It is easier for one to be on the spotlight as most people wants to know the ways of living outside
of the United States. Most people are eager to know about different cultures and heritages.
Therefore, as an immigrant, audience are mainly adults who have great interest in learning about
the African culture and perception of life. There are challenges one faces when trying to explain
the culture differences in African as most people have a stereotype mind of Africa as a poor state
and as well a country and not a continent. b
Besides having challenges in explaining the different cultures in African as a whole, I had a bit of a
schooling with some friends of mine about the purpose and reasons for a female to have waist
beads on. It was challenging for me because they already have the idea that the waist beads are
such of a fashion and are supposed to be worn above the clothing, they have on rather than
it/them been hidden underneath the clothing. But with the help of their curiosity, I was able to
have their attention and explained to them that the waist beads in my culture are meant for
seduction, they are worn underneath the females clothing and can only been seen by their
spouses as a sign of seducing their partner. The beautiful colours of the beads laying around the
female waist most likely brighten the sculpture of the female body/figure that attracts the eyes of
the owner/spouse.
At the end of my explanation, I was able to give much better understanding to my
friends/audience and since then, their waist beads were never worn for fashion as they were
never seen outside of their clothing, but rather as I have taught them according to my culture and
traditions.
The most challenging part of communicating my analysis of a work of art, literature, or music, is
finding the words to emphasize what it means to me, while explaining the parts I know will
interest my audience. For example, I tried to explain to a friend how Instructions Not Included
impacted me and the hardest part of explaining it, was trying to find the right words to describe
the absolute beauty in the film that caused me to become emotional watching it. Since my friend
is my age, but has no kids, I had to find another way to make it appealing. For men and a younger
audience, I would explain the comedy in the film rather than the emotion behind it.
I think I have a difficult time explaining thing to adults and I find it easier to explain things to
children. The challenges I am facing with communicating my analysis is putting my thoughts into
words. It is hard for me to find what is most important to say. Just recently I had to explain a bible
verse to a group of people all age ranges, I felt that that was easy for me because I could relate to
the verse. I think this went well because the verse resonated from my heart so I think the people
could feel what I was saying. I think the challenge I faced was since there was all different age
ranges was to make it where everyone was interested, I did not want to be too simplistic or use a
language to challenging.
A time where I had to explain the impact of a song would be trying to explain the meaning behind
It would be “Through da storm” by Polo G to my mom. She is always wondering what types of
music and shows I have been interested and why, so when I try to explain the music of rap music
to a person from a time where rap was not very respected can be difficult. Rap gets a rep that it is
mainly about crime or hate, when a lot of rappers use music to escape or write down emotion
which is what helped her understand. The challenges that erode were obviously her being
religious and not wanting to hear rap, her being from a time where it was not respected, and her
getting passed all the cussing to listen to the actual message. I think that my explanation changed
once I realized my audience was older than me and a bit more proper, I had to use less slang and
more respectful for her to understand.
