Defining Communitys

I belong to the Arab American Community. I have been apart of this all my life. As a member of this community, my involvement has increased dramatically. As a child I would go to the mosque not very often. I knew about the Arab American community but not too much about it. As I got older I learned more about it and the aspects of it. I began to go to the mosque more on my own and participate in prayers with my community. I feel much more apart of my community now than I did when I was younger. You can tell most of the time when someone isn’t a member of this community. You can tell because our community has certain types of clothing and styles of clothing we wear that stand out than others. For example the hijab is one of them, which is very easy to distinguish. To be a member you have to know a lot about the community and participate in social events around the area. There are lots of values, and beliefs shared by the community, which some people take very seriously. For example there is Ramadan, which is a religious holiday, which is 30 days of fasting. Almost everyone in our community participates and people take this very seriously. Membership in the Arab American Community is important to my personal identity because I am a Muslim and I liked to be looked upon as a good Muslim and being apart of this community and all the activities that come along with it really shows that I am an active Muslim and care a lot about the religion and the community along with it.

The second community I am apart of is the Americore community, which I have been apart of since I was around seven years old. My involvement has gone up in this community as I have grown. Americore is a volunteer program. I have attended food drives, MLK service day, 911-service day, and many other projects every year since I have started Americore. As I got older I began to attend more food drives, and service projects around my area especially during high school. In high school I earned over 1,000 community service hours from Americore. In this community you can not tell if someone isn’t a member. We are very welcoming to any types of people. Everyone comes from different city’s that makes it such an amazing community to be apart of because it’s a unique crowd coming together and making a difference for nothing in return but smiles on people’s faces. To be a member you simply can just come and attend any service projects, you don’t even have to be consistent with all of them. The main idea is just to come and help out when you’re available. There aren’t really certain values, or beliefs held in this community. There are activities, which come with values and beliefs because when participating in an activity you are expected to devote your full attention to the project and give it your best effort. Membership in this community is important to my personal identity to me because it shows that I am a caring person and I can do things for others not for my own satisfaction but for the satisfaction of others who are in need.

I think the most important way of defining a community is looking at all the little things in the community as a whole. The little things are what make the community come together as a whole and really define the community as one and distinguish it from others.