Diego Vazquez

RWS 1301
September 13, 2017
Agency Discourse Memo

In life we form part of many groups of people that are gathered because of certain similarities
that those individuals have and forming a community. A community can be formed by having
many different types of similarities with individuals, for examples similar religions, beliefs, or
common hobbies like sports and similarities in the way we dress or even our ethnicity. Every
different community has different rules to follow for example forms of communication and
different forms of conducting yourself within them. In some cases, you are born into a
community without having a decision in it, for example, being born in a different country
therefore becoming part of this religious community. This leads to discourse communities which
are communities in which we share the same values and goals in which we use different forms of
communication to accomplish them. In my life I belong to different discourse communities. I am
fortunate enough to be part of great communities, and to be able to stand proud of them as well.
In order to expand on the different communities a person may be part of, I would like to talk
about some of the communities I belong to.

I would like to start by talking about the most important community I belong to. The one I
that I am most proud of, which is my family. I became part of the Vazquez family on August 25
1996, which is the day I was born. In my family everybody gets along and interacts with each
other in order to create a stronger bond as a family. In my family we communicate to each other
informally and polite, depending on how well you get along with that sibling and the level of
respect there is toward them. In the Vazquez family our main topics of communication are our
individual everyday life and any unusual events in them. We also talk about our personal
problems and help each other with them. A great part of our everyday life is both school and
work, which are also big topics in our conversations. Normally we communicate by speech and
lately by text messaging. Other forms of communication in the family could include phone calls
and rarely social media. This community is my foundation and the community that forms the
person I am, which is why I am so proud of being part of it.
 Forming part of a family automatically introduces you into other communities as well. As you
are born in a family you are also introduced into other communities like a nationality or
nationalities if you have more than one. In my case I have two nationalities I was born in the
U.S. but both my parents have Mexican nationalities. Most of my life I have resided in Juarez,
Mexico, a border city with the U.S., so all my life I have been interacting in both countries, this
gave me the opportunity to learn about both communities and see how they differ from one
another. I am more attached to my Mexican nationality since I have spent more time in it. In this
community we communicate normally informally but of course there are exceptions depending
on how much respect the individual whom you are communicating with is seen in the
community. The most common form of communicating in a Mexican community is by speech,
regular face to face conversations in Spanish. Other forms of communicating could include
phone calls, text messages and social media of course all of these in Spanish as well. Topics in
such a broad community can vary a lot but it can be narrowed down to topics like current events
in the community and everyday life. To form part of a Mexican community you have to either be
born in Mexico or be raised in a Mexican family with Mexican values.

As you become part of a nationality community you start to become more and more like
everybody else in that same community. You become to get used to different habits that belong
to the same nationality without even noticing it. You become used to the different mores and
beliefs in that same community just by being born in that region or family. Since I was born in a
Mexican family I was raised with Catholic values, although not all Mexican families are Catholic
the great majority of them are. It is not rare to see that when a person is raised with certain
religious beliefs he or she follows those same beliefs, as it is in my case. I am very proud to
belong to such a great community as the Catholic Church; this community not only has great
values and beliefs, but it also helps us members of the community to become better individuals.
In the Catholic community we treat everybody with kindness and respect, not only that but
everyone is valued equally regardless of economic status or social status. In a catholic
community we interact by going to mass every Sunday, going to confessions and also by
attending seminars and other events in the community. The main topics in a Catholic community
are of course the word of God, and the guidelines to be a good catholic for example, respecting
your fellow brothers and sisters, helping those in need and to do good no matter the situation.
 There are many types of communities and a lot of them you are born into them and without
even noticing those communities connect to many others. There are other communities in which
you are not born or brought into them, but rather you choose to be part of them like a certain
sport community or a certain music community or whatever community you choose because of
who you are and what you like. One community that I chose to be part of is my college, the
University of Texas at El Paso. UTEP is a community in which I became part of by enrolling
into the college of business because it was my dream and my decision to become a business
major. In this community we normally communicate in an informal way unless you are
communicating with a professor or other form of authority. Normally the topics at college are
our classes and any work in them, we also talk about current events in campus or out of campus
and our daily lives. It is great to get along and interact with any individual in any community but
interacting in college is very helpful to get through with classes.

There are many different types of communities, some we have no choice or opinion on
becoming part of them and others we choose to be part of them because of personal decision.
The reality is that everyone is part of different communities and for every community you belong
to there is different guidelines and procedures to get along and interact in them. There is not only
a procedure of how to interact in them, but also, a procedure to become part of them as well.
Overall it is great to belong to many communities and to be able to interact within them, you
may not even notice that you belong to a community until you realize that everybody is attached
by different types of communities which help form every individual.

Brief discussion:

The hardest part about making the map was finding out which communities all four in the group
belong to. The easiest part of making the map was filling in the topics, genre and conventions.