Family Cultural Assessment

3

Doyin Cole

NURS 382

Family Interview

Explain in 1-2 paragraphs how you know this family and why you have chosen this family. Explain how this family's culture is different from your own.

Semika is African American. I know her from work where she was an LPN and I’ve kept up with her and her family. I was a CNA going for my RN and I pushed her to pursue a higher degree as well. I am African and she is African American. Our cultures share some similarities but they’re mostly different.

I chose this culture because it’s one that I’m exposed to the most and one that I’m often mistaken for. In my culture, Yoruba, which is one of the major cultures in Nigeria, education is valued very highly especially among men. These values are not shared by most African Americans. For them, the path to a better life through education has largely been blocked, so it’s not pursued as much. Also, Semika’s children’s father is not in their life. In my culture it is very important to have your husband in your home. Semika also smokes. No one in my culture smokes and alcohol is mostly avoided.

I find it interesting how homogenous are African American accents. They almost all have southern accents across most all of the country, while in my country different languages are spoken on the same street. In terms of music, Semika, like most African Americans, listens to Hip-Hop and loves to dance. In my culture we also love to dance but our popular music genre is Afrobeat and gospel, which expresses the African values, cultural beliefs, and practices than that of African American music.