Jan. 30, 2017: Culture

This is a Brazil keychain. I have come to see my time in Brazil as something that defines me culturally because I now speak a new language, see with a different perspective, and understand a completely new culture. This has changed the way that I perceive myself and the American culture. This also helps me relate to the Mormon culture in that it represents my belonging to the group of return missionaries. This is significant because we have our own lingo, shared experiences, and mindsets. 

This is a BYU tshirt (that I actually do own, although this picture came from the BYU store website). BYU has become a huge part of my culture as both a college student (and living and thinking the way college students do) and as a young single adult in the LDS church.  This also relates me to the people that I live with and attend church with, as opposed to attending a regular family ward. 

My family loves crossword puzzles. If you don't like to do crosswords or learn how to like them, then you miss out on bonding time with family. I'll work on one together with my mom while she makes dinner, and my dad listens in and contributes from the living room. This artifact probably is representative of a middle-class upbringing. First of all, we get the newspaper everyday in the mail. Also, we have the spare time and higher education to complete the difficult questions on the crossword.

Picture credit: Deseret Books
This is a CTR ring (that, once more, I actually do have but it's broken) that I associate with my LDS culture. Not only does it encapsulate principles by which we adhere, but it also serves as a reminder to do good and be good, key components of our culture.

Dr. Pepper is a key part of our culture because it's the soda that our family drinks. We don't like coke, we don't like Fanta, and rarely do we like sprite. We were raised on it, always have it as a staple at any family function (on my mom's side), and usually have at least 4 cans in the fridge at home. Dr. Pepper is also pretty representative of the American culture and contributes to my American identity, seeing as this soda is rarely found outside of the United States. 

This is the Macpherson clan tartan. On my Mom's side of the family, we are from the Scottish Macpherson clan. This is important to us because we have Macpherson clan reunions, and hold by our clan's motto, "Touch not the cat but a glove." No one in our family owns cats. This also helps me to connects with my Scottish heritage, allowing me to connect with the Scottish side of my family and be accepted into that cultural group. 

As I mentioned previously, my dad is from Great Britain. This hat has become a motto in our family. While it's a joke, it represents pretty well our feelings about the Trump presidency and our liberal perspectives (at least, liberal compared to the majority of the LDS population). Needless to say, I voted for Hillary. While my belonging to the democratic party gives me an identity in US culture, it also gives me an identity in the LDS culture in that I am, on the whole, singled out as being different from my peers.

Picture Credit: Musicscores.com
Piano music is a cultural symbol for me because my whole family plays and has been playing since we were kids. This often shapes our Sunday nights, with me or one of my sisters on the piano, my dad playing the flute, and the rest of the family singing. This also contributes to my middle-class uprbinging in that l many people in the lower-class would not be able to 1) own a piano and 2) afford to take piano lessons. 

This Outer Banks Tshirt (courtesy of  wanelo.com) represents our family culture because that is OUR BEACH. We love the Outer Banks and we go several times in the summer, often for several days at a time. My grandpa was born and raised in Nags head, which is just a few miles away, and so we have a ton of family members there and we often will have family reunions down at a beach house somewhere. In our personal points of view, the Outer Banks is the best beach in the mainland US. This also contributes to my middle-class identity in that many people in the lower-class cannot afford to take expensive vacations or rent beach houses. 

Our family heartily believes in breakfast for dinner (or lunch, or breakfast). We love pancakes, waffles, and French toast, which my dad makes with garlic. It's better the way he makes it.
If you don't like breakfast food "all that much," then you're doomed to not ever be really content at our dinner table.

Picture Credit: Pepsi.com
Pepsi is a culturally significant item because we do not drink coke. My grandma's family owned part of Pepsi back in the day, and although she got ousted, we are faithful to that. My grandparent's fridge always has Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. This contributes to my middle-class and white identity because Pepsi has been a southern company ever since it was founded, noticeably, by white people back in the 20th century when there was still wide-spread persecution of African Americans. This also is representative of my middle-class identity because of our family's prosperity due to this venture. 

Agatha Christie is practically a part of our family at this point. We read her books, watch the adaptations, and know all the murder plots. Sometimes we forget the little details, but we always know who the murderer is. Poirot and Ms. Marple are our favorite detectives. This has shaped the type of tv show that we watch and that has evolved to other British  and Australian detective shows.

(Picture Credit: Amazon.com)
Pride and Prejudice is a movie that everyone in my whole family has seen, can quote, and actually loves (except my brother, maybe. But he's seen the whole thing multiple times).  But the Colin Firth version, not Keira Knightly. My dad has not only read the book, but agrees to watch this on Sunday afternoons. We all end up falling asleep by about the second hour in, but nonetheless. It's important to our family. All our husbands will be forced to watch it. This is also fairly representative of my middle-class upbringing because of its cultural capital.

Soccer is a huge part of our family, and it comes from my dad's side. All of my mom's side plays basketball (because we're giants, to be honest), but our family is the only family that doesn't unless it's church ball. We play soccer, and we love it, and it makes us different from the rest of our family. This is also representative of our middle-class upbringing because we could afford new cleats and afford to pay the fees to play in the recreational and school leagues. 

(Picture Credit: Pintrest.com)
My dad's side of the family  belongs to the Sutherland clan. We as kids has kilts of this tartan, and at my sister's wedding, the men wore ties in this tartan, and my sister's sash was in this tartan as well, and these were the colors of the wedding. We, as Brits, are incredibly proud of this heritage. It binds us together, even though clan membership isn't as important a part of  British culture as it has been previously.

So this valentine might be scary to you, but in reality it's something very important to my sisters and myself culturally, in that my relationship to my sisters has been strengthened through our love of hating Nicholas Cage and photo-shopping his face onto literally any picture. Lord of the Rings and Nicholas Cage is an especially great combination. 

These are Fruit Pastilles. (Picture from Amazon.com) They are a type of British candy that my family loves. If you're a member of the family, it's assumed that you love it. Even if it's not your favorite, you have to like it to be considered properly sane. If you refuse one, then you get stared at. It's uncomfortable. This is also representative of my middle-class upbringing because the only reason we have access to these are because of our travels to the UK which we would not be able to afford if we were of the lower-class.

This is my little pig necklace. It's an inside joke in my family, but the pig could be called our mascot, since my mom is from Smithfield, the ham capital of the US, and if you were to ever go to downtown Smithfield, you would be able to go into any store without seeing something pig- or ham-related. 

Picture credit: Brian Athey, argentina-travel-blog.sayhueque.com/terere-mate/
This is tereré, a South American tea that you can drink either cold or hot, depending on the seasons and the selection of herbs. I served my mission in Brazil, and this has become a huge part of my personal culture and my culture within my mission friends and companions.

This is the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVD Box set (picture courtesy of Barnes and Noble). This is a key element to being a part of our family--being able to quote it at a moment's notice. You're not really our friends unless you've watched at least part of this with us. We watch it every Christmas (yes, all three movies) and at least twice during the summer holidays. If you don't like Lord of the Rings, you're messed up, man. 

Reflection:
In doing this culture portfolio, I've come to realize how much these things define me, not just in my family life or my LDS life, but in being white and middle-class. I never knew how much my culture defined me, rather than my humanity. I've realized how much I am defined by my upbringing--middle class, Southern and British, and LDS. It's interesting to me that I consider these things indispensable to my identity, which helps me to realize how much others depend on their upbringing as well to identify themselves be it through language, culture, and class, and I can't expect people to just automatically relate to me. I have to work hard to understand where people come from and endeavor to understand what they include as being something that defines them, be it experiences, literature and media, or opportunities.