Tag Archives: Cultural

Cultural

College Culture – The Way to Addiction

Most college kids, being away from home are sucked up in the pressures of belonging, gaining friends, as well as being popular and invited to the frequent parties that come with college life. College is usually the time where the youth learn about drugs and at the same time experiment on drug use. Being in college also means drinking parties from left to right with no parents watching over or family members reminding the youth about what is right from wrong. This may result to drug abuse or being under the spell of alcoholism.

There are a lot of addicts who started their dependence on drugs and alcohol due to the following situations that are normal in colleges:

*Fraternity pressure – because of the student’s need for being accepted, they join a fraternity and then succumb to the pressures of the organization. It is a reality that a lot of negative and sometimes deadly activities are being performed by fraternity members. One such activity is hazing which would range from being spanked hundreds of times by a paddle to being forced to drink gallons and gallons of water that at one time or another lead to the death of one or a couple of members. Most fraternities also encourage members to drink and do drugs and this commonly result to substance abuse. This is also the main factor for reported fraternity deaths.

*Binge drinking – this activity will never be absent from parties, especially fraternity parties. Some students are being forced to drink in order to be part of the cool crowd; this activity more often than not cause the youth to be inflicted with alcoholism and there were even some reported deaths caused by binge drinking. Most alcoholics under going treatment admit that their drinking habit started with a single or a couple of bottles of alcohol in school parties and that took them to where they are now: a rehabilitation center for alcoholics.

Using alcohol and drugs is viewed as normal activities and at the same time harmless during college. The fact that it is taken for granted leads the students to being addicts and before they know it, their lives are ruined. After all, nobody ever dreamed of becoming an alcoholic or an addict.

Education on alcoholism and substance abuse prevention should be reiterated by college campuses. Programs to fight off college addiction should also be part of the college activities. Remember that the youth headed on the path to college addiction will never admit it and would not want to seek help so it is up to the college to ensure that every student is aware of the signs and symptoms of alcoholism and drug abuse. Preventive Measures on becoming addicts also need to be reminded to the students.

Drinking habits and drug intake habits may also be developed during college, leading to their use even after graduation especially because of the feeling of being freer now that they have graduated and will soon be working. A college addiction is never harmless. It should be stopped as early as possible.

Cultural

The Untold Agony of American Immigrant Parents That Lost Their Kids Culturally

Every year hundreds of thousands of people come to America, some for sightseeing and most come to seek for a better life. These immigrants dream of a future in America that is no less than heaven. What happens is that they in pursuance of their heaven they forget about their world. What I mean to say is that for immigrants to achieve their American dream, they will usually have to work hard on a regular basis that they are left with little or no time to spend with the children. The children slowly and gradually convert to the local culture and adapt to the local language. With little or no practice of their heritage language the children often tend to forget what they might have learnt earlier about their heritage language.

In some cases the parents themselves are apprehensive about the idea of teaching their children their heritage language, fearing that it might affect their ability to learn English. This does not only keep them away from the language, but also from the heritage culture of the parents. With the passage of time, the children are totally Americanized culturally and most parents will realize this misfortune only when their children are totally far gone into a strange culture and consider themselves as strangers to their own parent’s heritage.

This is a very painful episode that an immigrant can go through as the children grow up with a different ideology and opinion which most times contradict what you have learnt in your culture and society. Yet, another point of distress for such parents is that your child will totally avoid people from your heritage culture and drifts away with people from the dominant society. They no longer own you, your culture, your ideologies and even in some cases your religion. This happened probably because we as immigrant parents were too busy trying to make ends meet or being too apprehensive to teach your children your heritage language at an earlier age.

Teaching heritage language not just makes a child bilingual, but it also deeply embeds the seeds of heritage culture, norms, mannerism and an identity. These seeds grow with time and constant practice of your heritage language. If properly nurtured, your child will not be lost in the sea of the dominant culture and you will be saved from regrets later on.