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Jesika Sultana Goni

Professor Ditch
Ebglish 113B
11 February 2015
Management of Cultural Identity
Way of life refers to the aspects of a culture that make up the life of its members
including language, norms and values, and so forth (Kurylo 3). Each person in our society
carries their own culture which forms their own specific life, and in this way cultures become
important to our life. I also have my own cultural- language, act, beliefs, values etc. that
represent my own identity. I consider myself as a Bengali Muslim girl because I have been
raised up within this culture. I was born and raised in Bangladesh, practicing Islam from
childhood. My faith and valuation is revealed through my ethnic and religious culture. Islam is
the most practiced religion in my country, therefore I had the environment to participate both
ethnic and religious culture over there. When I moved to US from Bangladesh, my environment
changed as the space changed. It became harder to adapt here along with practicing my culture
as I used to do. My Bengali and Islamic culture provides many restrictions in communication,
costumes, foods, and festivals which cause me to face difficulties to adapt on my new school
culture in US. I try to balance between my Bengali Islamic culture and US school culture to
combine both of them to benefit my education and future without abandoning my origin.
After I moved to the US from Bangladesh, my Bengali Islamic communication skill
became obstacle to adapt in my new school culture in US. According to my ethnic and religious
culture, we are better to be conservative. I used to not talk and sit with boys in my school in
Bangladesh. After I moved to US, that circumstance had totally changed. It was challenging for

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me to adapt in class because of the sitting and study plan. There was no restriction in sitting
between boys and girls as like my country. So, all boys and girls are friends and sit together. I
was so conservative to communicate with other students (especially with boys). I could not mix
with other students in their way to get help if I did not understand anything or for any group
work. When boys wanted to be friendly with me by doing handshakes and high fives, I avoided
to do those. This behavior proved me unfriendly and cruel to other students. In that situation I
was falling behind in the new environment since I lacked partner and friends to do well in class.
My cultural trait of being conservative seemed like a trait to modify as Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez
explained in her article My Hips, My Caderas. She talked about the reaction of suburban
anorexics toward her big hips and her feeling about that. Sometimes they walk out of the room
even before I have begun teaching, as if hips were contagious. In these situations, I am sad. I
drive home and examine my hips in the mirror, hit them for being so imprudent and like great
big ears on the side of my body. Sometimes I fast for days (75). Valdes-Rodriquez explained
how her Spanish cultural trait of having big hips was not likable to American culture, which
influenced her to try to remove her hips. I realized that I need to talk and become friendly with
everybody regardless boys and girls to do well in my education as well to adopt in this new
environment. Then, I started to make myself easy and comfortable to talk to boys. Even though
I started to break my restriction but I perform my culture by keeping distance from boys as much
as possible for me. I still do not shake handskk,, hug, and high five with boys, but I talk to them
and explain my restrictions to be friendly in my way. I just involve with them on educational
purpose, influencing by my progression in school to have better future.
Costume is another important incident I had difficulties to shuffle after I came to US.
According to my Bengali Islamic culture, girls have to wear cloth that is as much as possible

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covered, lose, and unlike boys cloth. I have cultural costume which we wear only in my country
and few other countries around India and Pakistan. In the beginning after in came to US, I used
to dress up as I used to do in my country. Everybody used to looking at me, asking bunch of
question, and some even did not like my costume as like some of my friends from Bangladesh.
Ironically some of my Bengali friends did not like holding on cultural costume and felt
embarrassed of me because of the reaction other students give toward my costume.

My friends

had already moved on to American costume, so they did not feel comfortable around me
answering bunch of questions about the costume. Their attitude was as like Valdes-Rodriguezs
white friends in her article My Hips, My Caderas. These men live my fire and passionwords they always use to describe a Latina- but they are embarrassed by my hips. They want me
to wear looser pants (75). In this part of the quote Valdes-Rodriguez discussed that her
American friends like her Latina culture for her talent but wanted her to hide the trait of having
big hips. Similarly, my friends like my religious and cultural mind but they want me to avoid the
cultural costume at school. I was different than everybody else by wearing my cultural costume
to school in my class which discriminated me from them. Students did not feel comfortable to
even talk to me because of my whole different looking. Then I decided to find dresses that can
fulfill my cultural requirements. I found lose dresses, pants, long sleeve dresses and t-shirts to
wear underneath the open dresses, and different beautiful scarfs to cover my head. I avoid to
wear short pant, shirts, t-shirts, short and open dressed that can show my body parts which is
against my Islamic culture. Since most of the boys wear shirts and t-shirts, I avoid them to be
different and unlike boys.
Food is one of the challenging matters that still annoy me to manage between my Bengali
Islamic culture and American school culture. Usually different country has different kind of

