I'm not sure how many generations ago my family came to this country. I do know that it was before 1920, as my grandparents were all born in the United States. I'm a somewhat odd concoction of different ethnicities: Italian, Irish, Scottish, German, Checzlsovakian, French, and Native American. Of all of those places, I tend to associate myself with Italy if I'm really forced to narrow down where I'm from -- most likely because my last name is derived from Italian. I'd love to visit the country someday and take a real picture that would look like this one.
Despite the many different cultures that could have influenced my life, none of them had that great of an impact. I grew up (and mostly remain) ignorant of the practices of these cultures, from customs, to traditions, to something as simple as their food. Because my family was so far removed from their original ancestors I instead fell into the customs of a growing American Culture.
The only problem with this is that it seems like the American Culture is largely undefined, with the standard being that children are supposed to grow up in a carefree suburban environment, go to schools where they are persuaded that American Culture is superior to every other, and go on to college where they will major in some capitalist career path, move to suburbia and start all over again. Which basically explains my life, minus the last part where I threw a wrench in the plan by deciding to go to art school and plan my life around theater.
I suppose there could be one other problem with this, though it isn't only an issue with American Culture, and that is the dangers that hunt out today's youth. With a mass media that promotes materialism and a life of fame and fortune, it is easy for adolescents to forget the things that are truly important in life, and instead be consumed by pop culture. With that can also come the idea that sex, drugs, alcohol, and defying authority are all "cool" and "what everyone is doing" -- a concept, that, while sometimes very easy to believe, is not true. This isn't to say that pop culture is all bad, or even that getting involved with the so-called "riff-raff" will automatically destroy an adolescent's potential to be a good-hearted contributing member of society -- in fact, this behavior (whether inacted or observed) can add a new point of view to life that can be educational and life-changing as long as it isn't abused.
Open-mindedness is an important characteristic to have in today's world, especially with different cultures growing ever closer with the constantly growing digitized world. With so much information at your fingertips, and the ability to connect to people in different continents via email or chatrooms, it would be foolish to remain ignorant of how other people around the world differ from you.
I've never visited, let alone lived in, another country, and as mentioned before, I grew up within the confines of the stereotyped world of white, middle-class suburbia. Therefore my own experiences of foreign culture have been limited to the handful of people I've come in contact with that were raised in ethnic housholds, and even so, they were already corrupted into more 'americanized' versions of their heritage.
While I like to think I'm open to differnet cutlures, I'll admit that culture isn't a very important factor in determining how I live my life -- at least, not on a conscious level. While I'm sure the culture that influences what is deemed appropriate in society does indeed affect whether or not I act a certain way, it doesn't matter to me the traditions a person keeps, or the food they eat, or even the gods they do or do not believe in. What is important is who they are -- what they believe is right or wrong, and how they conduct themselves to achieve what they want in the world. It doesn't matter if they're white or black, young or old, gay or straight, from the United States or from a third world country, because if I've learned anything in the past nineteen years it's that on some level there's common traits among all people -- our chemistry, our world -- if you're going to start judging one of them, you might as well start with yourself.
