Arias WRIT Podcast Essay 3

The podcast discusses family backgrounds and dynamics, focusing on how culture shaped upbringing. The speaker interviews their older sister and best friend about their family dynamics. They talk about how their cultural background influenced their close-knit family and the parenting style of their immigrant parents. They also discuss different cultural traditions and how they may continue or change as they grow up. Communication in their household is primarily in Spanish, with English being spoken outside of the home. Hey do you have a second? Sure, what's up? Hi guys, in this podcast I'm going to be talking about family backgrounds and dynamics. One of my favorite things is connecting with those close to me so I'm going to be interviewing my best friend and my older sister about their family dynamics and how their culture impacted their upbringing. For some background I was born in the U.S. in New Jersey but my parents are both immigrants. My mom's from Venezuela and my dad's from Costa Rica. Growing up I lived in a primarily white neighborhood and so most of my Latin American culture was seen in my home and I really only shared it with my parents and sisters. Instead of spending Thanksgiving or Christmas with extended family it was always just the five of us and so with that you grow an appreciation for family but also really think about culture and what that looks like for different people especially how it influences who you become as you get older. I'm going to be focusing on that here. I have my older sister and my best friend that are going to help me delve into this topic so let's go ahead and talk to my first guest, my older sister. Hey Val, you still there? Okay great well I just wanted to interview you first for my podcast. Obviously as my older sister you and I share a lot of the same experiences growing up but you are five years older than me so I'd say you definitely had a different perspective on how you know mom and dad raised us. So I wanted to ask for your point of view how would you describe our family dynamic growing up? I think we were very close and we were very bonded and united. We did everything together and I guess we still do. In what ways would you say mom and dad's like cultural background shaped like how we functioned as a family? Our cultural background definitely shaped how we were as a family because we were very community oriented instead of individualistic. So it goes back to kind of always being together like mom and dad never went on like a date night or like I don't know a trip or something without us. Me being the oldest, mom and dad definitely relied on me to help with you and Valencia so it was like we all help each other. It was like very much team bonding effort kind of thing. Yeah I definitely agree it wasn't individualistic at all. We always did everything together. If there was a party and it went until like 2 in the morning we were there hanging out. Mom and dad never felt like they had to change their lives just because they had kids. Which I think is a very different approach to parenting and I think it's based out of our culture. Yeah and I mean you kind of talked about it a little bit but like how would you characterize like mom and dad parenting like style? Like they were strict, not strict. For me I think they were more lenient but I always had like. I think with you I think I like led the way and then they got used to certain things that are culturally accepted here and I think they slowly started realizing that we are growing up in a different environment so I think I had it rougher than you. But it's okay I'm glad that you and Valencia will have like more of a lenient upbringing. Yeah I mean definitely like I can see like already how Valencia. Oh which by the way Valencia is our younger sister. She is 9 years younger than me and 14 years younger than my older sister and Val so definitely with 9 years for mom and dad to like marinate their parenting style they're very much more lenient with her than with me and I can't even imagine how much more lenient from you. It has been me and they progressively declined in terms of strictness. Like I sometimes wasn't allowed to go get ice cream with my friends but then here you are sitting over for the whole weekend somewhere you know and then Valencia already is going on play dates and things at 10 where my mom would have been with me at the play date 24-7. Yeah. She kind of holds the reins a little more than dad but even so dad still agrees with everything mom does. Like mom always hung out with her cousins and her family like it was always family over friends you know family comes first. Mom would go out and hang out and do all these things and like you know we wouldn't consider grandma to be the most like lenient you know parent to mom. Grandma still let mom do things because it was with family. Yeah. Whereas us we had to really yeah and we also had to kind of find like our family and friends more so than like cousins. Yeah. Wait okay someone's joining our call. Hey guys. So my best friend just joined her name is Gia. She's going to be helping us answer some of these questions. So we're actually going into our next section. So we're going to be talking about cultural influences and traditions. I