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foods. Consequently, I was not used to American food rather than just Bengali food. When I
started to go to school here, I could not eat the foods given from school. So, I had to starve for
the seven hours of school. Moreover, I had several restrictions about my food due to my religion
which is Islam. Pork is the main restriction to eat in my religion and we have a religious process
to kill other animals to eat. Since, here in US, the process is not taken to kill animals, I always
have to be careful to avoid any meat. Starving for that long seven hours of school was tough to
concentrate on my classes. Even though I tried to eat regardless however they taste to me, but
situation was still hard for me because I had to ask about the ingredients of food to make sure
they do not have meat. Sometimes the chefs felt irritated to answer my question on that busy
time to pass food for all students. My situation is alike the article Local Muslims struggle to
find halal food by Yau Chui-yan and Nick Gentle, where they explored Muslims struggles
with food in Hong Kong. While pork is forbidden, it is also important that other meats are
slaughtered according to halal principles. Ms. Hayat said most Muslims did not dine out as there
was always a risk that somehow they would end up consuming forbidden food Muslim
restaurants are not everywhere and most of them are relatively expensive," Ms. Hayat said
( Chui-yan, Yau; Gentle, Nick). In this quote they explained that how and why Muslim people
are having trouble to eat halal food to hold on their religion. Halal foods are rare for them to eat
since halal stores are rare and foods are expensive.

I always choose vegetarian foods to escape

pork they and any other meat. I take long time to decide and ask chefs to order perfect food that
I will be able to eat. I try different foods so I get familiar with them to be adopted.
My Bengali Islamic cultural festivals are also a subject of obstacle to manage between
my US school culture and Bengali Islamic culture. I used to get off days and vacations to
participate my cultural and religious festivals which caused no harm on my school and study.

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Here in US, the festivals are different than my festivals and festival time. Therefore, if I
participate on my festivals, I have to be absence on my class. Being absent I miss my lesson for
the day which also can lower my participation grade in class. For sake of my benefit in future by
being educated I have to give priority to my education. Accordingly I sacrifice my celebrations
for whole day to attend on my classes but I manage little bit of time on afternoons to celebrate
my festivals. Sometimes, I along with my family delay some of our festival on weekends to
participate, but there are few of them that can be delayed. I made hope to succeed as like Merritt
in the article Success Story by Michell C. Brooks. She reflected the success to lose weight that
Merritt obtained by her hard work and sacrifice. "My friends and co-workers would have lunch
and dinner that I wanted but I knew would take most if not all of my points allowed during the
day. I had to learn that I really didn't need to eat everything they were eating." How life has
changed: "For so many years, and I didn't even realize it, my weight kept me back," she says. "I
bought my first bathing suit in over 10 years and went water skiing and tubing .... I don't cry in
the fitting rooms anymore ... (Brooks). In the part of this quote Merritt sacrificed her appetite to
reach her goal to lose weight, and finally she succeed. I also learned to sacrifice by thinking
positively to reach into a better future by being well educated. Even though it is harder to
sacrifice the happiness of participating whole festival, but I fixed my mind to sacrifice to manage
them for my own success.
I have struggled to manage both of my Bengali Islamic culture and US school culture to
do well in my education along with being part of my origin. I had faced lots of obstacles to find
my way to adapt and being adapted. Finally, I found my ways to make a combination of both of
my culture. I am proud to be adopted and remaining in my origin. We all have to face obstacles
in some points in our life, we just need to be patient and work hard to win them in our own way.

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Work Cited
Valdes, Alisa. My Hips, My Caderas. The Contemporary Reader. 8th Ed. Gary
Goshgarian. New York: Longman, 2005. 61-63.
Chui-yan, Yau, and Nick Gentle. "Local Muslims Struggle to Find Halal Food." South
China Morning Post, (2008): 3.
Brooks, Michelle C. "SUCCESS STORY: Success Story." The Atlanta JournalConstitution (Atlanta, GA), (2014): E5-E4.
Kurylio, Anastacia. Culture and Communication. Marymount Manhattan College