Community does not cease to exist in the absence of geographical proximity. People all over the world, no matter the distance, relate and connect to one another through shared values and characteristics embodied in a common ethnicity. Within an ethnicity, shared language works to develop communities, and, especially when in the minority, gives its members an emotional strength that powers them in times of alienation. Cultural values that come with ethnic backgrounds, such as traditions and moral doctrine, facilitate the fabrication of strong morals. Even the racial identity of members of specific ethnicities have much to gain from the community in which their race identifies with. These communities have a natural tendency to facilitate the …show more content…
Presented with a radically new culture and foreign language, Latin-Americans, whom are Spanish speaking, in the United States are bound to feel alienated by their American counterparts. In “Aria,” Richard Rodriguez explains that “the confidence of ‘belonging’ in public was withheld from” both his Spanish speaking parents (Rodriguez 304). However, Rodriguez notes that at times he would hear strangers speaking Spanish on “the radio and in the Mexican Catholic church, and that “[he] sensed―through [their] language―the experience of feeling apart from los gringos” (Rodriguez 306). Despite not being directly in contact with these other Spanish speaking people, Rodriguez, as a member of the Spanish speaking community defined by Latin-American ethnicity, found that there exists others just like him: he is not alone. This shared ethnicity, and therefore, language, reassured and comforted Rodriguez, as he felt as if it were “the language of joyful return,” something evidently invaluable to him (Rodriguez 306). While the ethnic community can be established through a lingual connection, ethnic communities are often times bound by people who share the same cultural …show more content…
By being raised to value traditions and adhere to certain moral standards of their ethnicity, people unconsciously develop community; in becoming aware of this, people deepen their commitment to the values and traditions that their community embraces. Lori Arviso Alvord, the first Navajo woman surgeon, did not realize the significance of her ethnic moral doctrine until she experienced the contrasting culture of American college life; her fellow Native Americans―a community of people bound by a common culture, traditions, and values―bestowed upon her “a feeling of inclusion in something larger, of having a set place in the universe where one always belongs. It [provided her with] connectedness and a blueprint for how to live” (Alvord 322). Despite no longer being geographically connected to her tribe, Alvord recognizes and appreciates the moral and traditional values of her community that have carried over into the way she conducts herself in everyday life. In meeting with other Native Americans, Alvord finds that they too identify with the Native American community and the cultural values that come with it; they were disdainful of Dartmouth College’s culture promoting of a degrading mascot; “[l]ike the rest of the Native American community” bound by common values,