What are some ways to open a paper about the culture I represent other than the standard, "I represent so and so culture"?

I think that there are many ways you can approach this. 
The most basic would be to define the notion of "culture."  What does the idea of
"culture" mean?  What are the elements that comprise its definition?  Defining or
explicating the term so that the audience can understand it might help in your
explanation.  Along these lines, you can work the definition into your own understanding
of culture.  The idea of a "culture" does not have to be strictly read along the lines
of ethnicity or racial composition.  One can be part of a youth culture, a political
culture, a culture of ideas, and these can converge and interact with one another.  It
might be interesting to discuss what are some "higher" and "lower" notions in your
culture.  What is a value in which your culture places a strong and zealous faith? What
are the elements that define your culture in terms of values and core beliefs?  Opening
with this might be interesting.  For example, a nice topic sentence to this paper might
be to simply put out there, "________ is a value for which my culture would fight to
uphold or preserve."  That is a very unique way of opening the paper and topic and it
would compel the reader to continue examining it.  I think that these ways are
interesting and unique approaches to the standard writing topic of defining
culture.