Cultural Autobiography: Cultural Processes, Influences, and Events

This is the instruction:
From an anthropological perspective, we are products of cultural influences that have shaped our lives. These influences may include race and class, kinship, gender and sexuality, power relations, school, globalization, individualism, capitalism and consumerism, politics and the state, violence, faith, our peers, television, and social media, school and work, the symbols that express what we find most meaningful (e.g., the cross, blue lions, red M’s, the golden arches and Bengal tigers), etc. As I think about my own life, kinship (my mom and grandparents, now long passed, my marriage, my long-distance relationship with my dad), growing up middle-class but without much cash, high school and small college football, way too much TV as a kid, childhood in Detroit and adolescence in small-town Michigan, being white and male, travel, a number of years spent in Gabon and Cameroon, and the teaching life come to mind. In our readings, we’ll encounter additional cultural influences: transnational communities, community-making through difference, zones of abandonment, hierarchy and inequality, property and people, forgetting and shared identity, poverty, youth culture, etc. Over the next few weeks, I’d like you to compose a 8-page (2000-2200 word) cultural autobiography (typed-double spaced, 12-pt font, one-inch margins, organized in part around what you perceive as a handful of key influences).
From Eric Maisel, Ph.D. The Creativity Book. (Tarcher/Putnam. 2000, pp. 9-10):
I’d like you to write a c.10-page autobiography. Your first thoughts are probably “That’s too hard” and “Why bother?” I’ve taught hundreds of adult re-entry college students; each wrote an autobiography and all were transformed in the process. Writing a 2500 to 3000-word autobiography is its own kind of creative act and looking back on one’s life is a revelatory experience. It can be hard work, intellectually taxing and emotionally draining, but its invaluable work and exactly the right kind of work to inaugurate our religion.
You might be wondering what exactly you’re supposed to write about. Just write your truth. Write about your family’s secrets and rules, what if felt like to have a stepfather appear, what messages you got about your worth and potential, what made you feel happy and what made you feel sad. Write chronologically or however you like.
[I’d to modify Maisel’s instructions slightly, in part because it’s a challenge to think of ourselves as “cultured beings.” As you write, try to be mindful of specific cultural influences or events that have shaped you, or that you’ve embraced: school, TV and entertainment, faith, family, summer vacations, friends, relationships, work, sports, events, travel, trauma and trouble, conflicts, soil media, particular individuals, race, class, gender, sexuality, mental health, COVID-19, etc. I encourage you to write your [culturally informed] truth, not to shy away from cultural contradictions we live.]
This is a cultural autobiography. Please consider what this might mean. Think about your own story anthropologically. What are a few of the cultural processes, influences, and events that have substantially shaped your life to date?
Analysis: Either within or at the end of your account, please reflect on how the novels we have read (Potok, Sanchez, Danticat) provide specific insights or perspectives that relate to (or significantly depart from) your own cultural experiences growing up and coming of age. Here, I want you to be able to cite specific themes that resonated for you and then to compare or contrast these with your own experience. Your analysis should be specifically linked to themes you discuss. You may also cite other course materials (films, etc.), but I’ll look for insights from the novels, especially Sanchez and Danticat. At the very least, you can write about how Julia and Sophie navigated their lives is less-than-ideal living circumstances. They also had important relationships with their parents, family members, and partners.
At the end of your narrative, add a brief anthropological reflection, perhaps considering why you chose the particular events/descriptions/stories you did and how are embedded in larger cultural processes.
Out of respect for your privacy, I will not share your individual stories in ways that would identify you. One purpose of this assignment is to enable you to consider specific cultural practices, processes, and influences that have shaped you and your agency-that is, (your capacity to act).
This assignment is hard to grade (I have no intention of grading your life.) But I’ll be looking for thoughtful, honest, well-constructed, well-written reflexive narratives that nonetheless point to key cultural influences that you’ve encountered along your path. A key component will be how you demonstrate the ability to make connections with course themes and readings. But above all, try to make this exercise useful for yourself.
No title page. Include your name, the section number and name, the date, and my name in the top left-hand corner. Please add a fitting title for your autobiographical narrative. Double-spaced. Insert page numbers. Upload to canvas as a word document (docx).
I think it just let me write the story based on my cultural background and consist the story. (Relate the cultural). My cultural background is the Asian male and you can literally write anythings in my cultural in here.