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s allowed to bring visitors from a different ethnicity. Again my culture doesn't allow people to attend church without formal dressings. This has caused a negative impact on the relationship between me my parents and the church. Due to changing modes of dressing I find the cultural church dressing code not entertaining while at the other hand the church leaders are opposed to the new ways of dressing in the church. Our culture advocates for good mannerisms at school failure to which one is subjected to parental punishment. This has fostered a positive interpersonal relationship between my peer group, teachers and me. This is because I am aware of the rights and the wrong and therefore I try to avoid conflicts resulting from disobedience or arrogance towards my peers. My American cultural identity has also helped me in forming positive personal relations with the surrounding people and communities. This is because it advocates for brotherhood and I therefore try to be careful when socializing with people so as to avoid conflicts. Consequently, many people in the community find me as their friend who they can count on and therefore good interpersonal relations.

Due to my cultural identity I have individually and collectively experienced many challenges in the American society. One challenge is that of persistent identities in form of biracial perceptions. This is because many people keep on asking me about my race because my bodily appearance doesn't suggest it. Ethnocentrism is the other challenge. This is because some of my college friends like the children from the very rich families in the community feel that they have superior ways of life (culture) than us from middle class families. They tend to perceive us as inferior, wrong in all aspects and strange. Another challenge I have faced due to my cultural identity is prejudice. This has been caused by the attitude of ethnocentrism. My fellow college mates from wealthy backgrounds tend to show intolerant and unfairly biased attitude towards me and other people of my status (middle class). The next challenge is cultural stereotyping. This is because of the exaggerated generalizations about a particular group (females). For example in the American culture the females have been stereotyped in terms of their emotions. It is believed that females experience and also express sadness, fear and sympathy. On the other hand men experience and express anger and pride. Another challenge is cultural proximity whereby many cultures are assumed to be similar. For example due to modernization, the subcultures (white and black) in my country have now been integrated almost into one though people come from different places of origin.

The other challenge I have faced due to my cultural identity is that of misinterpretation of codes. For example due to my dress code most of my colleagues mistake me for a Muslim lady because I always have veil on my neck and put on a long skirt. There are several occasions whereby my verbal behaviors or cues have been misunderstood like when I use inflections (variation of speech). When I lower the pitch of voice too or make it deeper on certain words. This low pitch implies confidence, certainty, and authority. However my college mates view this as a sign of ignorance or lack of cooperation in speech. Other times I use upward inflection (raised pitch) in speech to communicate uncertainty, surprise and doubt. This however bring about miscommun