The generation gap between parents and children seems to be getting bigger and bigger over the years. Generation gaps are the many years between a generation or many generations between age groups of people. Generation gaps are often linked to the culture of a family discussed between parents and children. Parents are very worried that their children will lose their culture when they enter a new environment that is completely different from their own. The new environment for their child may simply be a completely different country than the one in which his or her parents were born or raised. In the case of Dympna Ugwu-Oju, a mother born and raised with Nigerian culture now faces the daunting reality that she may or may not have secured Ibo culture for her daughter Delia. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Ugwu-Oju states in her article that she is proud of her American-born daughter for continuing her studies in college. Ugwu-Oju reflects on her experience leaving Nigeria for the first time to attend college in New York. Ugwu-Oju reveals that pilgrimage to another country made her stronger as a person. Internally, he felt that he had retained his cultural sense even though on the outside he might have followed the path to achieving the American dream; become a professional, marry someone who was her equal and be able to have the freedom to have children or not. This differed greatly from the Ibo culture she had grown up with. The negative aspects of Ugwu-Oju culture that he vividly remembered dictated this; Child brides, female circumcisions, arranged marriages, and a patriarchal marriage system were the norm. There were also many positive aspects of Ugwu culture that she liked and would have liked to share more with her daughter Delia. As previously mentioned, Ugwu-Oju fears that by the time Delia returns from school, Delia will have fully absorbed American culture and will lose what little Igbo culture she already had. Compared to my life, my mother was also worried about my brothers and me losing our sense of black South American culture. My mother was born and raised in Florence, Carolina, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a teenager to attend high school. During that time the entire matriarchal side of my family slowly migrated, for the first time in years, from their comfort zone to the hustle and bustle of New England. From what my mom told me over the years, she didn't tolerate the weather, nor the rudeness of the town's inhabitants. People couldn't understand her Southern accent very well, so they often rudely suggested she get rid of it. She ignored their suggestions, thinking that once she lost her accent, much of her culture would vanish. My mother was also afraid of the race riots that accompanied the MBTA bus system. Since moving to Boston around the early 1980s, she has missed some of the school bus horrors of the 1960s-1970s and has only listened to stories from classmates. Even though South Carolina had experienced segregation since my mother was a child, she was often protected from it. Furthermore, while she was there she did not witness violent acts of racism like now in Boston, thoughts that still terrify her today. Some things people appreciated about my mother and our newly relocated family was the attitude of Southern comfort within the culture. This attitude of Southern comfort revolved around making guests, whether family members or not, feel welcomed and comfortable. This may have involved genuine kindness, one.
tags