As I looked back at these events, I was a little surprised at how easy it has been for me to be accepting of different cultures. My grandfather and other elders would have probably had completely different stories because of the time that they had grew up in. From this paper, I have learned that there will always be someone who will judge others, but it is up to us to break the vicious cycle that has been laid out for us by our ancestors. Something that I had never pondered about until now was when I first noticed that not everyone had the same skin color as I had. I just feel like this never was something I worried about and therefore I never questioned it. I feel like children are so different in the way they accepted others. They don't immediately judge instead they wonder and our amazed at differences. It is truly beautiful. If we could all see things the way children do, I feel like the world would be completely different. I feel like through this paper a difficult subject to think about was when the world that I lived in seemed to shift from rainbows and butterflies to war and hate. I think this is a difficult topic because those early years ultimately shape the people that we become. When we learn from others to hate, we begin to hate. But when we learn to see the good side in others, we begin to love. I was lucky enough to have parents that taught me to love, but other children are taught to hate those around them and blame others for the problems they have faced in life. We need to listen and learn from one another no matter the color of our skin or the languages that we speak.
I agree, I was also lucky enough to be raised by parents who took the time to discuss that people are different and its okay to accept them even if others say not to. It doesn't matter what a person looks like, you'll never understand them if you don't give them a chance. Sometimes the differences people share bring them closer together.
I agree with you that it is an amazing thing that children are automatically understanding and accepting of all races. I nanny two small girls and I know that they do not see people in colors. I asked the younger girl one time how to pronouce one of her friend's names and she responded with, "how could you not know how to say his name?!". In my town of Shrewsbury (where I grew up and nanny today) the town has become so much more diverse than when I was a child. There are many different students in the girls' classes with different races and ethnicities. This is a great thing.
Hi, my grandfather def had a different point of view when it came to different cultures than I did. I agree that it had a lot to do with the times that he grew up in. I think it is great that we know that this is wrong and dont follow in their footsteps. Your statement about seeing the world as a child does reminds me of pictures I have seen on the internet where two children from different races are playing together and the thought of prejudism is nowhere to be found. How amazing chidlren can be!
I have learned a lot in life and I am still learning as I get older. I am originally from West Africa and migrated to the United States about fifteen years ago. I remember my first day going to high school when my dad said learn from others, respect them and be vigilant. I did not understand him back then, but now I understand. what I am drawing at is that, it does not matter where we come from, we should love one another. I have learned a lot when it comes to culture and society. We all have different beliefs, values, customs, habits, language and morals, however learning from each other makes us one body and we can build a community and make differences in our children's life's.
Barbara, I love what your father taught you. I hope I can convey the same message to my children that he has taught you. We may not agree with what someone's believes in, but accepting the differences helps us to become a better society overall. Great post!
I appreciate your perspective of this. It is amazing to hear that your father told you exactly what a lot of our parents told us too! No matter what the cultural background, everyone wants to be treated with respect. I also agree with you that we are still learning as we get older with more experience and wide knowledge. Thanks for sharing.
I think this is very well put and yet so simple. It reminds me of what I hope to teach the young children in my class. I want to teach them to appreciate and respect one another's differences. I agree that it is important to learn from each other and I am always in awe when I learn something new from the children in my class.
Wow, Barbara I totally agree with your comment. What your dad said was very powerful and I think it proves the point that parents and those who raise us make a huge difference in the way we see and accept others. It is so important for parents to guide their children in a way of appreciating the life around them. Thank you for your comment.
Ideally it will be awesome for everyone to just get along and be accepting .But in all of our differences there is this uniiqueness that should be celebrated.I know its easy to call out our difference and make that a statement as to why certain people are different.I find it so amazing that though we are all on this earth ,where we live ,race ,culture has shaped us so dramatically.Its even amazing to me how I can meet other black people but yet you get this feeling of how different their culture and background might be.Let alone people of other races.There is an experiment done by a teacher Jane Elliot called brown eyes vs blue eyes that is very important as to how easy it is for us to discriminate based on what we are told .This is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84sIts easier to lump people together and be judgmental .
