Cultural upbringing, its effect on who I am today

A class discussion this week asked me to consider a way that I was influenced by my cultural upbringing. What came to mind for me were my mother’s efforts to bring me to our local library, and to take me to live performances.
​
When I was growing up, my mother was a member of the Napa Valley Choral Society (known today as Sing Napa Valley), so I attended many of the performances. My mother also took me to theater productions, mostly high-school and other community performances, but on one occasion she drove from Calistoga to Ukiah, so we could attend a touring production of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).

And as I mentioned, Mom made sure I got regular visits to the library.

Both of these choices contributed to values that I hold today. I consider myself a lifelong user of libraries, and have held a library card everywhere that I’ve lived or worked. (And beyond: the Sacramento and San Francisco libraries will give library cards to any California resident.)

I deeply love libraries, and have chosen to make a career of library customer-service.

Attending performances with my mom had a powerful influence on who I am today. While I was pursuing my first Associate degree through Santa Rosa Junior College, I took group visits through SRJC to OSF in Ashland, Oregon. Later when my husband and I got together, I introduced him to OSF as well.

(My husband and I have actually returned to Santa Rosa after living four years in Ashland. We attended several OSF performances while we were living in Ashland, but the southern Oregon economy was extremely tough to survive in. We’re both glad to be living back in Santa Rosa, which is an area that we both love.)

Closer to home, we attend and support performances through Santa Rosa Junior College, and we also look forward to attending local community productions.

One of our favorite regional troops is Lamplighters Music Theatre, which is based out of San Francisco and produces the comic operas of S. Gilbert and A.S. Sullivan. On a couple of occasions, we’ve gone with Mom to Napa Valley performances, but one time we went as far as Walnut Creek to attend a Lamplighters show.

Like our teacher suggested it would be, this really is a HUGE question to answer. I consider my K-to-12th-grade educational experiences to be part of my past “culture” too, and have written “volumes” about what it means to be a survivor of bullying.

Add, in, too, a personal “culture” of being on the autism spectrum. I plan to draw on personal experiences when addressing these subjects in our class.