Luis

Luis Benhumea Rodríguez

Final Project: Family, Traditions, and Customs

ARE MEXICAN FAMILIES AND AMERICAN FAMILIES SIMILAR? DO THEY HAVE THE SAME TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS?

E verybody has listened to talk about

families, since we born we have somebody who support us and take care us. Usually the group of persons (two or more) who look after us is known like a family.

When people try to define the concept of “family” thought a lot of things. Firstly it is possible describe as support, refugee or like synonymous of home. Other more can think only in genealogy tree and consanguineous ties. Another more can consider family the persons who share likes, dislikes, experiences and somebody for talk.

In this way, around the entire world, the word “family” has acquired a lot of means. Every culture, every country, including every person has one definition for the word. This just the reason to talk about the difference between Mexican families and American families. It is very interesting know the point of view of persons from different cultures, traditions and customs.

Before start, it is necessary define the concept used for this essay of family. According to The Vanier Institute of the Family, when we refer to family we are talking about a combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement.

In this summer institute, I have learned so much of culture in other countries. In the University of North Texas there are people from all over the world. The mixture of experiences, points of view and the expression of culture and traditions from their home country has enriched the climate and education in the university.

Along my stay in the United States I have interview some students in UNT, including persons from China, South Arabia, India, and United States. All of them share experiences and information about their families, hobbies, traditions, and the culture of their home country.

Thanks to that I can find some similarities and differences between Mexican families, American families and in general difference between all of countries. I would like to start with the Mexican families.

In Mexico used to know the family such as a large family from grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, sons, uncles, until nephews, grandsons and grandchildren. Years before, the families used to have among fifteen and ten sons; today the number of sons has reduced, in the maximum case, the parents have four or three sons, in other occasions only two or one. Mexican families are also close, in other words, sons never leave to parents. Most of times, sons live with their parents, and if they had to go out, try to come back as soon as possible.

According to students of UNT, the families are close and small, only four or three persons per family. In the most case are immediate families. Sometimes, the family are disperse for all country and only have reunions each important date, for example new year or Christmas.

Talking about traditions, we can see that most of times the celebrations can be similar in the countries but each one does the different way. En other occasions, the globalization, mass media and neoliberalism has produced a kind of mixture in the traditions, a combination who is possible to see in the Halloween and the day of Death in Mexico. Nowadays, this Mexican tradition has adopted characteristics of the Halloween. This has caused what Canclini defined as hybrid culture and new anthropologic process like enculturation and acculturation.

Usually, people meeting around of festivals and religious events. This is the case of the Qixi festival in Taiwan. Joe, a student of University of North Texas, said that this festival is based on a tale with involves some Goddess; Christmas is other example of this celebrations.

 

Finally the costumers are seeable from the first moment that you arrive to another country. People of Mexico are very expressive, when they say hello immediately they kiss your chick; in the other hand, American people are not accustomed to receiving a kiss. I can say this because I see how one girl complains about the kiss, she was not angry, but she said that in her home country people not to do someone like that. About of music, a lot of American people would like to learn how to play instruments; in Mexico a few persons study music in the collage. Finally, in the United States, drivers are polite with pedestrian, en Mexico, pedestrian have to take care in the road because drivers are aggressive.

The situation in other cultures are similar, each one have their traditions and customs different. People near of India allow the corporal contact, they hug other person without they meet before. They are persons very funny, they smile all the time and are very polite. Chinese people are quite and polite, they not allow the corporal contact, but they are very funny. People of south Arabia are polite but very shy, in special if is a women, they are not so much talkative but they are good persons.

 

Finally I can say that know people from different countries is a very good experiences, is fantastic talk and compare that you know. The family, traditions and customs are an important part of the culture. In this way, I can define the culture like everything which has been made for men. Languages, music, food, customs, traditions, histories, etc. belong  to the global culture.