My Culture and Diversity items

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

A description of the three items you would choose:

As I reflected on this assignment, I realized that as long as I had my family with me, I would not need anything materialistic. We create our culture by being together. A tradition that we have is to at least have Sunday dinner together.

However, if I had to choose something to bring I would bring the following.

1.       My camera

2.       Zoey’s baby scrapbook

3.       Easton’s Baby scrapbook

I take a lot of pictures, in fact I am known as the photographer in my family there isn’t a family function without the presence of my camera. I feel that pictures are important to keep memories a live for generations.

How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you:

The baby books are important because I wanted my kids to know a lot their development their first year, in case I am not around. My mother passed away before I had kids, so I wasn’t able to ask her if I did particular things by children did, and I don’t remember ever hearing about my birth story because when I was young it didn't matter to me.  I also treasure hand written notes from my mom; therefore, I did the entire book by hand not digitally. I hope they one day treasure those books.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you:

If I could only have one item, I would choose the camera to continue keeping memories through picture. I would feel very sad and angry about leaving the scrapbooks, but I know that having my family really is all that matter, and I would hope to one day be reunited with the scrap books.

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise:

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of need for material things to keep my culture and diversity.  Family is the most important thing in my life and defines who I am as a person.   You could say that All I need is love.