Introduction Blog for Cultural Identity Project
Back when I was a senior in high school I traveled to the island of Jamaica with my family on one of the greatest vacations I have ever experienced. After being there for about a week or so I found this culture to be very interesting in many ways. I am going to choose to explore this national identity for my cultural reporter project this semester. I focused a lot of my time with my cultural identity video on family and the importance of my own family to me. I want to incorporate both of these together when I compare this cultural identity to my own identity. My main goal of this project is going to be to inform everybody on the differences of specific Jamaican families to my own. Some of my key points will include differences in family traditions, customs, and religion from my family identity to theirs.
Culture is defined as learned patterns of behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people (Martin & Nakayama). This definition states that people of a certain group who think alike and have shared reservations are an official culture. In retrospect this is why I want to research and study this culture and compare and contrast it to my own.
Cultural history helps us determine how and why a specific culture came to prominence and what happened in the process of this. More importantly they help us understand the identities of a specific group (Martin & Nakayama). Some cultures go through years and years of ridicule by others before they can become a culture of prominence within the world. The residents of Jamaica are often referred to as Rastafarians and they believe that they were sold into slavery and were apart of the lost tribe of Israel. The country is made up of over 90% African citizens and the dominant religion of the culture is over 60% protestant (Kwintessential). Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Jamaica in 1494 and originally had named it the island of Santiago. The Rastafarian term, “Jamdung” meanings (Jamdown) along with the term “Yaahd” meaning (Yard) are mainly used by Jamaicans living in other countries to inform others of the deterritorialization of the National culture.
My plan of action is to immerse myself into this culture by researching and studying everything about Jamaica and its national identity. As I stated previously I vacationed there for about a week and got a good vibe on certain things that are important to them and some of their traditions and certain things should help me out immensely. I also have a really good friend who was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when he was 12 years old so I will get a lot of my facts and research done with the help of interviews from him.
Reference Page
Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts:
(Fifth Edition). McGraw Hill Higher Education.
Kwintessential. Jamaica-Language, Culture, Customs, and Etiquette. Retrieved from:
Countries and their Cultures. Jamaica. Retreived from: http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-
Ma/Jamaica.html
Here is a video of some of the main aspects of Jamaican Culture. Some of the facts in this video are very interesting and some things I did not know myself.
Here is a link that was very helpful to me to get some basic facts about the history and culture of Jamaica. Later on within my Cultural Reporter Project I am going to contrast families of Jamaican culture to my own family culture here in the United States.
http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Jamaica.htmlMa/Jamaica.html
