Personal Cultural Identity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personal Cultural Identity - Essay Example My grandfather David is a German who served as an officer in the U.S. Army during the Second World War. Two years before the war broke out he was teaching economics at a Southern Germany university when his wife died while giving birth to my Uncle Ferdinand. Before the year was over, he left with my baby uncle for England to take up further studies, and they were at Oxford staying with his English wife's family when the war broke out. Like most Germans, he was looked at with suspicion, but because his wife's family trusted him, he was accepted into English society and soon after was taken in as a volunteer by the British Army and assigned to work with the U.S. Army after D-Day. He must have done a good job, because after the war his Army superior invited him over to work and live in America, and he accepted. My then young uncle followed him over. They eventually settled in Eugene, Oregon where my grandfather married a young and energetic woman from northern Spain who was studying there and, together, they raised a family, a rather big one. Back then, people loved having big families, and my grandparents were no exception. They had ten children and my father was the eighth, born in 1955. My father studied engineering in college and to celebrate his graduation with honors in 1976, he and his friends went to France for a one-month vacation. It was while they were getting drunk in Paris that he met my mom, a French accountant who was also celebrating her new university degree. To cut the long story short, they got married a year later and decided to settle down in a little quiet corner of Eugene, Oregon, a place my mother loved as soon as she saw it. I was born there in 1981, the youngest of three. However, we never stayed in one place for long because my father kept on getting promoted and moved, so we went all over the U.S., but since my father came from a large family, it was not unusual for us to find relatives and friends wherever we went. This helped me and my siblings to learn the art of making friends, and it also made us daring to try new things and go to new places. When the time came for me to go to university, I decided to study in Spain. My brother went to a German university, while my sister studied in France, so I wanted to connect to our roots by going to Spain. For some years, my siblings and I were all studying in Europe at the same time, and we would meet each other anywhere for lunch or dinner. On several occasions, my father would bring my mother over and we would have a great feast. What am I Some weeks ago, I had a long conversation with my Uncle Ferdinand as he visited me from London, where he teaches music (he used to be a concert pianist with an American symphony orchestra) and I asked him this question. I knew what his answer would be: "You are as American as all the Americans are. America is a land of immigrants, and even as I was born in Munich, grew up in Oxford and Eugene, my roots are in America, where your grandfather died and where your father was born. Your grandparents were German and Spanish, your dad American and your mom French, which makes you a perfect American" (Interview, 2007). My siblings and I have always felt this way even though we often entertained slight doubts about what we are. Impact on My Role as Teacher There are many advantages in knowing how to speak four languages (English, Spanish, German, and