Ethnocentricity and Culture

        In class last week, we discussed the idea of ethnocentricity and culture. A type of culture is identified by “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations; the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” (as taken from the slide show presented during class). Culture is shown in many ways, through the clothes we wear, the language we speak, and food we eat. In many cases, different cultures coming together can result in what is called ethnocentricity, which is when a person or group takes some of their cultural aspects from their home into a new place. Ethnocentricity is something each of us practices, and can have both a negative and positive effect on the culture we are currently trying to adapt into. 

For example, the other day my roommate got on the phone with one of her friends that currently lives back in her hometown. After a while, my roommate started to talk about life here in Arizona, stating that it was much different from the life she had lead while in New York. She stated that “people living in the West are more sensitive to the words and actions people take here than they are back home.” She also confided in her friend that calling one of her friends a retard was not looked as badly upon back home as it was here. My roommate has experienced a slightly different culture here in Arizona than the one she lived in in New York. She had to adapt to the slight cultural changes here in Arizona, such as not calling a friend a retard, and realized that many cultural ideas that she thought were ok in a normal society, could not be practiced here. 

Another example involves a friend or a friend, who has recently come to the United States to learn English, as well as study here at the University of Arizona. I was recently introduced to her in my English class, and realized that she spoke broken English.I thought, “Well, maybe she has recently moved to the states with her family and is still trying to learn effective communication skills.” After sitting down at our appropriate seats, my friend starts talking to her in her home language. This is when I realize that she is an international student, originally from China, and is doing her best to try and fit in at a school that does not teach in her home language. She told me later she finds it easier to speak in her home language than it does in English, but that she did not want to exclude me simply because I did not speak the language she spoke. In a way, she was being ethnocentric, and doing so in a way that, from an outsider, may seem like her being exclusive when it came to making friends and communication with others. She took what she knew from her home country and applied it here, which is what many American do when they travel to other places. All in all, her ethnocentricity was a way for her to survive here while trying to adapt.