Cynthia wrote that

"People are reluctant to accept the power of culture because it is
usually
an *adaptive* strategy to be unaware of its impact. All the culturally
based attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that we engage in--without little
or no reflection on their origin--tend to keep us confident and
effective in our particular society. There just isn't enough time in the
day for the
ordinary human being to consciously think about *every single one* of
the
details of the "correct" way to greet other people, wear clothes,
converse, correspond, fill out a form, bathe, cook, eat, play, work,
engage in friendships and family relationships, rear our children, etc.
It would be exhaustingly impossible to live life with complete
consciousness and intent. Culture makes it possible to function."

But you do it when you are an immigrant and need to fit in.

My parents came from postwar eastern Europe found a great need in 1949
to fit it.  They were observant to do things the way everyone else did
in order not to be called a "greenhorn" and be ostracized for things
besides their obvious heavy accent in speaking English, in addition to
their
religious ethnicity.

At age two I was unaware of how much of a toll it took on them.  But in
1958 when my other Holocaust surviving relatives finally arrived from a
displaced persons camp after fleeing Hungary's 1956 revolution (where
they could not go home again), I saw my parents teach them what they had
to do to fit in.   Secondhand, it was a slight bit easier for my aunt,
uncles and cousins as they had someone who spoke their mother tongue to
bounce their concerns and confusion off of.

Judy Ritchie

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