My Cultural Identity By: Jamie M. Floeter

Makes us who we are

Where I grew up I grew up in the small town of Markesan WI. The population today may be at 1300 or less. I feel that this is a town that never really changes.

The Changes of this small town A picture of my home town in the 1940’s. Many and most of these buildings are still standing today.

Markesan Today This photo was taken during Markesan's traditional June Dairy Days. This town was built up due to the railways and all the local dairy farms. Today there is not as many dairy farms and I feel that the town continues to survive because of one very successful company.

Del Monte canning Factor Because of this company I can say that Markesan is not an all white community and has never been to me. I remember as a child looking forward to summer because friends of mine would be returning from Mexico with their families to work for this company.

Amish Another culture and religion I grew up around was the Amish. I would always love going to their furniture stores and I still make the trip to go to one of the best bakeries ever.

Education Markesan Elementary, Middle, and High School. When it came to the school year I can say this town was a white community. I may remember one or two boys in the school that where of color, but as a child, I never gave that a second thought.

My Social Group Many of my friends were from out of town and I only saw most of them during the summer. In school I floated from one group to the next, for the most part I was a bit of a loner.

Religion St. Johns Lutheran Church This is where I attended catechism, church, and Sunday school for many years. Also where I was baptized, and hope to be married.

Traditional Holidays in my Culture I have always celebrated the traditional Christian Holidays. When I came to Halloween, or any other unchristian related holidays my school teachers always gave us the neatest lessons plans so we would know and understand where these Holidays originated from.

Family Values My Family life started out to be much like the Cleaver Family. As a child education was #1. Listen to your parents, be home on time, don’t talk back, fight nice with you siblings. Dinner time is family time. A very good structure to rear a child.

Family Values take a bad turn………. At the age 11 my parents separated and my mother remarried shortly after. My step-father being a racist person brought bias opinions and stereotypes into the household and that’s when I started seeing differently

Then and Now Through my late childhood and adolescent years I did not embrace cultural differences and laughed and giggled at jokes and stereotypes. Into my early adulthood I start to see things very differently, I feel I was brought up in a town that I would like to call culturally blind. Now I am being educated on different cultures and I am seeing things very differently for the first time. Also I am still learning what it means to be white.

Diversity in Counseling Digital Presentation: LP1 My Cultural Identity BY: Jamie M. Floeter