American values

This week in sociology, we learned about the top 13 American values. We read an article called, "The Values Americans Live By," and it explained how Americans didn't have a set list of basic values that  would apply to every American since Americans believed everyone to be unique. Although, as Americans, we believe our norms and values to be natural, other cultures would think that general American values were strange and undesirable. Ideal culture is when Americans make values they like to think they live by, and real culture is when Americans have values they actually live by. For example, on Thanksgiving, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving by feasting with their families and being grateful for what they have. When Americans think about thanksgiving, they see themselves as fortunate and grateful; however, at midnight, thousands of Americans are found fighting over the "best deals" at shopping centers. After spending a day of being grateful for what they already had, they went out to buy more of what they didn't need. Although Americans like to think they are grateful for what they have, in reality, they are only thinking about what they can get next.

God Grew Tired of Us

This week, in Sociology, we watched the documentary, "God Grew Tired of Us." This film was about the Lost Boys who had to leave Sudan because of the civil war that took place. They had to walk around 1000 miles to Kenya, which took them around five years. Since they were basically on their own, they lost touch with their families, and they found place at a camp. However, a few of the men were chosen to be refugees and live in America.

When the Lost Boys had first arrived in America, they had culture shock. Since everything about their daily life was so different from American culture, they felt lonely, and they didn't even know how to turn on the light switch! When they first arrived to the hotel, they were amazed by the bathrooms because they had grown up bathing in the nearby river.

This documentary helped me to become sociologically mindful of the different cultures around us. At first, I didn't understand why it would be so strange to bathe in a bathtub or even turn on a light switch. I didn't understand why the lost boys would say that American culture would make someone feel lonely. However, as they started to explain how Americans all did everything separately and how they weren't friendly to strangers, I started to understand. American culture is very lonely, but we don't notice it because it's been our whole lifestyle. We've done everything separately, and our society has taught us that it was strange if someone we didn't know were to enter our house.