Friday, March 30, 2007
Marios Hyphenated Life
Ok so I'm not sure if I am even doing the right thing but I’m going to make an attempt. I have personal experience with the idea of a hyphenated life. I myself am 100% Italian. One of my parents was born in Italy as well as all four of my grandparents. I Know this might not be an excellent example a lot of people probably wouldn’t think that there is a huge difference or much of a hyphenated life, but I would beg to differ. Experiencing it first hand there is a lot of differences and I often come across a lot of circumstances that would my life "hyphenated" For example needing to be able to speak and understand a separate a good majority of my family, either speaks none, or very little English therefore in order to communicate properly with them I needed to learn Italian, or at least the basics of it so that I would be able to at least partially communicate. Another thing that becomes clear, especially when talking other people is that my family places different emphasis on certain parts of life for example religion, and a big one of up-keeping personal appearances within the community, there is also a certain responsibility placed on women, this is obvious when I look at some of my female cousins and see for example that none of them are allowed to bring any guys around unless they are in a totally serious relationship. These are just some of the examples about how my life, coming from Italian background my seem hyphenated to the common conception of a North American lifestyle.
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2 comments:
The idea of the Hyphenated Life does not just come from the idea of cultural
differences, but it also ties in to gender roles in society. As Mario
mentioned earlier, his female cousins only brought someone that they were
dating to a family function unless they were totally in a serious
relationship. The modern woman refers to the idea of a career woman, or a
woman who strives for higher learning, but is it truly possible to become a
modern woman? Culturally and religiously, women tend to have the role of
being the loving mother, the multi-tasker, and the faithful and loyal wife.
The modern woman is expected to be ambitious, non-apologetic for being
successful, non-submissive, and competitive. This is quite a contrast from
the usual Victorian role type. So, in our society today, a woman must
balance out her family life where at home she is a mother and/or a wife, and
at work she is tough and competitive. When I read Ethel Wilson's "Innocent
Traveler," I was struck by how Mrs. Porter is viewed by the Victorian-type
society . She is viewed as a "blue stocking," which basically means that an
academic woman is undesirable as a wife because she is viewed as masculine.
Because of the values of different cultures, along with the opportunities
offered in Canada, women are held to a double standard-on one hand they must
be a family woman and on the other a career woman, and thus to some extent
lead a hyphenated life.
By the way Bernecia posted the blog entry about women and the hyphenated life ^_^
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