Child discussion
Our book defines a racial-ethnic group as; “people who share a common identity and whose members think of themselves as distinct from others by virtue of ancestry, culture, and sometimes physical characteristics”.
Since the immigration laws were modified in 1965, the proportion of all immigrants coming from Latin American and Asian countries has increased greatly. One in five children in the United States is now an immigrant of the child of an immigrant. Within the Hispanic and Asian ethnic groups there is great diversity in family patterns.
Discussion Instructions
Discuss three values or traditions you have absorbed from your racial-ethnic background. If you are European American, this exercise might be a little harder. Nevertheless, most people can come up with specific things ~ like your family’s holiday traditions.
For example, did you ever hear the story about the woman who always cut the ends off the holiday ham? It goes something like this.
A husband and his wife were in their kitchen. The husband was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper while his wife was preparing a ham for Christmas dinner. The husband watched the wife cut off about one inch from either end of the ham. He asked why she cut the end off, proclaiming “that’s a waste of good ham!” She said “that’s the way my mom prepared the ham.” The husband asked “why did your mom cut the ends off?” The wife didn’t know.
Later, the wife called her mom to find out why she cut the ends of the ham off. Her mom said “because that was the way my mom prepared ham.”
The wife’s grandma passed away several years earlier, but her Grandpa was still living. She called her Grandpa and asked “Grandpa, why did Grandma cut the ends off of the ham?” He was silent as he thought for a moment. Then he replied, “so the ham could fit in the baking pan.”
This is a funny family tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation without anyone really knowing why until the husband finally questioned why his wife’s family prepared their ham this way. Do you have some traditions that are unique to only your family? You may think you don’t have any but I bet you have a few. Watch this short video and then think about your own traditions, or maybe some you’d like to start in your family.
Sharing Traditions
The transmission of traditions takes many forms and this short video shows how that occurred in one family (watching this video always makes me cry). Take a look at
For those of you who are grandparents, take a minute to enjoy any of the shared traditions you see your children passing on to your grandchildren.
In my family the tooth fairy left books under the pillows when my children lost a tooth instead of money and the Easter bunny always came on evening of Good Friday so that when the children woke up on Saturday their baskets where waiting for them. That way on Easter Sunday the focus was on church and the reason for Easter. And the third tradition would be that the birthday child always got to pick what was for dinner on their birthday and ate off of a special plate. These are a few of the simple traditions that my family did when my children were growing up. We also get to open one present on Christmas Eve, we open stockings first before anything else on Christmas morning, and always have Chinese food for Christmas Eve dinner after church. Now it is your turn to share your traditions. Your traditions don’t have to be elaborate, just simple things that your family does year after year to celebrate the holidays, birthdays, or milestones in your family. What did they do when you got a good report card, lost a tooth, had one of the major milestone birthdays? Just like the short video you just watched above the tradition does not have to be anything fancy, it could just be a simple song.
Response: Expand this discussion by responding to at least one of your classmates with a question or comment about their traditions, comparing them to the traditions you celebrate in your family.
