Cultural Mosaic

A mosaic is often times seen as a beautiful work of art that takes many smaller parts or pictures and arranges them in such a way as to show an even larger picture. This is very true of a person's cultural mosaic, because in the end everyone is their own work of art that works together to define and show the world who they are. Chao and Moon really came up with the perfect way to help create a definition of an individual's culture, because it allows a person to have multiple cultural identities that can mesh or clash with each other, but never disturb the integrity of who they are. This helps me to identify myself as: Generation Y, Female, American, Catholic, Detroiter, Student, Library Professional, Daughter, Sister, and Cousin.

The most influential aspects of my mosaic are my associative mosaic tiles with my place as a daughter and sister, because my family means everything to me. My parents have supported my four siblings and myself with everything that we have done, which helped to see all of my family members go through college. My parents showed us the value of having a college education and everything that we could achieve with it by both having a college education themselves and from watching my mother go through her master's courses when we were younger. This constant belief in my own innate abilities and the support of all of the family members enabled me to never see any of actions as failings. My place as a Student and Library Professional go hand in hand lately, because I'm working toward my Master's in Library Science. They impact my life by allowing me to gain more confidence in myself as a librarian and to allow me to continue to learn more about a profession that is constantly advancing and changing.

The geographic tiles of my mosaic are mainly as a Detroiter. Growing up in Detroit helped me to see people as people and that skin color, ethnicity, religion, and personal background were not weaknesses, but rather steel cores of strength that one can easily admire. Having lived most of my life growing up in Detroit, next to Harper Woods, I can identify with the nicer side of Detroit while also understanding the pitfalls and traps that many young people can stumble into in the Detroit area.

The demographics that I identify strongest with are that I am American, Catholic, Female, and Generation Y. I feel my American ethnicity has given me a very ingrained sense of being able to do anything that I want to as long as I put my mind to it. My Catholic faith has been an intricate part of my upbringing with Catholic elementary school and high school. I feel that this influences how I treat other people in that I love helping people in any way I can. My being a women of Generation Y I feel has empowered me with the abilities to adapt to any situation (especially computer situations where in the middle of a paper your computer decides it's just not going to work anymore!) and the knowledge that more and more opportunities are opening to me a a women with less of the glass ceiling feeling.