Hi Laurencia: I do know that brown eyes vs blue eyes very well, I am a psychology major and have a lot of developmental classes. Discrimination can happen in a split second. We have to keep our guard in practicing respect for all. We won't necessarily love everyone, but we can learn to treat each individual no matter what race, ethnicity, or socio-economical status as if that person were us. This, I think, takes practice and takes an open heart. Each day I ask to lead the day with my feet on the ground and my heart open. Each day I do this, because it is easy to get caught up in other things.
Very true...unfortunately race and race issues is such a dominating issue in this society that it takes away from so much that we could be doing .There is such a separation between people in our society and a struggle for power (who is right and who is wrong).Even our media ,churches,schools and all is deeply divided.
Hi everyone. I grew up in the public school systems of NYC during the late 1960's into until 1977. I don't like to age myself...but the reality is that time was a tumultuous time in the underlinings of society in the city, not that I necessarily knew exactly what was going on at the time. But there was a school strike for a very long time across all the public schools - this was specifically about Blacks and Jews,not blacks and whites, but blacks and Jews: the battle of hiring and firing based on color or ethnicity. It was a power struggle discrimination. I can say this: Schools in NY then and I believe now, are closed on all the Jewish Holidays...who won the battle of the school system and the labor unions. I worked in NYC and we were closed on the major Jewish holidays. Either way, there's discrimination that people learn to just accept. So my time lining brought me back to my school days and more details pop into my head. I believe that cultural competency happens through constant discoveries along the way, discoveries of ourselves and our own reactions. There are so many variations, aside from race, ethnicity,, cultural values and morals, and socioeconomic status. There are language barriers, the timing of coming to America, meaning what did they leave from: natural disasters, war, or did they come to America for a better opportunity with perhaps no opportunity to be had? While I do believe we need to love and accept, we have to learn to love and accept. One of the best ways I can think to do that, is to try to remember that we do not know what another person's status is. So when someone needs our help, yet they can't express themselves to ask for help...can we help them, or to we ignore them. If we can't do it in small ways, we can't do it in big ways. While we need to be aware of cultural competency, we need to practice communicating and interacting with different cultures. Time, love, and determination to understand our differences eventually allows us to understand our commonalities.
Many of us taking this course are from another generation, so I appreciate you sharing this experience. Those strikes and the civil rights movement at large was not so long ago, and there has certainly been lasting and real change as a result, but we still have a ways to go. Like you said, we need to learn to love and accept.
I too grew up not noticing other cultures. I believed that we are all unique, but did not fully understand why. It was not until I was older that I really started noticing the differences between myself and others. I wanted to understand those differences, so I asked questions. Lots of them. I am sure I drove people crazy with the amount of questions I asked. I loved learning about different cultures and the uniqueness that made us who we are. I was a military wife and moved to a few duty stations. I would try to learn about the customs and cultures of each of the places we moved to. I would also incorporate some of these newly learned customs into my family's lives. I tried teaching my children to embrace new things and learn what you can about different cultures. I hope that by doing this, it will help my children to be more accepting to new cultures and people that they will meet. I hope that my wanting to learn about new cultures will continue with my children as they get older. The biggest thing that I have learned throughout my years, is that I do not have to agree with someone's beliefs, but I do have to be understanding to them. Acceptance is something we all need to learn.
I enjoyed your comment and your desire to learn about other cultures. You were excited, so most people probably enjoyed sharing with you. I believe your children will grow up learning and accepting other cultures as a part of who they are because you are teaching them. I decided to raise my son in this small town in MA instead of Queens. However, I learned by 2nd or 3rd grade that he had no cultural experiences happening here. So I took him to NYC and to Boston many times to see new "faces", and also to know what public transportation was!
I think it was great that you were able to have such wonderful experiences throughout your moves with your husband. I think it is nice that you try to bring other customs into your home as well. I hope to one day do that for my family as well.
Hi Nena, that's very interesting. Being a military wife, you have probably experienced numerous cultural differences and seen how being American is probably perceived so much different in other countries.
