What Is Heritage and Why Does It Matter?
Defining what is your heritage means understanding your inherited sense of family identity. Explore these questions and activities to strengthen and better express your own sense of heritage.
Defining Your Heritage
The word “heritage” brings to mind different ideas for different people—and it should. Heritage is a person’s unique, inherited sense of family identity: the values, traditions, culture, and artifacts handed down by previous generations. We absorb a sense of our heritage throughout our lives as we observe and experience the things that make our family unique. Although not every inherited trait, tendency, or tradition is positive, we generally consider heritage to be the positive and meaningful elements of our family’s identity that we incorporate into our own lives and pass along to succeeding generations.
Heritage can express itself in many ways. Some families define their heritage primarily as their ethnic, cultural, or national identity. Other families can point to values that have been passed on, such as a love for education, participation in community life, a strong work ethic, or religious devotion. People may feel that an inherited aptitude—such as for music or mechanics, athletics or art—is part of their heritage.
How to Discover Your Heritage
Some people have a strong sense of their heritage. They can point to a flag hanging proudly nearby or repeat stories and traditions shared by their parents or grandparents. Some have a confident sense of the unique interests, occupations, or values found in their family.
Others may have to look a little more closely to identify traces of heritage in their lives. Asking the following questions may help people discover elements of their family’s unique legacy in their lives:
How would I define my ethnic, cultural, or national identity? How does this identity shape my sense of who I am?
What traditions or rituals do I observe, either in everyday life or on special occasions? Where do those traditions come from?
What are my most prized values, hobbies, or interests? Did my parents, siblings, grandparents, or other relatives share these?
What positive traits, tendencies, or aptitudes would I use to describe my family in general? How do these traits manifest in my life?
What values, traits, interests, or hobbies do I have that I see in my own children or grandchildren or that I would wish to see manifested in younger generations in my family?
Another approach to discovering heritage is to search your family tree and family stories.