1. How do the types of choices that Edelman describes overlap with the forms of adaptation described in the reading's Culture Concepts boxes?
Ethic group- Edelman describes on his trip to Poland of a chance encounter with a young man who until his father’s death never knew that he was of Jewish descent. According to Edelman this young man was not alone in his yearning to discover his identity. To have Jewish roots was “in” among Polish liberals in a country where almost no Jews remain. Edelman also found that in his hometown of Altoona, Pennsylvania, the Jewish population is substantially reduced. Friends and acquaintances with whom he had grown up with have married non-Jews and have given up their culture and religion. Jews without Judaism; Jews without culture; Jews without history; Jews at best vaguely aware of their culture, two voyages both pointing to a common image of Judaism and Jewish culture. Two path’s one leading to anti-Semitism without Jews, passing as non-Jews and disappearing and the other leads to Jewish renewal and renaissance, to community and continuity.
Assimilation and Integration as forms of Adaptation- Edelman found that in Poland much of the wall graffiti is violently anti-Jewish, blaming communism and all of Poland’s ills on phantom Jews, on the ghosts of the murdered. “I heard a klezmer band playing hauntingly beautiful melodies, yet the klezmer band had no Jewish members.” “Jewish culture, burned alive in Auschwitz and Treblinka.” Edelman notes: “massive rate of assimilation, is the basis for the fear that within the next 25 years Jewish culture will disappear from America Assimilation has always been a significant part of Jewish life in America, from the first recorded Jewish settlement in 1654 until today. Each wave of immigrants, and the successive generations of their children, has had to choose between passing as non-Jews or publicly embracing and maintaining their Jewish roots as Jewish Americans.2 The need for survival gave way to intermarriage and the fear of being discriminated against has led to the declining Jewish culture.
Separation, Segregation, Seclusion, and Marginalization as Forms of Adaptation - During the Holocaust it was a death sentence to be known as a “Jew”. The Jewish hid their culture, buried it deep within their selves, thus separating and secluding them from their culture. For fear of segregation and seclusion the Jewish population intermarried giving up their beliefs and culture to a new way of life giving way to marginalization.
2. Edelman describes the personal choices of several families with one parent who is Jewish and another who is from a different religious background. Using those examples, do you believe it is possible within one family to create traditions that honor different ethnicities and religions?
I think that it would be hard to honor different ethnicities and religions due merely to the fact that in some demographic areas if may be hard to find places of worship, food, and groups of the same ethnicity. Can it be done? Yes I do believe that a family can create traditions that honor both ethnicities and religions. Giving your children the best and worst of both worlds will give them a better understanding of the different cultures. You cannot just give the best of both , for a child to make an educated choice you must also give the worst of each culture, thus balancing out the scale.
3. In addition to Jews, identify other groups that can be described as an ethnic group. How do these groups differ from cultural groups?
Native Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, these ethnic groups were held together by converging on one area where they were surrounded by people of their own race and beliefs. These groups differ from say the Asian Culture which features different kinds of cultural heritage of many nationalities, societies and ethnic groups in the region.
4. Based on your readings and your own experiences identify one or more cultures that have chosen to follow each of the following five responses to living among other cultures: assimilation, integration, segregation, seclusion, and marginalization.
Native Americans come to mind, not that they were given a choice in the matter, either you assimilated, integrated , segregated, secluded and ultimately in the end marginalized.
The cultural assimilation of Native Americans was an assimilation effort by the United States to transform Native American culture to European–American culture between the years of 1790–1920.
With increased waves of immigration from Europe, there was growing public support for education to encourage a standard set of cultural values and practices to be held in common by the majority of citizens. Education was viewed as the primary method in the acculturation process for minorities.
The Dawes Act of 1887, which allotted tribal lands in severalty to individuals, was seen as a way to create individual homesteads for Native Americans. Land allotments were made in exchange for Native Americans' becoming US citizens and giving up some forms of tribal self-government and institutions.
Robert Remini, a historian, wrote that "once the Indians adopted the practice of private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans."[7] The United States appointed agents, like Benjamin Hawkins, to live among the Native Americans and to teach them how to live like whites.
[Native Americans], without doubt, like the subjects of any other foreign Government, be naturalized by the authority of Congress, and become citizens of a State, and of the United States; and if an individual should leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode among the white population, he would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people. | ” | —Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, 1857, What was Taney thinking? American Indian Citizenship in the era of Dred Scott, Frederick e. Hoxie, April 2007 |
While the concerted effort to assimilate Native Americans into American culture was abandoned officially, integration of Native American tribes and individuals continues to the present day. Often Native Americans are perceived as having been assimilated. However, some Native Americans feel a particular sense of being from another society or do not belong in a primarily "white" European majority society, despite efforts to socially integrate them.
