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By Madi Haines
TEEL 230
Recently this past year I got engaged, which is very exciting, but this definitely affects and changes my family dynamics. Starting a new life with a different person brings many new social changes such as: sexuality, religion, communcity, social class, and health. When starting a new marriage, my fiancee and I talked about our same desires for our future family. This makes us extremely compatiable and able to work together because although we have very different backgrounds, we have the same dreams and goals for our future.
My family has been a huge factor that has shaped me to be the person I am today. I grew up in a very blessed home, where both my parents were happily married and tight knit. We all support each other and learn from each other. Both my parents are very hard working people and have always met our needs in full, which is how my social class has been affected. They raised me more old-fashioned in a sense where they were strict with rules and believed in punishment, but also did everything strictly out of love. We all currently live in the same town so it makes it easy to communicate with one another.
Growing up in Hays basically all my life, the town itself is around 20,000 people. Although it isn't a "small town" according to Kansas' definition, it has a small town feel, and this plays into my geographical region. I graduated from Hays High May of 2015, with graduating class of about 150 people. Our class was much smaller than other classes at HHS, but the school itself has about 800 students altogether. While there was some diverse students with different ethnicity, religious, and diverse belief backgrounds, it still wasn't what I'd call a diverse school. Although I've been exposed to diversity among individuals, this didn't play into that.
I currently am a junior on-campus student at Fort Hays State University and I feel like Fort Hays has affected a lot of my cultural identity. I have been in classes and around many people with different ethnicity, sexual oreintation, health, age, social class, language, and spirituality backgrounds. It is interesting to hear how people grew up differently than me. Fort Hays has also helped me get extremely involved in the college-aged ministry, Encounter, and that affects my House of Worship or Spirituality.
House of Worship, or my spirituality is the most important of all the culutral identifications to me. My faith is something that I found at a very young age so I've always known Jesus to be my Lord and savior. I was saved at age 8, by my own decision, and was baptised in high school. Obviously growing up in a non-denominational church had a lot to do with this. I know that my faith has everything to do with the person I am, my decisions I've made, and it is has the number one affect on my other culural identification categories. I have gone on several missions to Haiti, and my life revolves around Jesus Christ. I co-lead my own Bible Study, I'm involved in a college ministry at my church, and I also had the opportunity to go on a month long trip to Israel. That trip showed me so much and I felt like although that trip was to learn biblical information, I also learned so much about other religious beliefs, and was surrounded by ethnic diversity. It was one of the best trips I've ever been on.
I have grown up in Hays, Kansas for the majority of my life. As of 2016, our population has about 21,000 people within it. Although it is a decent sized town for Kansas and attracts a ton of travelers and surrounding town traffic, it still has a small town feel to it. Hays has really shaped the way I appreciate the beauty in small towns. My favorite part of Hays definitely has to be downtown. I feel like it is rich with history, considering the town had first become apart of Kansas in the early 1850's. Hays is compiled of a bunch of farmers, creating natural resources for the rest of the country. I appreciate the open land of Kansas and the most beautiful sunsets. I love the wide open spaces and the nature that Kansas showcases.
I didn't really grow up in a neighborhood of any sort because ever since I was little I've lived in the country. My parents weren't farmers or ranchers, but we did enjoy the wide open space that the country had to offer so we decided to build a house about 10 minutes away from Hays. I appreciate this style of living and I hope to one day get the opportunity to raise my kids in the country. I remember a lot of times when I was younger my mom would lock my brother and I outside for a few hours so we would be forced to use our imagination and play outside. At the time I wasn't too thrilled about this but this old-fashioned style of parenting is something I hope to use on my kids someday. Growing up where I did, didn't have much to do with my social status because we were never around many people.
Obviously peer's have a lot to do with someone's identity. I always think of the famous saying "you are who you hang out with." Throughout middle school and high school I didn't always have the best of luck with girls and it seemed like I never fit in. I always was trying to be someone I wasn't and it wasn't until college I felt a sense of fellowship and community. Through college Encounter I have met some amazing Godly women and they have impacted my life so much! I actually look forward to meeting new ladies and getting to know them. I had to include my fiancee in the pictures too because he is my absolute best friend. I feel that my peer group has affected my social class-we are all broke college students embracing it, health-depending on what everyone else is eating, I eat it too, and spirituality-because we are all Christians or coming to believe in Christ, we are able to build our Christ-like identities together and through that encourage one another.
Electronic media is something that is very involved in my generation and the generations after me. This affects the cultural identity of my age, language, and health. Since social media has come about, statistics show that more health issues are arising such as depression, anxiety, worry, and other mental illnesses. I fully believe this has to do with the amount of intake each person has of social media and what it has to offer. While I do have an iphone, computer, and television, I try to monitor my intake of the electronics.
Although I am not directly involved in sports, I still enjoy watching them. I never was athletic in high school but I was involved in competitive dancing. This directly affected my peer group and I ended up quitting because of the stress and drama it included. But, my fiancee is on the FHSU wrestling team and I enjoy watching him do what he loves. I also love watching all types of football, and I am a huge Denver Broncos fan. This affects my socail class because I am able to go to the Broncos games every season with my parents, I am grateful for the opportunity to enjoy this.
I've always enjoyed creative things and all through school I loved being involved in art classes. I consider myself a creative person and as an education major I am able to express that through different outlets. I believe that through creativity I am able to express myself whether that be my love for makeup, ink drawings, sketching, or decorating, all create a stress free zone. As far as affecting my cultural identity, I really believe art can be a way to destress and is an outlet to blow off steam.
Because I am a total book lover and bookworm, I enjoy reading and I am a fan of printed media. Printed Media has affected my cultural identity by the language and spirituality. Because of my mom always reading books when I was younger, I felt this increased my development as a child and I liked books at a young age. It affects my spirituality because the Bible is the book of God-breathed truth and to keep grounded in the truth I read this in my quiet time.
I currently go to school, babysit, and have on-campus job. I feel that all three are very demanding and require responsibility. My babysitting job definitely needs me to be in good health because chasing young toddlers and babies around all day is physically and emotionally demanding. My job on-campus affects my gender, my social class, and my language. I work at the testing center in the Kelly Center and I work among only woman. My job pays a little above minimum wage so this affects where I stand in social class. And also working at the testing center, we administer tests to foreign students so that definitely tests my language barrier.
Technology has affected my generation directly because of all the new tools that have come out. One way technology has directly affected me would be having to go through technology courses to be a teacher. The education program takes seriously the integration of technology and I appreciate that they try to give us future educators as much tools as possible to use in the classroom. I'm not sure what this affects directly to my cultural identity, maybe age because of the generation I am in.