COMS 356 - Final Paper - Grade: A PDF

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COMS 356 FINAL PAPER...

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Schug 1 Sebastian Schug Professor Hessamian COMS 356 30 June 2019 COMS 356 - Intercultural Field Experience + Research Paper Growing up within a large community predominantly comprised of Armenians and/or natively descended, I have spent a large majority of my life surrounded by friends, peers, and associates of similar backgrounds, yet entirely different from my own. Despite having ample levels of connectivity with my fellow Armenian neighbors both culturally and interculturally, I was recently invited to an Armenian wedding for the first time in my life; an occasion that, in growing up and understanding both the culture and stigma surrounding it, I knew to be a festively big deal. Originally, I had the general impression that perhaps I would not fit in as relatively well as I had with my date (I.e: the person who would end up inviting me to begin with), as well as her family. However, in attending the wedding, sparking conversations with a plethora of individuals, and picking up on intercultural cues that allowed ease of communication between both my background and theirs, the predisposed tension quickly faded. In identifying verbal/nonverbal similarities and differences within Armenian culture (a culture otherwise disassociative from others in favor of their own) outsiders under the proper communicative circumstances can very well find proper connections with others. In identifying the wedding at face value, factors such as the venue, reception, ceremony, and subsequent after-party of such followed traditional wedding-fayre as I had been used to seeing/attending weddings growing up. Given that my date’s particular family was much more Americanized in scope, I had managed to recognize standard wedding-progression intermixed

Schug 2 with specific traditions throughout each proceeding event. For instance, both the bride and groom opted for a more religious-themed wedding in having the ceremony in a local church, and stating vows culturally akin to Christian belief. The church itself housed nearly four-hundred guests in attendance, all dressed formally, and with proper religious etiquette, such as praying, kneeling, etc. While specific bits of the service were spoken in Armenian (in order to fully reach all members of the audience throughout the service), language didn’t pose an issue as I had initially thought. Most, if not all members of the service, I initially assumed, either spoke or understood English as a primary/secondary language. What did pose as something unfamiliar to me however was following the ring-bearing, known as “the crowning.” Whereas the best man in a traditional wedding would primarily step off center, first in line to the groom’s side, within an Armenian wedding, he comes between both the bride and groom, and holds a cross over their heads. It was here where I took note of the various nonverbal elements established within this wedding that I had not otherwise previously experienced: Imagery heightened solely on religion during the ceremony, and that particular undertone playing into both the bride and groom’s union. In analyzing the sense of culturally merging both Armenian and Western (“American”) culture together at this event, I began to wonder as to whether or not a sense of belonging was felt within the two parties up at the altar, and/or whether or not expectations were met amongst both families on either side of the aisles. Elizabeth Freemen’s The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture emphasizes this custom, and concludes that while expectations are not inexplicably either met or not met amongst an audience, the whole notion of “pleasing” an audience ultimately comes into play for an event labeled this extravagant. “While bodily gestures and actions are detached and folded inward, in other words, subjectivity and couplehood are folded

Schug 3 outward and merged with a larger order. Western-style weddings themselves coordinate the ideals of an inviolable inward subjectivity with that of an ongoing outward responsiveness to the demands of an audience, the production of a private zone for the couple with the establishment of public authority over marriage.” (Freemen, The Wedding Complex, p. 10) Another example of this was established during the “common cup,” a chalice containing a bit of wine that both parties drink out of, followed by the priest concluding the ceremony with the words, “Protect them [the bride and groom’s formal names] under the shadow of thy holy and honourable cross in peace.” Summarizing the ceremony, it maintained a well-balanced combination of traditional Armenian culture and less-diversified, although much more recognizable to someone like myself, Americanized segments. When the reception eventually reached its time, I admittedly began to grow a bit nervous at the thought of socializing with individuals outside my own cultural spheres. Talking with individuals, in general, never posed much of an issue with me; alongside my numerous Armenian friends and acquaintances, I knew it could be done, however, familiar individuals were one entity, while my date’s family was an entirely different entity altogether. Beginning with her immediate family, I was introduced to a series of aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant relatives who had flown in in order to attend the ceremony. Taking note of two cultural differences regarding Armenian event-planning, distant family members are treated within the same level of respect, honor, and praise. This appeared to be pretty standard at first, practically applicable to any culture who holds respecting their elders in high regard; however in Armenian culture, those eldest in the family typically are first to speak in service, first to be served at a meal, and often situated at the center of every room. It was here I realized that in doing so, culturally speaking, it gives the utmost attention to be placed on them, representatively at the center of what is most

