The Tribes We Live In

In the documentary "People Like Us" the narrator explains that the people in America belong to their own tribes; meaning that a group of people with common backgrounds, common salary, common religion, etc. are linked together in a tribe. Before this blog I have never really thought about what tribe I belong to. After a few days of thinking and processing what kind of tribe that I belong to I came up with a name for my particular tribe, the middle class conservative Catholic.

 

The reason why I consider my particular tribe middle class is because I was born and raised in the middle class. I grew up always having a roof over my head and food on the table but not necessarily enough money to buy a big house or a fancy car. Though some people may look down at people in the middle class I feel completely comfortable and happy being in the middle class.

 

My mother’s sister married into money and my mom had seen how much she had changed even though my mother and my aunt we also raised in the middle class. Growing up I always remember my aunt asking how I could stand to live the way my family and I did. I just remember thinking to myself that my family and I didn’t live any different than most of my friends. Yes, we may have had less than she did but I grew up in a nice house with nice things. So in a sense I knew from my childhood that I shared a different tribe than my aunt even though she was family.

 

Like most of my family I consider myself to be a conservative. Being a conservative has played a huge impact on my way of thinking and how I decided to take the next steps in my life. I believe that it is very important for everyone in the United States to have some sort of political view. I love having political conversations with individuals especially my dad. Though we may not agree on everything under the sun but I believe that having these conversations with my dad has enhanced my way of thinking in a positive way.

 

And last but not least I consider myself to be a catholic. Religion plays a major role in my life. When all else fails in my life I always have religion to fall back on. Since the second grade all the way to my senior year of high school I have attended catholic schooling, which naturally played a huge role in my life. If I had to do high school all over again with a choice between private school and public school I would still choose private. The reasoning being is that learning theology has changed my life completely and has opened my eyes to many possibilities in the world. It has shaped my life into what it is now.

 

Though I know that many of the student in my Social Studies class would not fit into my middle class conservative catholic tribe, this is where I feel most comfortable and this is where my family, boyfriend, and many of my close friends lay.