Professional Documents
Culture Documents
90,
high
blood
pressur
Forced
marriage
during
Japanese
62,
smokes,
alcoholis
m, heart
m.
53,
valvul
ar
diseas
m. 1986
28,
smokes,
drinks,
illicit
80,
high
blood
pressur
1 child,
younge
st of all
7
m.
1942
19,
drinks
6
children;
80,
cause of Eldest
given to
death
m.
hepatitis
1944
83,
diabetes,
death by
pneumoni
62,
smokes,
high
blood
5
7
m.
X rape
25
25,
2 smokes,
4 drinks,
Catholic
25
23,
former
smoker,
drinks
Dating since
2010
X unexpected, terminated due to fear of maternal
grandmothers inability to accept and possible
maltreatment
However, my siblings and I were all born in the United States, so we have
some directly conflicting ideals. We received a lot more Western influence in our
lives than just the one Eastern source we had at home. We focus less on
collectivism. We are more open to other races and ideas. One of my big conflicts
with my grandmother concerns race. She believes in saving face and
maintaining purity in bloodlines. Directly translated: she is prejudiced against my
Indian boyfriend and does not support our relationship. She considers it an
embarrassment and a reflection of her poor job raising me. She has referred to
my actions as disrespectful and insubordinate and has threatened to
excommunicate me from her life. These are some ideals I simply cannot own.
To my grandmothers additional dismay, we preferably like to identify
ourselves as American because of our influences. But when speaking to
traditional Americans (white and blacks,) that answer never seems to suffice.
People want to know where we are really from. To this, we generally pick
between Malaysia, China, and Singapore, whichever suits our whimsy. At this
point, one might wonder where Singapore comes from. It is our familys defense
mechanism to post 9-11 Islam phobia and the fact that Malaysia is an Islamic
country. Unfortunately, religion is not always visually discernible, and no one can
tell that we are Buddhist. With all of these countries and ideals jumbling together,
I have a bit of an identity crisis concerning my place and culture of origin.
For this reason, I believe I tend to work best with other first generation
Asian Americans and children of immigrants. They, like me, have duality in their
lives and understand the pressures and expectations of honoring our familys
sacrifices. Thankfully, I feel that I have enough in common with both international
people and traditional Americans so that I do not have too much trouble working
with either group. I am the intersection of many cultures, and it has been both a
gift and a curse.
This exercise was very eye opening. I have never had to evaluate my
origins so carefully and critically. I think it has made me understand myself a little
bit better. It makes me feel a little more vulnerable about myself. It was a great
exercise, but I dont think that the questions really applied to the genogram. At
least for me, I felt like I was forcing some of the interpersonal relationships I drew
out into answering the questions.