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Analysis of the Self

I am a member of various groups and relationships. Some of these

groups are that I am: Italian, Roman Catholic, male, white, and a college student

in my mid-twenties. All of these groups that I am a part of have hepled make me

into an individual. These cultural groups have allowed me to create my own

worldview.

All of my life, I have been taught that the most important thing is family, so

I should know my roots and understand what my elders had to go through to

provide my family with what we have today. For example, everyone born before

my brothers and I were raised in small villages in Italy, so basically they had to

work very hard for they had. Even though they were somewhat well-off, my

family had many large parcels of land that they had to farm. My father tells me

stories of how he'd be up and ready for work by five in the morning everyday.

This taught him responsibility, love, and care for his family, which was later past

on to me. Also, almost all of the women in my family were house wives,

therefore i was taught that the man of the house should provide for the family

and the women, held on pedistals, should cook, clean, and care for the children.

My parents got married at a very young age and of course they had to marry into

their own culture, being Italian. So therefore, they are always telling me to marry

an Italian girl and to stay away from the American girls because they are not like

us, but I also know that as long as I am happy they will be happy too. And

believe it or not, all of these little ways of thinking have rubbed off on me.

Even though I am not as religious now as I probably should be, when I

was growing up, my family went to church every Sunday. I was baptized, and I

had my Holy Communion. I really don't consider myself to be very religious, yet I

always find myself praying and asking for forgiveness when I need to. I assume

I get this from my grandparents, who live with us, because they are always

praying to their Saints and telling me to "watch over myself, and God will watch

over me."

Education is a very important factor of my individuality. There are not

many people in my family that have gone to school or graduated from college.

My father is in construction, and I see how hard he works and how he is always

complaining about his shoulder, knees, and back pain and I know he wouldn't

want me to work as hard as he does. Consequently, as far back as I can

remember, my parents have been telling me to go to school and get a "good"

job so that I wouldn't have to work as hard as they did. I am in school, not only

for my future, but to make my parents proud and give them the same feeling of

success that they taught their children to strive for. I have learned a lot from my

parents and their way of thinking by adapting to my surroundings. However, I

have also learned to adjust my own peception of things and create my own

view on cultural biases, stereotypes, and the world in general.

Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions, that people make about

the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image about what

people in that group are like. They are often used in a negative or prejudicial

sense and are frequently used to justify certain discriminatory behaviors.

Stereotypes are seen by many as undesirable beliefs which can be altered

through education or familiarization. However, stereotypes are not always

negative characterizations about individuals or groups, they can have positive

characterizations. There are also genuinely positive stereotypes about groups.

Some groups have tried to evolve new positive stereotypes for themselves. If

you assume you know what a person is like, and don't look at each person as an

individual, you are likely to misjudge a person's character.

Being an Italian American, there are many stereotypes that I am, and will,

face within the future. Stereotypes are common in today's society, mainly due to

ignorance. It is this lack of knowledge that causes people to have false

information about others. One frequent misconception is that all Italians are

involved in organized crime. This causes the public to be afraid of, or

intimidated, by Italians. The media is one of the contributing factors that leads

to this Italian stereotype.