Cajun Cultural choices.
My narrative is as a unique story and continues with my choices
made today. As previously mentioned, the
cultural norms of South Louisiana, Cajuns are vastly different from the many
parts of the rest of Louisiana, the traditional south, and the United States. The
language, the music and the food can be found nowhere else in the world. This dying cultural assumption builds me into
the leader that I am today. I agree with Dr. Lyengar impression (right or
wrong) of the fallacies of the American assumptions of choice (2010). To elaborate on
working on Dr. Lyengar assumptions of choices and applying this to my Cajun story,
my story is atypical of my colleagues, and peer groups because of the isolated community. I have learned different aspects of
leadership through my culture and my story continues as I learn more about
observing the differences in American assumptions.
Exploring the typical American assumption choice is the “locust
of the individual (2010).” This is not the case
in Acadiana (a collective of parishes where Cajun cultural is most present);
the choice is the family, neighbors, the and collective. This choice in the culture can amplified and
was taught to me at a young age. Growing
up in a hurricane targeting area, my family experienced many floods and storms
over my lifetime. After most storms we took our boat up and down the bayou’s
checking on our neighbors first before we even looked at our own home. This was
demonstrated again in the recent floods, a group of volunteers gathered to help
their neighbors and the entire flood stricken area, even calling themselves the
Cajun Navy. Another example is the Cajun
(French word), boucherie. This is a
tradition that butchers a hog, and no part is left not used. While most of my adult friends would find
this greatly disgusting, this unique process takes time and it usually done by traditionalist.
The difference in the cultural assumption is that all the food is shared and distributed
to local families, everyone. This
butchering is for the people not for the individual, the farmer is making the
choice to share (sometimes for months) with his bounty. It is during this example where I learned the
assumptions that I have today. The
choice to help others outweighs the individual.
My leadership today is based in this value, many times over the past few
years I have gotten up in the middle of the night to help my organization, my
troops, or even take up missions abroad so that no one else had too for the benefit
of the collective.
The second assumption that she discusses is the choice that
more decisions presented one has the likely choose the better choice. I will never forget my first week in basic
training, in the chow line. I did not
understand the choices presented, what was this food, and what do you mean I
get to choose what I wanted? I was so
confused. While my drill instructor was
yelling at me at breakfast, I was trying to engage in a conversation with the
cooks to understand the choices and the implications that I faced by making
simple decisions. What is “white” gravy,
what was the differences in biscuits, what was a flat sausage patty, what was
the differences in milk? This funny
story illustrates the cultural differences in choices, all these choices
overwhelmed me, during my years in Cajun culture I did not have those choices
and simply did not know what to do when presented with things I had never seen
before. In my current job, I have to face major requirement choices every day
and the wrong choice can end up with a flying Albatross, that barely gets out
of the water. As companies compete for
the next government multi-billion-dollar contract, choices are made and sent up
the chain of command. During my decision/choice matrix I go back to the first
day of basic training, was the choice about the differences in milk or was the
choice really was I going to eat that morning.
In my leadership technique of choice, I choose to focus on the larger
problem instead of every details and ever underlying choice, if this is not
done I will never leave the chow line.
Dr. Lyengar third assumption is the ability to say no to
choice. She writes that “American’s are
given the right to choice and that the world is limitless,” she then elaborates
that this is not always true and goes on to say that “American could benefit by
incorporating new perspectives in their own narrative (2010)". This again I turn to my Cajun culture. The Cajun food, its music, its festivals, the
reviling, the lifestyle is a melting pot of cultures from the 1700’s. It is a combination of Spanish, French,
Native-American and African influences.
I was raised with this understanding, and brought up with a mixture of
all of cultures in the small isolated community. Take for example, in my public school, white
was the minority and French was the dominate language taught, while track was
the dominate sport and catholic was the religion. I grew up in a part of the south were racism
rarely existed in part, because the culture for hundreds of years was influenced
by a melting pot of sub-cultures. In my
military career, I have learned that this is not the case everywhere and that
not every sub-culture shares in these poor, rural, mixed culture of Acadiana. When faced with these choices, I look back to
those boucheires, where it did not matter who, or what religion you practiced,
you are part of the family and the food will be shared to everyone.
References
Shenna Lyengar (2010) The art of Choosing [video file] retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing/transcript?language=en#t-584979
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