Culture is how a select group of people act based on social norms and morals. Culture can be based on religion, on family values and similar things. In American Culture we take a lot of things for granted, our “necessities” and material culture is often unattainable for others living in 3rd World countries. Watching the “Lost Boys” react to everything on the plane with wonder and confusion and especially how they react to how we made our food really made me realize how different our material and non-material culture really is.
The Sudanese culture had much more unity than ours, we have a single family unit, but after what they went though each one of them had a close familial bond. Men aren’t supposed to cook, they get ridiculed for it when in American culture it is usually a desirable trait for men to cook and they also consider eating with their hands part of their tradition. Their manners are far different from ours, although they aren’t being disrespectful. American and Sudanese cultures are both primarily Christian. They don’t celebrate American holidays, they have no idea what Christmas is or what it is about. American culture is also much less friendly compared to Sudanese culture.
American’s misconceptions about people living in Africa are usually that they are less intelligent, more primitive and primal than people living in developed countries, and usually that they don’t wear similar clothes to our own and that they don’t cook like we do. It will often stop people from taking them seriously, Americans can be racist as well, they will be seen as second class citizens by some. They will also struggle to find jobs that are not manual labor due to the stigma surrounding them constantly. The boy’s stigma is that that American’s are lazy and that they ask others to do work for them, which isn’t always untrue, some people living in the U.S. are extremely lazy and depend on others when they have the ability to be independent. These misconceptions are serious impediments, they will eventually to be able to overcome it, but until they walk, talk and act like the average American they will not be treated seriously by many and the Lost Boys do not completely understand American culture and things and they will have to further their knowledge, and they shouldn’t have to as much as they are going to have to.
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