guess we can start off with Gia. What cultural traditions were important in your household during your childhood? So my family is not, we're Italian but we're not very into our culture. But we do like to celebrate some parts so on Christmas we do the piece of the seven fishes which is just having a bunch of fish on Christmas. That's interesting. So does it change every year? Well we usually have shrimp and then we go to my aunt's house and she makes like lobster and I don't know what else. I don't like seafood but I eat it but. What do you eat then? She makes pasta. One has the lobster sauce and one has the regular sauce. Cool. I don't know about like any specific traditions for like Val and I but I feel like definitely New Year's we do like some funky stuff like eating 12 grapes right at the clock. It's 12 but that's more of like we're eating a grape per month to say a wish. Which actually Gia celebrated that this year with us which was kind of cool. That was the first time for me. We used to write down our New Year's resolutions. Do you remember that? Or like what we used to, what we did that year that we wanted to get rid of. Like ins and outs? Yeah. I don't remember doing that. I remember when we would sit around the table and start writing things down. Yeah. We did a lot of that. We have our own traditions for Christmas and stuff and we each put an ornament on the tree. Oh yeah. But for the past like four years I think I haven't done that tradition. I think I'm always somewhere else. I don't. You're like always somewhere. Yeah. I don't know where it came from but my family hides like a pickle in the tree. What? Have you ever heard of that? No. Like you put a pickle ornament. Not an actual pickle. A pickle ornament. I can't wait to take a soggy pickle. You put your hands on the tree and then all the cousins have to like look for it cause it's like camouflaged in and then whoever finds it gets a prize. You're joking. That actually sounds like a lot of fun. So if you're in a house, look in the tree and there's a pickle in there somewhere. That is insane. Why have you never told me that? Oh my gosh. Okay. Would you say any of these traditions influenced you as a person? Like are you going to continue these traditions as you grow up? What do you guys think? I think I will definitely take on the pickle idea. Oh fact. That's fun. But I don't know. I think I like the way we open presents. Does that make sense? Like I don't know, Gia, if you guys are a, like I think each family is different. You're either a family that opens presents about the same time or you're a family that opens presents one at a time and you see each other's reactions. Like our family opens one by one and I really like seeing each other's reactions and that kind of thing. I kind of like that. I would definitely keep doing that. Even though my boyfriend doesn't know that one thing, but being one by one is a lot of pressure. I was actually going to say that. Like I don't, I think that's one of the traditions that from our family, like opening presents and like seeing each other's reactions is like, I don't think that would continue in my future because it is so stressful. I'm like popping a sweat. What if I don't like it? What if it's a gross color? I honestly, at that point, someone just put a spotlight on me and make me stand up and present my present because it is really stressful. I don't know. I think it's, I mean, I'm also like a big gift giver, so I really like to want to see. I don't even know you're going to like it, but I want to see it. Right. What about you, Gia? No, my family also does still like one at a time and it's very stressful because everyone's watching you like open a present. And like you said, Victoria, if you don't like it, then you kind of have to like fake it. Yeah. So I don't know if I would keep that, but there is another one that we do on birthdays. Whoever birthday it is, like puts the knife in the cake and then whoever's, they make a wish and then whoever's next pulls it out and makes a wish. They like that because they kind of look forward to the next person's birthday and you kind of look around the room and see if there's anyone new. It's like celebrating, like, it's like, oh, it's your birthday. So it kind of, you know, brings you all together. I love that tradition. I think that's actually so cute. In terms of like language and communication, how did you and your family members communicate with one another? Was there different languages spoken at home, whether that was like with your grandparents? So for us, we grew bilingual. So we spoke Spanish at home. And if we spoke English, it was always outside of the home, like at school or anywhere else. But when we were home, we would talk only in Spanish. When I went to school, well, when I was a baby, when I was born, I only knew Spanish. And then when I went to school at four years old for pre-K, that's when I learned English. And when you were born, then I would play with you in English. So you grew up more simultaneously bilingual versus me being more Spanish than Spanish and English. And I think that was really beneficial for us. I love being bilingual. And then communicating with one another, we have a lot of group chats. Yeah, my family also uses group