1. This is a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. As a Mormon, this building is culturally iconic; numerous ancestors were married there, including my grandparents.
2. This is a typical LDS church building. It is small, reflecting Mormon desires to have small wards and congregations so that everyone can feel needed and cared for.
3. As an American Mormon, I feel like this is my culture; a large majority of American Mormon kids are forced to learn to play piano, and in church, pianists are needed every Sunday.
4. As silly as it seems, I believe that this oil vial is a part of my culture. No other culture, as far as I know, has its members carry around a few teaspoons of oil. This represents the Priesthood, the power of God.
5. I included this as a representation of some ideas in American Mormon culture. She is modestly and attractively dressed, and she seem happy. These are expectations/stereotypes for girls in my culture. But on the flipside, it can also show the preference for blond, white girls and the tendency towards perfectionism. When I look at college campuses that my nonmember friends go to, people look very different; often they are less modest, but they also put less effort into looking perfect.
6. Boy scouts is definitely a part of American LDS culture; almost all boys at least start boy scouts, though not all get their eagle scout award. It actually is concerning to people who are actually hard core about boy scouts; the worry that the ill-trained and ill-prepared LDS troupes bring down the overall image of Boy Scouts of America.
7. This is a picture of the Stay family, an LDS family that was murdered in Texas last year. I choose this picture because when I saw it last year, I automatically thought that the family was Mormon, even though the news article had mentioned nothing about it and they were residents of Texas. The traditional family unit, lots of kids, matching clothes, smiling faces, and physical closeness in an outdoor setting is reflective of how we view families. We want our families to have a mom and dad, lots of kids, and a sense of perfect unity, as reflected in the smiling faces, matching clothes, and physical closeness. But notice that the mom and dad are not overly close to each other; we have misgivings about parents showing too much affection to each other while other people are around.
8. Mormon missionaries! There is an expectation in my culture that all able young men go on a two years mission, and there is a rising cultural expectation that young women go on a 1 1/2 year mission.
9. You can't ignore the food! LDS culture has a thing for jello, and not just jello, but putting all sorts of weird things in it like green beans. My sister, a highly intelligent mechanial engineering student, was asked in a class if strawberry jello was a heterogeneous or homogeneous; she got it wrong because she thought that strawberry jello had strawberries in it. After all, we always put things in our jello.
10. I also have a Texas culture. I included this picture because not only does it highlight how important meat is in my culture--you have no idea--but it also highlights the cockiness that typifies Texans. I don't necessarily fit the cocky stereotype, but it is a part of my culture.
11. Patriotism is a huge thing in Texas, and in some ways, we have more patriotism for Texas than the United States. We fly our state flag just as high as the U.S. flag. Texas contribute more members to the military than any other state with about 13% of the military hailing from Texas.
12. Football is HUGE in Texas. The football team at my high school sucked, and it still got more funding than everyone else combined
13. Southern Hospitality is a thing. We're a lot more likely to start fights, but people open doors and help you carry things and generally react to the needs that they see around them.
14. In Texas, Republican affiliation is pretty much a given. I remember how scandalized everyone was to find out at that the economics teacher at my high school was a democrat. If you were a democrat, people were a little suspicious of you.
15. "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." There is this idea where I'm from that if you're having difficulty, you're not working hard enough. We tout self-reliance highly.
16. Country music; we all listen to it in Texan culture. Notice the bald eagle, implying the correlation between country music and patriotism.
17. Referring back to the willingness to fight, Texas don't like it when you try to control them. We tend to react aggressively.
18. But I also have my general American culture; the American Dream is huge idea in this culture. It basically strives for everyone to attain middle class status, having a house and a car and a stable family and financial situation.
19. American Savior complex; we feel the need to interfere with other nations so that we can save the world.
20. One more Mormon cultural aspect; there is this expectation that everyone get married really young. If you're mostly through college and not married, it's concerning. If you're graduating without marriage, heaven help you, you're in trouble. You know that it's a lot harder to find good ones once you graduate.
It was really interesting thinking about my own culture. It's actually pretty difficult to define something so intrinsically a part of you. I found it interesting that my Mormon culture was easiest to define, then my Texas culture, and least easily, my American culture. My understanding of my culture comes from seeing other cultures; since the majority of my life, I lived in a community where Mormons were a minority, I can most easily see the differences that define me as a part of Mormon Culture. Since coming to BYU, I have been around mostly non-Texans, helping me see my Texas culture. And though I do associate with some non-Americans, I have less experience with other countries, so it is difficult for me to see the difference between Americans and other cultures.
In a lot ways, my cultures are unforgiving, which is a hinderance for being a teacher. Mormon culture is perfectionist, and we have difficulty living around practices that aren't similar to our standards. Texas culture tends to be black and white; either you're with us or against us, either you agree with me or you don't. And in a way, American and Texan aggressiveness is also a little unforgiving; we wouldn't be so willing to fight other people if we saw their perspectives and worth more.
On the flip side, there is a predisposition towards kindness and helping others in my cultures. In Mormon cultures, being nice and happy is extremely important. In Texas culture, hospitality is important; if someone needs help, gosh darn it, you'd better help them. The Savior complex in American culture, while being overall unhelpful sometimes, does imbue me with a sense of responsibility and care for other people. As a teacher, it's really important to care about my students.
Works Cited
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