The culture a person is surrounded by can shape and define their identity. Beliefs and lessons passed on from generation to generation can help shape and define one's characteristics. To completely know who you are as an individual we must stay connected to our culture through language, traditions, and values. As we grow up in a particular culture he/she absorb beliefs and practices, which they channel into everyday life through acculturation. A result of acculturation is the development of identity. "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker defines the different views of heritage between a mother and her daughters, resulting in a clear disagreement with respect and heritage. Mrs. Johnson, a hardworking Southern African American woman, built big and strong, has been working on the fields all her life since her school closed in the second grade. She has two daughter's Dee and Maggie, there is a clear distinction between two daughters. Dee was always the attractive, smart, popular daughter. Maggie is shy and awkward because she hasn’t have much experience interacting with the world. Although Dee is mentally smarter than Maggie, Dee turns out to have a shallow grasp on what is meaningful to her family. Growing up, Dee has always seemed to get on her mother’s nerves with her drive and attitude as if she was better than her family. Mrs. Johnson once remembered a time after she enrolled Dee in high school and how her attitude changed: "She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folk's habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make believe burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits we seemed about to understand" (Walker 3). All of sudden Dee has come to some type of acceptance with her heritage. Before becoming wealthy Dee struggled