“I learned about how there’s not just one way of living to be happy, and it’s a very American ideal that what we have here is awesome, and it is really great, but you can be happy without riches, without all this stuff, so I can see how other people live and it’s definitely influenced me,” he said. Youkilis also believes that when given the opportunity, other students should try and get out and experience more during the summers like he has. “Seeing other backgrounds is very valuable to your upbringing, and growing up in one place, not that I’m saying moving around is good, but growing up and not travelling to other parts of the world is definitely kind of harmful,” he said. “Even going to see Croatia but staying in touristy hotels you won’t get an actual experience, whereas for me the most valuable education I’ve had is going around and seeing the culture in other places, and it’s definitely changed me.”
Dena Dianati Sophomore Dena Dianati sees less of her culture in the way that Poreddy does, but has always been influenced by her cultural background. Dianati was born in France right after her parents emigrated from Iran. After living there until she was seven, Dianati and her family moved to Clayton. Although Dianati sees many aspects that are important in Iranian culture as being similar to aspects in American culture — such as the importance of family and hard work ethic — in many ways, they are even more heavily emphasized in Iran. “Academically we’re a lot freer [in America], like if you mess up here it’s not the end of the world, you can start again, you can try something else, while there [in Iran] you take a test after high school and that basically decides your entire future, so it’s a lot tougher, there’s a lot more pressure there, the risks are higher … There’s more of a shock of how little freedom they have, you’re more under a microscope. There’s no sense of privacy out-
side of your home,” Dianati said. Besides a freer education, Dianati realizes that she has a lot more opportunities as a young woman in America as well. “Opportunities here are a lot greater,” Dianati said. “Women don’t have many rights at all [in Iran], if they see a woman walking down the street by herself they assume automatically that something is wrong, while here no one really cares what you’re doing.” Dianati also said that her mother’s upbringing during the revolution in Iran helped shape her mother’s, and consequently her own, identity. “My mom was three when the revolution started and the king was put out of power and so she was raised without the freedoms that my dad had,” Dianati said. “She from a young age had more constrictions, like she had to wear the traditional hijab and be more conservative. She couldn’t have her arms show or her legs show, and she couldn’t wear makeup or have nail polish and things like that. I think because she adapted with that kind of lifestyle it didn’t affect her as greatly, but for my dad he had to go from having a lot more freedoms like getting to play with his best friend who was a girl [to not getting] to play with her anymore with the new laws, so that affected him.” Dianati also sees how her parents’ culture has helped her see through stereotypes, and view others in a more holistic way. “I think it helps me let others see the differences that there are and all the stereotypes about Muslims and all Arabic countries, how they’re all extremists and terrible,” Dianati said. “It’s not like that at Clayton, but it helps me help people understand how it really is, just like any other cultural view or any other community or society, it’s not really that different.” Overall, Dianati sees that it’s important one stays in touch with one’s culture. “I think my culture affects me in the way that I don’t realize it affects me, like the views that I have and my aspects and how I see some things,” Dianati said. “I think it’s important that I stay in touch with it because it connects me to my family and my heritage. It keeps me in touch with the rest of my family and my culture. I think it’s important in any culture or any religion or any view someone has to have some sort of basis or standard to look up to and follow.”
Oyama at age three at a Japanese shrine on “753 -day”, a holiday in which seven and three year old girls and five and three year old boys get dressed in traditional kimonos and are prayed for at a shrine. (Photo from Momoko Oyama)