Code of Ethics Comparison

Cultural Family Background

Elizebeth McDaniel

COUN 504

Dr. Alice Wilson

December 11, 2011

Abstract

This paper is a paper describing cultural background of my parents. My paper expresses how my cultural background has influenced my life. This paper compares and contrasts the patterns found in the cultures of my family origin compared to my own family.

I have also created a Genogram which focuses on the cultural aspects of my family's experiences. My Genogram has seven generation outlined and I have hopes that this will help future generation who have questions about their roots.

Cultural Family Background

The only living previous Generation member is my mother, Lorene Burton Routin. All of my seventeen Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents are deceased. My mother was the living person with first hand knowledge of past family history. My mother is eighty-six years old but is of sound mind and she was able to answer many questions when interviewed. My great-grandmother died from complications from the birth of my maternal grandmother and she was raised with other family members. My mother never met her grandparents.

My mother's mother came from the Chickasaw Indian Tribe. As far as we know she was named Lilly Alice Bagby, born January 5, 1889. She married my Scottish grandfather, James Henry Burton born May 20, 1874 in 1901 when she was twelve years old and he was twenty seven years old. They lived together for sixty years and had ten children. My grandfather died when I was 4 years old and my grandmother died when I was thirteen. My grandmother attended the Church of Christ and was a born again Christian.

Many Irish people had been sold into slavery in this country and were sold at a cheaper price then black slaves. There was an Irish rebellion in 1798 and there are records that state that thousands of Irish slaves' were sold to American. (Jordan, D 2008)

Famine began in Ireland over Potato rot in the 1840s. Many families perished from starvation and many more came to America to begin new lives. Close to 3.5 million Irishmen came to America between 1820 and 1880. (Wilson, 1998) The life in America was far from an easy life. With no money and little possessions to bargain with these Irish men, women and children worked by the sweat of the brow just to eat. Many of the Irish people had been peasant farmers and they were use to hard work. They sweated and they worked to help make America what it is today. Some of these people were my ancestors.

Another important part of my heritage is that of the American Indians. My maternal grandmother who we know little about because her mother died when she was born was a full blooded Indian. My paternal great-grandmother was also a hot blooded full blooded Indian. What I see about my Indian culture is that of a culture that has faced racism, violence, ridicule and injustice. They were stripped of their home places and the rights to be free. Their land was taken many now life in the bondages of our Government system.

Choices that were made for them have left them in Reservations which is like punishment for a crime that they did not commit. They are segregated from our modern American culture. They are given money to live and housing to live in. This is not the true American way. These relatives of mine are given money from Casinos that they did not earn. They were once proud a proud people who hunted for their food and lived in harsh conditions in huts that they made. They have not learned how to come form under these bondages. (Working with American Indian families)

I am proud of the Indian people who worked hard to keep their families together. I am proud of the Native American blood that runs though my veins. Not the Indian people of today who have become so much apart of the American culture that they have treated their lives for alcohol and drugs. I am proud of the heritage of my ancestors who first tried to help the white man learn to live off of the land as they had. I am proud that my grandmothers came out of the bondages that were to come for their people. I am proud that they became free even if it took marrying white men to earn this freedom. I am proud as I look at the faces of my children that have learned that they shall have no other Gods before our great and mighty God who formed the Heavens and the earth. I am proud that my children also understand in labor there is profit, but just talk leads to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23)

The Indian people of my heritage are the people who spent their time outside out the huts that they made. The people that I relate to are the people who hunted for their food and ate what they killed and use the hide for their coverings. My ancestors worked hard buildings canoes, tilling the ground and working together to survive harsh winters. They took care of their land and their land took care of them. The life of the American Indian was hard but simple. During the thousands of years preceding European contact, the Native American people developed inventive and creative cultures. They cultivated plants for food, dyes, medicines, and textiles; domesticated animals; established extensive patterns of trade; built cities; produced monumental architecture; developed intricate systems of religious beliefs; and constructed a wide variety of systems of social and political organization ranging from kin-based bands and tribes to city-states and confederations. (Native American Voices) These are the people of my blood. Yes they did fight over their land and their way of life but they were pushed in a corner just as they are now.

One of my paternal cousins lives in the same county in which my family members descended and she has done massive research on our family history and she shared with me all of the documented details that she has obtained taking the family roots back six generations on my father's side of the family. My grandfathers chose to marry outside of their race. Was this because of necessity or love only they could answer this question. I believe that the answer is a little of both.

My father's mother was Irish on her father's side and came from the Cherokee Indian Tribe from her mother's side. We did not know about the Indian heritage of my paternal grandmother until we researched our family roots. My grandfather was a Catholic Scottish/Irishman and was twenty years older then my grandmother. They met and married