesson 2: Introduction to Culture, Penn State World Campus, The Pennsylvania State University.
Hi Derek!
Incredible post! first and foremost I want to commend you for taking the initiative for believing in something, for going outside the guidelines and parameters of your families culture and standing for what you truly believe to be true. Sometimes going against the grain or challenging tradition can cause havoc within our own families and create separation, disagreements and overall problems. It’s great that you realigned your views and made a stand towards the direction that you wanted to take. What gave you the courage to want to stand against your families tradition? For me, as a Christian Thanksgiving represents a time to be thankful for what God has done within myself and my family. I am well aware of the true story of Thanksgiving and what it represents but we choose to refocus its meaning on our Thankfulness and a time for family. Could you have been able to still keep tradition with your family and just have that be a time of just being Thankful for your family and friends, regardless of your differences with your family?
Derek,
Great post! Your story on childhood memories and traditions goes to demonstrates just how powerful child-rearing is and the impacts that parents have on their young. I think most of us can relate to you in that in one way or another we might feel superior to another in some matter but that has to do more so due to the way we are raised and the prejudices that are instilled upon us without us even knowing it. Like the text mentions on page 3, “Children are not born with prejudice and bias and the resulting xenophobia are present in most of not all, cultures” (Moran, Abramson, 2015). The story demonstrated in page 7 titled, “You Can’t Trust the French”, is a perfect example of something most of us go through (Moran, Abramson, 2015). Our parents are responsible for shaping our views and opinions of others, based on their own personal experiences. So whatever prejudices they might hold, are most likely to be transferred. I do think that in modern times, we are coming more to an understanding that being different is not necessarily a bad thing, or make us less valuable or important to society, but rather that our differences are what makes us great. It seems that you have also come to an understanding that maybe not everyone celebrates holidays the same way, and our traditions don’t make us any better or lesser than the next family that celebrates or doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Thank you for your post and the insight that you have provided for this part of the course.
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R., & Moran, S. V. (2015) Managing Cultural Differences (ninth ed.), New York: Routledge.
It is interesting how much of our culture is inherited. How much of it that we simply just don’t even think about. We just do it – because we have always done it. Psychologists determined that culture is embrained into us and passed down from generation to generation ( (Myers, DeWall, 2015). And when you do inquire about the origin of something within your culture this it is simple said – we have always done it this way. To some in your family it actually becomes a bit disrespectful when such an inquiry is made. A bit of who do they think they are to question why we do things this way. Our parents and their parents always did “X” tradition this way – so we do it now. They don’t even give it a second thought or ponder the question – do I really want to do it this way. Kudos to those that do think about their traditions or beliefs and determine whether or not if they want to keep them or begin new ones.
References
Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2015). Psychology in modules (11th ed., custom ed., e-text) New York, NY: Worth Publishers
Pennsylvania State University (2018). Leadership in Global Context — OLED 410. Lesson 2: Introduction to Culture, Penn State World Campus, The Pennsylvania State University.