2. Growing up in Southern New England, in the state of Connecticut, I never assumed that
we as an area of the state have a culture all of our own. While we may use different terminology
for everyday items, phases, and more, it is this culture that defines where I come from. For me,
the cultural lifestyle in my part of Connecticut has a reputation of being upscale, high middle and
upper class, and preparatory lifestyle. This preparatory life style was influenced in two way.
The first was that a percentage of students after middle school or a year of high school would
transfer to one of the private preparatory schools. The second is the style of clothing people
wear. These brands include Vineyard Vines, Brooks Brothers, and Polo Ralph Lauren. This
style while limited in my perspective to lower Connecticut can be found in areas where wealth is
a major influencer. However, this culture while it defines the majority of the area, it is an isolated
culture within the state. The majority of the state does not follow these same cultural influences.
With a unique culture in Southern Connecticut that surrounds both personal but also family
wealth, the lifestyle has provided me with cultural experiences that put education, family,
loyalty, and personal reputation as core influences. At the same time though, my hometown is
still plagued by the historical reputation of being a sundown town. Even though this is no longer
the case, there are still cultural influences apparent in the town that alludes to invisible
discrimination towards certain groups of people. The way that children are brought up in the
town is so that they fit into the lifestyle that their parents created mainly until the children reach
high school age, where they are allowed greater freedom of expression and choices. At the heart,
the two main cultural influencers in my life were money and sports.
When looking at social groupings as a cultural the emergence of these groups is not due
to whom you hang out with as many would think, but how much money your family had.
Wealth, as part of my culture plays a huge role in how you are viewed. This is in the eyes of the
3. residents of the town, in that if you have historic ties to the town then you are considered more
influential then others. The divide of old money and new money can be seen from just looking
around my town. Those that come from what is seen as old money are people who will run the
town, but also control everything from land on which many of the town businesses reside to
which country club someone can belong too. An example of this, is that years ago the land
owner of a piece of property in the downtown area terminated contracts with local business so
that they could build a Panera Bread Café on the piece of land instead. Due to the owner of the
land having major influence due to owning much of the downtown area they were allowed to
proceed without much interruption. For me, being on the outside of many social groups, I was an
outsider in my own culture. This due to not belonging to any country clubs, living in the rich
part of town, or even vacationing on Nantucket or even Martha's Vineyard. I did not live the life
of being able to spend what ever I want when I want or go anywhere I want. Instead I had to put
in hard work to get what I wanted. This hard work drove me to see what it is better to get a
rewarding experience from something that you helped to make happen then to be able to simply
by it or travel somewhere whenever you wanted. During college, the rewarding experience came
when I was the lead organizer for two years on an event where we brought in children from the
local New Haven, CT schools to spend a day on the Southern CT State University campus and
go through out student center and center for the performing arts which had been decorated to
resemble Santa’s workshop. Through their time on the campus they were able to take photos
with a magical snowman, Santa’s reindeer and even Misses Clause. In addition we provided
them with a healthy snake, arts and crafts, and at the end a holiday gift. Being the head organizer
or head elf (as I was referred to from Mid-October through December) for this event involved
organizing each section and supervising it through delegation, organizing 200 plus student
4. volunteers each year, and running a toy drive to help collect gifts for the event. With the
oversight by my advisor and with help from the New Haven police department we were able to
increase the size of the event to the point where we helped over 1300 children ranging in ages
from 1-15. At the end of the day though, my favorite part of the event was not running around
with a walky talky organizing and acting as the head elf or even running one of the areas which I
did both, during the two years I was the head organizer, but seeing how the hard work paid off in
making the holidays special for the children from the local school, as for some this was their only
holiday gift that they would get. If it was not for learning about how hard work gets you what
you want instead of being able to simply afford something, I would not be the person that I am
today. The effect this had has transpired with me through the different things that I have been
able to do in that I rather plan and run large-scale events to see the joy and happiness in others
than to gain something personally from it. This is the true happiness for me.