chats. So if my dad's ordering dinner in his room, he'll send out a text. And me in my room, my sister in her room, and my mom downstairs will answer. So it just makes it easier to order. But yeah, my family has always just spoken English. None of us really know any other languages. Most of the Spanish that I know, I speak it for me too. And me and my sister know a little bit of sign language, but we'll just use it to make our parents mad because they don't know what we're talking about. That is so funny, but that is so typical of you and Skylar. Of course you guys do that. Okay, so you know, I forgot to mention in the beginning of this podcast that me and my best friend and my older sister, we really like to yap. So let's now go into the next section of reflection. So what would you guys say your relationship with your parents are like now that you're getting older? So for me, being the oldest, I'm like going to be 25 soon. And by my age, my mom already came through. It's crazy to think, but in terms of my relationship with my parents, we're very close, especially me and my mom. Like we'll hang out, we'll go do massages and go to lunch and whatever. We spend a lot of time together. And I'm also really integrated into our family business. So they do talk to me about finances. And so I think their trust in me when it comes to the business has definitely made us bond a lot more too. And they've grown like even more of a respect for me and like can really confide in me like adults. Like sometimes I feel like even the lines between daughter and parents who learns and it's just kind of like we're colleagues or friends. It's kind of weird, but it's nice. Yeah. So like I was saying, like she's the oldest and I'm the youngest in my family. So I've definitely like been babied by my parents. I'm Victoria. I've seen it. And they don't give me a lot of freedom, but they like to like be in on every decision that I make. Like I have dyed hair and I have a tattoo and I have piercings and I have those things, but it took me like a year to convince them and to let me do it. So it's like definitely hard. And like I was saying, like her parents would put her on the finances and stuff and my parents keep all that from me. So it's like, I think I've learned that concept a little bit later in life just because they always try to protect me and keep me from things, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm definitely left behind on some things. Yeah, I can definitely see. I mean, it's kind of funny. I didn't even think about it while I was thinking about interviewing both of you, but you're both on the complete opposite sides of range of when you were born. And as the middle child, it was kind of weird because yes, my parents had the expectation that I could do everything that my older sister was doing, but it never really relied on me to do any of it because they had my older sister. I really could have done everything, but I never did. And so slowly as I grew up, I really didn't have anything to worry about in terms of like finances or just like doing all of these things. So that's pretty interesting. And so to conclude, what would you guys say are some valuable lessons that you guys can take away from your childhood experiences? You know, we talked about lots of traditions, our relationships with our families, how we interact with one another. In my family, there's a lot of us. We're all super close to each other, and we all think that family is very important. And that's something that I've always loved about my family. And I'm always excited. I'm never dreading seeing them. I'm always excited to see them. And I've even tried to carry that to friendships, like being really loyal and always being there for my friends, or if I try to be. So that's definitely something I want to take, even when I'm older, and making sure that my children know that family is really important. It's okay to be close. I feel like some families are like, it's good to be very close knit. It's funny that you mentioned that before you joined. Valentina and I were actually talking about how we were raised, we were so close, because we really didn't have extended family around. So it was always just me, her, Valencia, my parents, until we got older and we started to get really close relationships with friends. Definitely, I like how close knit we are as a family. I think I've definitely learned how to have close friendships because of that and show that. Yeah, I definitely agree. That's something I want to bring into my kids someday, and my family, just that tight knit relationship. I like to hear her saying, I don't think it's a bad thing to be so close with your family, to have that connection with them, and to be able to rely on them. I don't think that's bad at all. I definitely agree. Well, thank you so much to both of you for joining me on this podcast. It was a lot of fun, and I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. After having these conversations, it's clear that family and culture have a big impact on who someone is. Whether that influences your friendships, continuing or not continuing certain traditions in your own families, in the future, and down to how you communicate with family, it all makes up who you are as you get older.