Our society to your

Throughout this course, I have found that one theme sticks out when it comes to reading and viewing different cultures, that being that I have to keep an open mind. No two cultures are the same and people judge based on the society that we live in, as sad as that is.  Also, in other classes that we take here, we are taught the same thing. No two people are exactly alike and no two people have the same kinds of experiences in their lives. This just comes as being a part of the society that we live in.

In our everyday culture at Silver Lake, we are used to everyone having what they need, and everyone being close by, such as things like bathrooms, a good support system, like friends, and also their books, and personal items that they may need. In the cultures that we read about throughout the semester, the families don’t always have what they need close at hand, like in the book, July’s People. They were a family that was uprooted abruptly and transplanted into a small tribal village. They did not have what they needed and what they were used to having. These things could be anything from a toilet and a bathroom to having any kind if personal space. They were uprooted from their everyday home, which had all the luxuries and spaces that we, in our society would seem normal, to a small tribal village, with mud houses that were shared by entire families. The Smales, the family in the novel July’s People, had to learn how to live in a completely different society from what they wee used to.

This is something that we are unaccustomed to seeing because we are very used to the society that we live in now. We, as a people, don’t have to worry about having enough food, considering we can just go to the cafeteria and get something or drive somewhere and get something to eat. The Smales had to learn to survive off of what we either given to them by July, or to go get something for themselves. In our society, we don’t have to worry about this.

With keeping an open mind, we are more able to accept and understand what this family is going through. Not every story is as tragic as July’s People though. The books and novels that we have read, cover a huge variety of things from families and their problems, to women controlling others for their own personal gain. Having an open mind helps us to not only accept these characters and their actions, but to accept their society even though it is different than ours.