🌳 PART 2: Family Histories

Theme: Struggle and Inheritance

"To grow up in that family was to see the shaping of minds: the learning of new skills, the shifting of relationships, the emergence of different language and ideas. My grandfather, a big hard labourer, wept while he spoke, finely and excitedly, at the parish meeting, of being turned out of his cottage. My father, not long before he died, spoke quietly and happily of when he had started a trade-union branch and a Labour Party group in the village, and, without bitterness, of the ‘kept men’ of the new politics. I speak a different idiom, but I think of these same things."

In this moment, Williams is witnessing how generations change culture — through suffering, action, and voice. Each man in the family speaks a different language of resistance, but each contributes to the making of a shared tradition.

✍️ Activity: Inherited Voices

List three stories, sayings, or values passed down in your family. Choose one and write 2–3 sentences about how it shaped the way you see the world.

🧠 Thinking Prompt:

How have people in your family — or community — taught you to speak, fight, or survive?

✅ Your Code Word:

ROOTS
Write this on your Culture Map Tracker and reflect on how family carries both pain and power — and how that’s part of your cultural inheritance.