I’ve never really thought too much about my cultural identity.  I think that each successive generation of a family that lives in America loses a little bit of touch with their cultural identity.  Growing up, I saw that my friends would become connected with their culture when they visited their grandparents, as they were more likely to be knowledgeable about their culture.  However, my grandparents on both sides of my family had died before I was born.  My mom was raised Jewish, but my only connection to that is when she makes brisket during Hanukkah.  We celebrate Christmas too, but that’s just for fun.  My father grew up in a relatively Italian household, but it couldn’t have been that Italian, because he never learned to cook at all.  I’ve grown up just considering myself American.  I like to eat burgers, fries, grilled cheese, and apple pie.  Maybe I haven’t felt strongly about my culture because I’ve always been in America.  Maybe preservation of culture becomes really important to someone when they leave the place in which they are surrounded by their culture.  I’m not too sure how it works because I’ve never experienced too much that belonged to me, which makes this assignment pretty difficult for me.

I guess if I had to pick something that was important to my identity, I would choose music.  While it isn’t a specific object, it is something that is always prevalent in my life.  I guess that music may not be the greatest choice for an identity piece, due to the fact that it spans a huge amount of genres and almost all cultures, but it’s what I picked.  Like most people, music has always surrounded me as I grew up.  My dad played guitar, and signed me up for guitar lessons when I was five.  I played guitar for a while, but stopped taking lessons and playing often by the time I entered high school.  I also played the cello starting in fifth grade, but I eventually quit orchestra before my junior year of high school.  While I stopped playing instruments, I was always listening to music.  My older brother listened to a lot of interesting music, and was always showing me new bands and artists.  This deepened our bond, as well as kept my interest in music alive.  Over the summer, I went to the Governors Ball with a few friends and got to see some of my favorite artists.  I would say that music is like culture in that many people enjoy it and it has a way of bringing people together.  In summary, music is cool and I listen to a lot of it.