• Culture appreciation vs. appropriation

• Embrace culture style without understanding the history or does that reduce it to just being a trend?

Student Presenters:

• Vianey Hernandez
• Cymone Hesselton

Transcript:

Can you truly embrace a culture style without understanding its history or does that risk reducing it suggest a trend?

Hello, I’m Liana Hernandez.

And I am Simone Hesselton.

We are both first-year students at UNF, taking the immigration cultures on the hyphen class.

With this podcast, we will discuss experiences of the Hispanic American community, with their identity and expression through fashion, and its ties with cultural appreciation and appropriation within their lives.

We will dive into the perspectives of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TED Talk, and the self-expression of the “Zoot Suit” film that represents real-life events of Mexican Americans or Chicanos in Los Angeles in the 1940s.

To start us off, let’s consider what fashion is. Fashion can include clothing, hairstyles, makeup, jewelry, and many other elements that can be assorted and assembled. A distinct style known as “Zoot Suit” became popular amongst minority groups around the 1930s, especially with Mexican Americans. This style consisted of a long coat and high-waisted trousers and acted as a symbol of identity for many. Representing something more than just the tangible suit. As Pachuca says in the film:

“The idea of the original chuck is to look like a diamond, to look sharp, hip, banaroo, finding a style of urban survival…”

The way people choose to present themselves with their fashion choices can tell a story.

Stories help us to remember and imagine. There’s a crucial role in spreading information to teach us about ourselves and others in the world around us. Adichie’s TED Talk in 2013, the danger of a single story expresses how dangerous it is to only hear one side of the story:

“They make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were. So that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. The poverty was my single story of them.”

As Adichie expresses, her perspective on her neighbors drastically changed how she viewed them, just like how many of us may have a single story for a group of people. The lack of perspective and information we have on others can have negative consequences of reducing people and cultures to a stereotype or a single story.

This manner of disrespect toward a group or culture can lead to a cultural appropriation. According to the Cambridge dictionary, cultural appropriation is defined as the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture.

One example of culture being stripped away from clothing is through the cheap Halloween costumes that portray Cholas/Cholas or Mexican gang depiction usually associated with flannel, baggy clothes, tattoos, and heavy hair liner Cholas. Not only are these Halloween costumes degrading, but also insulting to the group of people being portrayed because it is a narrowing perspective of Mexicans.

With the example of the Chola and Chola, I would like to add that these costumes emphasize and draw on the dramatic gang or violent stereotypes too often associated with the aesthetic. This anecdote highlights how the act of cultural appropriation can perpetuate an unfair and unsafe cliche that more often than not is untrue.

However, there is a way culture can be respected and shared amongst others through the practice of cultural appreciation. Cultural appreciation refers to the genuine understanding, respect and admiration of another culture.

We might see a modern example of this appreciation, if a person not part of a given culture would like to wear a piece of jewelry with a design indigenous to another culture. Rather than simply buying such jewelry from a fast fashion franchise and not looking any deeper into the symbols significance, the person could see indigenous jewelers and learn the meaning behind it.

So now we know that clothing isn’t just material, but it is influenced by culture and background. Clothes allow for each and every one of us to express ourselves and present our identity.

For when some choose to use their fashion from other cultures without familiarizing themselves with their significance, they can propel dangerous stereotypes, only pushing further a harmful agenda for certain groups of people.

Can you think of examples of cultural appropriation or appreciation you have seen in your life?

Think about your own identity. Do you feel that your culture or background have influenced your clothing and stylistic choices?