Explore Your Cultural Identity with FamilySearch Country Pages • FamilySearch (2024)

FAQs

How is my family history a part of my cultural identity? ›

Defining Your Heritage

Heritage is a person's unique, inherited sense of family identity: the values, traditions, culture, and artifacts handed down by previous generations. We absorb a sense of our heritage throughout our lives as we observe and experience the things that make our family unique.

Examples of cultural identities include identifying as a particular ethnic background, religion, or nationality. For example, stating that you are British Asian is a cultural identity.

Cultural identities are influenced by several different factors such as ones religion, ancestry, skin color, language, class, education, profession, skill, family and political attitudes. These factors contribute to the development of one's identity.

Your cultural background is the cultural/ethnic group(s) to which you feel you belong or identify. This background may be the same as your parents, grandparents, or your heritage, or it may be the country you were born in or have spent a great amount of time in, or feel more closely tied to.

The family context shapes how family members perceive their social environments and communicate within and outside the family. Additionally, the family plays a crucial role in the development of cultural identity, as it teaches principles, values, and norms to its members.

Establish Our Core Identity

Family stories directly impact how we see ourselves because they give us an idea of where we come from and how we fit into our family. Think of each family story as a single thread in a tapestry woven with beautiful, complex patterns, colors, and designs.

Race, gender, sexuality, and ability are cultural identities that affect our communication and our relationships.

What Is Cultural Identity? Put simply, your cultural identity is the feeling that you belong to a group of people like you. This is often because of shared qualities like birthplace, traditions, practices, and beliefs. Art, music, and food also shape your cultural identity.

Eight major social identities, often referred to as “the big eight,” are commonly used to describe how a person categorizes themselves and others — ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status.

Family culture is the combination of your family's habits, traditions, purpose, values, beliefs, and choices. It is often impacted by experiences, personalities, and external influences.

How do you describe your identity as a cultural being? ›

Your cultural identity is a critical piece of your personal identity (and worldview) that develops as you absorb, interpret, and adopt (or reject) the beliefs, values, behaviors, and norms of the communities in your life. Our cultural identity can evolve, as culture is ever-evolving and dynamic.

Culture goes beyond our language, food, holidays, and attire. It includes our values, beliefs, and behavior. To truly understand each other, we should first examine and reflect on our own culture. In doing so, we can then begin to understand and appreciate the similarities and differences of other cultures.

Answer and Explanation: History influences culture through the concepts of tradition and heritage. It is part of the human condition to want to know where one originates and what practices that bound them were most important to their society.

Culture influences identity by shaping traditions, social structures, and rituals, which in turn contribute to the formation of individual and collective identities. Culture influences identity by shaping what people believe and claim to know, as well as influencing the accessibility of that knowledge.

Where we come from, for many of us, is a vital part of who we are. Whether we identify strongly with a neighborhood or a nationality, or with a particular cultural, ethnic, religious, or vocational group, our family may be an important way for us to define ourselves.

A family's cultures are complex and influenced by many factors: family traditions, countries of origin, geographic regions, ethnic identities, cultural groups, community norms, sexual orientations, gender identities, educational and other experiences, personal choices, and home languages.