My Culture my Identity: the Intersection of my Identity

Introduction

Hello, my name is Behshad Aghakoochek, and I was born in the city of Covina, California, but all of my family was born in Tehran, Iran. I believe that being able to grow up with two different cultures is very interesting because it’s like you have the “best of both worlds.” What I mean by that is I get to celebrate the American holidays that one loves to enjoy and also the many Persian events that go on, like Persian New Year and 13 Be Dar.

I always enjoy eating the different, delicious Persian dishes that my mom cooks for my family and never seem to become tired of them. Family gatherings are another huge part of my culture which were emphasized heavily by my parents to attend every house party that we got invited to instead of having other plans. By my parents enforcing that idea, my and my brother really enjoyed get-togethers, and when I really think about it, I am a real family-orientated person. Every time I get to see my family, it means the world to me, and the feeling of everyone sitting at the dinner table eating and laughing together, I simply can’t trade away anything better than that.

Embracing Dual Cultures

My love for American culture has always been the same since I was born here, and I will always embrace my American pride. I was mostly interested in the American material culture as much as my brother, who was mostly into the nonmaterial culture. For me, buying my favorite brand name clothes like Nike and Adidas really stood out for me when I was younger. I will never forget going to department stores and just begging my mom to get a ‘Kobe Bryant” t-shirt that I had been begging her for so many months. I knew I had to work for the stuff that I wanted and did not just want to receive anything easily. My brother, he was really addicted to the nonmaterial culture. My brother was always watching NBA games on the TV and was always playing the game of basketball with his friends in the backyard. Just thinking about my brother brings major throwbacks of the competitive games that we would have when we would play for a little in the backyard, and one game would last approximately two hours. As one gets used to something, they seem to become comfortable with what they have and the type of lifestyle they are living and become more grateful for where they are living compared to what you see in many other countries.

Every time my family and I decide to go visit back home, I always feel a sense of culture shock because of the different scenarios that I notice there that are not the normal norm of what we see here in America. For example, driving over there is horrific, and you sometimes see people driving on the wrong side of the road and going against traffic. For someone like me, I am just left in shock. Also, the idea of parking wherever you like seemed to be very odd to me, and besides that, it could be very dangerous if one was not paying attention. When standing in line, one might come up right behind you instead of the space that we Americans like to have and to be comfortable when standing in line. The food that we get to eat over there is so much different than what we have here because all of their fruits and vegetables are grown “organically.” Even though it is a very different life that my family back home lives, I will forever love and support my country.

Conclusion

After going to school for so long, I realized that there was one subject that really challenged me, and this subject was math. I believe that math can really open up one’s life and that it’s something that is a very important concept here in America, and I believe that I can really make a difference in people’s lives. Sadly, many people’s mathematics here in the US is not the best it could be, but I have been wanting to change that. It takes many hours to master the concept of what you want to learn, but this motivates me to even do better because I like the challenge. Also, all of the mathematics teachers that I had in High School were the ones I really looked upon also because they taught that math is used everywhere in this society. The bigger picture that I realized was that there are “multiple” ways of approaching a math problem, and the possibilities are endless. Sadly, my family and I have a tendency to be ethnocentric, and like the example I gave above about being able to solve a problem in multiple ways, I should be more like that example and look for a solution. If your first plan doesn’t go as planned, you still have many other options, so don’t limit yourself. I hope to make big changes to the US society and hope to be motivated in whatever I like to study during my college years. I am glad I got to talk about my culture, and I am very blessed to be a part of such a culture of joy and prosperity.

References

1. “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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