Growing up sports and the sports that you played were big deal to people in that great
pride was taken when people talked about how many sports teams you were on. In high school
for example it was common for students to play three different sports at the varsity level and be
competitive in each. The notion of sports as part of your culture went beyond the traditional
social group memberships. In the town it did not matter who you where, male or female in that
if you played a sport then you were seen as an equal. This was due to sports acting as ingroups
in that when we were on the field of play, it did not matter who you were, or what you valued,
but instead how you played on the team. This heritage defined how social groups at times could
be meaningless when a greater issue is at hand. For the town, the heritage of sports involved
families showing up to support their children. When parents were not able to make it, other
parents made sure to support you as well. As a culture, this was one of the few times that your
5. group level membership did not matter, in that the emotions attached with sports being an
ingroup outweighed anything else.
For me, this was my equalizer; it was my influence into the culture of the town. In high
school, before I had joined the ski team, the team was known as the drinking team as they would
always get drunk on their annual winter training trip as they knew that they had no shot at
winning competitions or placing high enough in the state finals ski race. Skiing and ski racing to
me is my escape. It is the way that I am able to relax and live in the moment. The culture
behind ski racing is that the long preparation period each night before a race is the key and
foundation for you to have a good race. After I joined the ski team in higher school we used this
notion to better the team, and started to reshape our identity. To do so, we needed to change the
culture of the team, and change who we were as people. The first thing that was immediately set
was that if you were suspected and/ or caught drinking you were kicked off the team. We also
put into place the culture of being on time, every time. These two foundational rules to every
team were missing for the ski team at first. The implementation of the rules, helped us as a team
realize what we were capable of doing. We started to push each other harder and harder. This
was in the attempt to get better not just individually but as a team. When looking back on this
culture of change, it influenced me in that before I did not have as much confidence in myself as
I did once my time was up with the team senior year. At an even deeper level though, skiing is a
part of me that I hope to not let go of. It is my outlet for stress. When I used to go to Vermont
from the period of elementary school up through the end of college, I was seen as a local in
Killington, VT where my home mountain of Killington Ski Resort is based. I only realized that I
was considered a local during a weekend trip there in college. Everyone turned to me to plan a
weekend to remember. Without realizing it, I introduced everyone that weekend to the local life
6. style of getting yourself out of bed before the first chair of the ski lifts so that you could be in
line to get the first tracks of the day. Being a local means you stay out till closing, and then head
directly to the bar, sometimes with your ski boots still on. Even without notion of being a local
though, skiing has taught me that being on time is a fundamental need. However, it has also
taught me that I can take the act of skiing, and what you do while skiing and apply them to
everyday life. While skiing has ultimately caused me a couple good injuries to my knees and
ankles, it has shown me what can happen when you follow a process. It has instilled upon me
the notion of trust, and trust what someone is telling you if they have experience in that area.
Culturally, being a skier, when winter arrives, and it starts to snow, I do not look at it as a bad
thing, but rather something I can remember back to, and think what makes me happy. When
looking at what makes me happy, I am able to help others think back to what makes them happy
and help them to see if there are any influencers from what makes them happy to help them in a
current situation that they may be in.
While money and skiing have had cultural influences, education on the college level and
you do with that education was highly valued. There are people who think that by going into
higher education, I am not making a life, and that there is no meaning behind the work as the real
work and real purpose of education is to educate younger generations to be able to go to college
and to be successful in their future lives. In addition though, they believe that in order to make a
life you need to work hard, get a high paying job as in the field of business, law, or medicine.
The entire time I was growing up, starting as far back as kindergarten we were introduced to the
concept of college. Teachers always told us that we had to do our best, and work hard in order to
go to college. Starting this concept of going to college while in elementary school, the town
conditions the students into making them realize that they need to go to college if they want to
7. make a decent life. By the time the students end up getting to college they are for the most part
going to well-known schools that are either Ivy league, public Ivory, or private universities.
Many people in my town looked down upon me and saw me as breaking culture when I told
them that I was going to a state college, and not even the big name university that everyone from
the town goes to if they stay in state. My beliefs though, still were not changed, in that I believed
that I had picked the right school based off of my own beliefs and values. Even if I do not have
the best salary, or the ability to ski as often as I would like, I know that I am able to use the
lessons that I learned and apply them when helping other students. Looking towards the future, I
am not sure how the town will change or even when, as there is still many families in the town
that will continue to influence their beliefs, values, and culture onto other people without even
realizing it.
