. What are the places and icons of your generation and culture?
High School in 1958. These are examples of the highlights of my socialization—the places and icons representative of my cultural heritage and history. What are the places and icons of your generation and culture? If you had to choose 4 images to blend together as cornerstones of your cultural heritage, what would you choose?
Who are you? What is your cultural, ethnic, and religious heritage? How and where were you socialized to the roles and rules of your family, commu- nity, and occupation? Who is the person next to you? What is this person’s cul- tural, ethnic, and religious heritage? How and where was this person socialized to the roles and rules of his or her family, community, and occupation? Are you this person’s health care provider, instructor, colleague, or supervisor? The foundation for cultural competency rests in the knowledge and understanding of heritage, not only of yours but also of others with whom you are interacting.
This second chapter presents an overview of the salient content and com- plex theoretical content related to one’s heritage and its impact on health beliefs and practices. Two sets of theories are presented, the first of which analyzes the degree to which people have maintained their traditional heritage; the second, and opposite, set of theories relates to socialization and acculturation and the quasi creation of a melting pot or some other common threads that are part of an American whole. It then becomes possible to analyze health beliefs by deter- mining a person’s ties to his or her traditional heritage, rather than to signs of acculturation. The assumption is that there is a relationship between people with strong identities—either with their heritage or the level at which they are accul- turated into the American culture—and their health beliefs and practices. Hand in hand with the concept of ethnocultural heritage is that of a person’s ethnocul- tural history; the journey a person has experienced predicated on the historical sociocultural events that have touched his or her life directly or indirectly.