A Cultural Encounter with Texas

On March 13^th, a woman from Texas visited us (Culture and Target language course’ students) at the Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Costa Rica. Her name is Jonna Beck. From her visit, I learned a lot about Texas and even about the United States, Costa Rica and myself. First of all, I could recognize that people from Texas are dissimilar from those who live in the United States since Texans do not consider themselves full Americans. They are independent people and they think they are bigger and better than anyone else. Below I listed some differences and similarities that there are between Texas and the Unites States and Costa Rica as well as between Jonna and me.

Differences between Texas and the United States

- In Texas people can live together and take care of each other even if they are 18 year old or more, but in the United States they have to move from their home because of self-reliance.

- Her family is serious, but her husband family is not.

Similarities between Texas and Costa Rica

- There are strong family ties.

- Families consider their pets as family members.

- Women are not feminist.

- Families get together in special occasions such as religion traditions and other celebrations.

Jonna’s opinion about Culture

- She said that culture is what you are. For her, multicultural does not exist because each person has his/her own culture, not many. A person can go to a lot of countries and take pieces of each country’s culture, but he/she will still preserve his/her culture.

Jonna and I

- Jonna says she and her husband do not do what their parents do. Their culture is not her culture. This called my attention because she is right since each person in one way or another develops his/her own culture; that is, culture does not have to be strictly the same for people who live in the same house. In my case, I am totally different from my sister. We have completely different personalities. I even do not share many beliefs and ideas with my parents. I am not doing what they do. I am not like them. However, most people use to generalize each person’s personality based on family patterns or place of living. To illustrate, some days ago, I was stereotyped by a taxi driver in Heredia. He told me I could not be from Guanacaste because I am too white. According to him, people from Guanacaste have brunette skin. Therefore, he generalizes that every single person from Guanacaste is brunette and it is not true at all. In Guanacaste, there are lots of white and blue-eyed people, too. This example is based on physical aspects, but the same happens with ways of being. Each person has a unique personality and that means that each person has a unique culture as Jonna said.