Today’s
blog is about a photo-voice based on my culture and related to the chapter 3 of
the book experience sociology. Every society has its own culture, which is a result of the
creativity of its members, the circumstances and its history. “The values of a
society are the stamp that indentifies us”. My culture was developed from the
Dominican Republic; one cultural object that
represents every Dominican is the flag, its colors are blue-
represents the sky, red-
represents the bloodshed by the patriots and White- represents dignity, the peaceful character of the
Dominicans and their dedication to peace. Its emblem is similar to the flag design and shows a
bible, a cross of gold. There are branches of olive and palm around the shield
and above on a ribbon is the motto “Dios, Patria, Libertad” meaning “God, Fatherland, Liberty”. Below the
shield is the name of the country “República Dominicana”, Dominican Republic.
Since I was a kid my parents even my grandmother taught me the religious fundamentalism: The belief on the catholic religion, the belief on god; its symbol, the cross and the bible.
I was in the same catholic school that my older bothers where, in there they encourage every family to go all the Sundays to church . a very important rule in my family is that we have to get married in the church besides legally, my grandmother says that the marriage will have the blessing of God.
The Dominican culture
is recognized by its joy and fun, one of its memorable shows is the “carnaval”
or carnival is celebrated during the whole month of February. This carnival is distinguished by its folkways -colorful costumes, which symbolize
many religious and traditional characters such as “los diablos cojuelos” or limping
devils. (Figure.3). Staring February, every Sunday Afternoon my brothers, my father and I went to the Carnival, most of the times my brothers and I dress up with those types of costumes, others times we just went there to hear the music and walk around. Other amazing
folkways are from the folk dancing “baile folklorico” most of the costumes are
with the color of the Dominican flag, its dance is at the rhythm of “merengue”. (Figure.4) I was at a dance school where most of the time they teach me different dance at the rhythm of merengue and others songs such as Bachata. My culture is a multiculturalism, a combination of Taino,
Africans and Spanish; some of the food are from those cultures such as “el casabe”
which is originated from los Taino. (Figure 5) Every morning my mom gave me and my brothers Casabe with coffee as breakfast.
Figure 3
 |
| Merengue instruments |
figure 5
My native language is Spanish but I also incorporate the English too, besides my language my family equally from most of the Dominicans has their own dialect. Sometimes those dialects are words that do not exist in the dictionary or do not have a meaning, that if you tried talking it with another’s from another culture they will not understand it. Ex: for a Mexican culture the word: “ahorita” which is later in English for them means “now” in Spanish.
The ideal culture for every Dominican, including my family is getting married have a number of 3 kids and have a good education,where the man have the role of provide, protects and gives discipline, while the women have the role of caring, nurturing and teach. But the real culture is that most of the time there women that have kids without marriage, that had to fallow both of the roles being the man and the women for their kids, other times the man fallow the role of the women and women fallowing the role of the men. I have a cousin that had her first baby at the age of 19 at first my grandmother was mad at her because she didn't get married, the man didn't want to respond her because he was married with another women; he divorced but they didn't get married, my grandmother still upset with that because she want that her another grand daughter be in a family with the bless of God.
