Tina Veguilla
Response Paper 2
Experience with Culture Shock and Ethnocentrism
Best of friends for two years and dating secretly for one, we both felt it was getting to the point in our relationship where we should introduce ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend to both friends and family. Friends would be easy to tell: they already had their suspicions and we knew our relationship would be accepted by them. As for our families, that would be a whole other story.
Here is a quick history lesson on the two of us. Lorenzo and I first were neighbors, we worked together, became friends and eventually started dating. After a year in this relationship we both came to the conclusion that we were not only the best of friends but also one another’s soul mate and true love. It seems like this would be an easy thing to tell our parents right? Not exactly. Although age was just a number to us, we did have an age gap that some people frown upon, 19 years to be exact.
After a number of discussions, we decided it might be taken the hardest by my family, so I wanted to get them out of the way first. Extremely nervous about how they were going to react, I decided to lighten the mood by telling them I was pregnant with a quick, “Just kidding!” following right behind. Seeing the relief on their face, I knew nothing in their eyes was worse than my being pregnant. This is when I proceeded to tell them I was in a relationship with Lorenzo. After hours of talking with them, I could tell they were able to both accept and respect my feelings, although I can also tell they were in a bit of shock from the news. But their shock was not even close to the shock I experienced when meeting his family. This shock was culture shock.
Lorenzo decided he wanted to tell his family on Thanksgiving, but he also wanted me to be present when he told them. It sounded like a lot of fun and I was naturally both nervous and excited. When the big day arrived I was ready, got in the car, drove for an hour to his family’s house and got out ready to conquer the world. That was until they opened the door and invited us in. There had to be at least thirty people inside the house. He had warned me that being Puerto Rican, their get-togethers were rather big, but I never thought it would be that high in number. At my house and when I went over other families’ houses for Thanksgiving or other holidays, the number of people would be no more than ten. This occasion was my first time experiencing culture shock.
I had already forgotten about the quantity of people after about fifteen minutes when another feeling of culture shock was setting in. Have you ever felt as though people are looking at you and talking about you? Although some members of the family were dominant in English, others were not so the whole household was speaking in Spanish. I had no way of interacting with them at all and I found myself feeling a little out of place. I navigated my way through the big house and finally found my comfort zone: Lorenzo. He was talking with his mother who was nice enough to include me in the conversation by using her broken English. This kindness did not last very long, as Lorenzo introduced me as his girlfriend as he seated me next to him. I had never heard Spanish spoken so rapidly between two individuals before. I could not get up and leave because that would have been plain rude, so I had to sit and wait until their conversation was done. There is nothing like trying to follow a conversation when one has no clue about what is being said. At the end of their dialogue, she looked at me and said, “Welcome to the family, we are loco (nuts), but you’ll fit in. Just don’t break Lorenzo, mi amor’s (my love) corazon (heart).” She welcomed me to the family and gave me a hug. I felt tremendous relief this part was over.
Being introduced to Lorenzo’s family that day definitely helped open my eyes to the fact that everything is not done the same in every culture. After only experiencing my own culture for the first nineteen years of my life, I did accept this as the norm. But after the interesting eye-opening day I had with Lorenzo’s family I was able to see that every culture will have its own way of doing things. From the way they party, to the things they eat and even the language spoken. Though uncomfortable in the beginning, I do look forward to having other interactions like this one, as it was definitely a positive experience in the end. This not only helped me to understand Lorenzo better, but it helped me open my eyes to the ways that other people live and to understand them better as well.
When it came to introducing our relationship to our friends and family, I was only prepared for other people to be in shock and only over our relationship and age difference, not that I would personally be the one experiencing shock…culture shock. Although a rough understanding at first I was able to walk away with the knowledge and first hand of another culture, some people do not experience that in their whole lives. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been a part of Lorenzo’s life, that memorable holiday plus the many others events that followed. It definitely opened up my eyes that the culture I had followed was not necessarily the norm and how people celebrate can be different depending on culture.