Schug 4 identifiable as their “at-home culture” in the most ethnically traditional manner. The second factor I had noticed upon reaching the wedding reception was the fact that it was not situated at any ordinary reception hall, but rather at the groom's house. The fact that I had not known personally the groom, the bride, or any surrounding family outside of the one who had brought me here, feelings of uncomfortableness came from within. Juliet Joseph’s Personalizing the Wedding: A Cross-Cultural Study of Wedding Motivations centers itself on the “fish out of water” mentality, as well as through analyzing family structure, and building conversation around that (the host in this scenario) in order to establish familiarity. “Weddings within migratory family networks are significant in bringing together scattered kin to validate the bride and groom’s relationship. The entire family dynamic is brought together from different contexts to display familial solidarity. The entity of family is remembered, celebrated, and grown through a wedding ceremony.” (Joseph, Personalizing the Wedding, p. 12) Being in somebody’s house who I was not at all familiar with immediately felt alienating; the question popping in my head from time to time over whether or not it was best if I were the one to initiate a conversation over my various hosts emerged a couple of times over, at least until I was eventually introduced to a series of family-friends at the request of my date. The dialogue consisted primarily of five people, us two included, being of relatively the same age and life experience. Surprisingly, the three family friends happened to go to California State University, Northridge same as myself, and through talking about high school friends from my hometown of Burbank, California, I was able to establish common ground with them. The rest of the night, in meeting more of the family one after the other in a cause-effect relationship of both being re-introduced to new people repeatedly as well as being frankly labeled as the one non-Armenian in attendance, I had decided to embrace that fact. Personally, I had never

Schug 5 encountered a power dynamic as prevalent in my life than I had at this reception, whereas instinctively being a standalone guest in someone’s house began to shift into shared conversations and series of dialogue akin to that of longtime friends. Simply put, Armenians once again cemented my previous judgement of being remarkably friendly, even associating myself with older members of the family. The illusions of privilege, pride, and nepotism I had grown so used to seeing in my years of high school coming from the predominant Armenian population throughout my four years spent there were completely shattered once being met with a true to life cultural situation, and a complete lack of any negative external expectations of my own character in relation to theirs. Since my cultural experience of an Armenian wedding, I have made a concentrated effort to become further acquainted with individuals outside of my external cultural sphere at face value (i.e: being “white” in my own personal classification) Being a member of several various clubs found on campus, including belonging to CSUN’s Zeta Beta Tau chapter consisting of over ninety members of various backgrounds, faiths, and ideologies (religious, political, or otherwise) it gives myself the opportunity to expand my horizons within different social scenarios. Allowing myself to become immersed in what is often regarded as a cultural shift/cultural divide, diving headfirst in order to fully experience both its strengths and weaknesses in contrast to my own cultural sphere serves as a means to keep myself grounded in my own perceived convictions and opinions, though all the same allows myself to remain open to the possibilities of experiencing similar traditions and customs.

Schug 6 Works Cited ● Joseph, Juliet. “Personalizing the Wedding: A Cross-Cultural Study of Wedding Motivations.” University of South Carolina, Scholar Commons, 2018, scholarcommons.sc.edu ● Freemen, Elizabeth. “The Wedding Complex.” Duke University Press - The Wedding Complex, 2002, www.dukeupress.edu...