Entry #6: Culture

 

Heyy! I hope you're having a good day! The topic for this blog came to me when I watched a TikTok. The titok was basically about how one may feel out of touch their culture/traditions. I feel I can relate to the video and since Día De Los Muertos wasn't that long ago, I thought this would fit perfectly. 

- a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Culture is symbolic communication.

That is the definition I got for culture from Google. But I believe the definition of culture is different for everyone. Personally for me, my culture is a big part of my life and family. I am the daughter of two Mexican parents, who were both born and raised in Oaxaca, Meixco, was born in the United States, and grew up in a catholic household. The place where my parents are from is in a town that is a little far from the main city. The town is called 'San Pedro Tapanatepec'.  San Pedro is Saint Peter in Spanish, and the town honor and praises him, and he is considered the saint 'patrón' of the town. There are many traditions that happen to honor him.

My parents would often tell me about the traditions they did while growing up. For example, 'La Lavada' (The Washing) is a very big deal in the town where my parents grew up. 'La Lavada' is to  wash the clothes that is used dress the 'San Pedro' statue that is located in the church, as well as other cloths from the church. The whole town participates in this tradition. It consist of two days; June 1st and June 2nd, and occurs every year. The 1st day consists of washing the clothes in the river that runs through the town. After they wash it they hang it up to dry over night, and spend the rest of the day eating traditional food and dancing with others. The 2nd day consist of ironing the clothes, then waking through the town with the ironed clothes to end up back at the church to deliver the clothes. This is one of the many traditions that the town holds. 

(You can watch this video if you would like to see what it's like: YouTube)

I would often watch the Facebook lives with my parents, where people from the town would broadcast it. We would often see family members participating. But I would sometimes feel a since of longing. Even though I would celebrate other traditions that I could here at home, it wasn't the same.  I felt like I was getting distant from my and my family's traditions. My mom makes a lot of traditional food at home, but often tells me how much better it taste back at home.  It does make me a bit sad that I can't be more in touch my family's traditions, but I still learn what I can from the parents, such as learing how to make traditional food. In the future, I wish to travel the my parents' hometown and experiences all the traditions for myself.

Well that's all for this blog, I hope you enjoyed it. What traditions does your family have? Feel free to let me know your thoughts. Until next time! <3