While writing my paper I realized how open I have always been to learning about different cultures. What I found interesting while writing my paper was I really had to think about the first time I learned about a different culture. That was when a Syrian Muslim shared some information with me about her culture and faith which are so deeply intertwined together. I remember being fascinated about how different her culture is and how it led her to have a different lifestyle from me. Every year in school I remember for a month during Ramadan she could not eat lunch or have snack with us. She told us she could only eat during certain hours. I remember being so fascinated to learn this and being amazed she could last twelve hours without a single drop of food or water while us Americans could barely last part of that time with the way we are with food. Another thing I noticed was how I always recognized the difference of cultures that sometimes led to severe conflicts. I believe this stems back to my love of learning history. With history many events and conflicts start off as being due to a difference of cultural beliefs. So I have always been aware of this and how the difference of beliefs and practices in a culture can cause racism. Overall, I have always been open to different cultures and learning about them. I also recognize that what they believe and practice may not always be what I believe or what I think is right but I respect them for what they believe and do.
While I was writing out my paper, I began to revisit some dark memories I had growing up. I remember resenting the fact that I was asian-american. I remember constantly being tormented about how my eyes look and my constant mocking of my language. I remember coming home in tears balling my eyes out and hating so much to be different. As I got older, I began to embrace and take pride in my culture, it was either that or be embarrassed and ashamed and I didn't feel like I should be bullied into believing something was wrong with me. Because of the constant teasing, I think it made me more sensitive towards other cultures a lot more open minded and accepting. I think that people should at least be respectful of one another, you don't necessarily have to like what they believe in but at least learn to respect one another.
I'm really sorry you had to go to this dark place while writing your paper. It's horrible the way you were treated and I can't believe it even happened! But I am happy that you were able to come to terms with your culture and being to embrace it and even come to take pride in it. I absolutely agree with you and this is also something that I wrote about in my paper that even though you might not accept a culture or its beliefs and practices you still should be respectful of it.
Hi Vi, sorry about the dark memories. However I am glad you have realized how important other cultures are to you and the importance of every culture. Migrating to the States as I said has had a big impact on my culture, but it has not change mine because culture varies across time and place. An example is in West Africa, we do not celebrate Thanksgiving, but I had to learn it and celebrate it because am an American now and my family celebrates it. and I love it.
I think people often overlook the prejudice Asian-american's face because it's not talked about much in the media, which is unfortunate because these issues are nothing new (Chinese exclusion act, WW2), and should be addressed.
I agree , it seems that this is not really addressed in public forums whether the media or social platforms. While Asians make up the majority of the worlds population you typically do not hear a public outcry or call for awareness regarding Asian related discrimination or derision of Asian culture.. I think that many non-Asians in general are not concerned with Asian discrimination as being an issue due to the nature of some of the stereotypes surrounding Asians and the misguided belief that Asians are not disenfranchised .
Exactly, people over look it because they are seen as the "good minority". I think people sometimes think it's okay to use these stereotypes because they don't think it's insulting to be deemed "smart" or "exotic" but it's still discrimination, it's just sugar coated.
Good topic! People don't usually see these stereotypes as derogatory. However, if one doesn't fit the stereotype it can be very stressful! Good comments!
After going through the timeline and writing my essay I realized that my family taught me well when they told me to treat people how I wanted to be treated. I am accepting of all, and have many friends who come from all different religious and ethnic backgrounds and different parts of the world. As far back as I can remember I always had someone in a class or on a sports team who may have looked “different”. It never bothered me or made me resent them. I think some people are too caught up in the business of others when they should just be worrying about themselves. No one has ever been or will be exactly the same and there will never be a universal correct way of living. People will continue to be different and need to be accepted and just because they are different doesn’t make them right or wrong. Some people were raised to believe in something completely different and there is nothing wrong with that. You have to get to know someone before you can even begin to judge them. How I live my life and how I was raised doesn’t make me better or worse than the people around me.
I agree with you when you say that you think some people are too caught up in the business of others when they should be just worrying about themselves! But are we too caught up in ourselves? Should we be learning about these different cultures that we are unfamiliar with?
This was a really eye opening activity for me to experience. My parents always taught me to treat others with respect and kindness. I have to admit that I have experienced and witnessed my grandparents discussing different races in not a great way. I have never seen them actually treat someone of a different race badly or differently; I think it's something they only do within the privacy of their home. Which of course, does not make it right!! It is definitly a generational thing. However, my parents always went above and beyond to teach my siblings and I to accept and respect everyone. I have a cousin who is adopted from Africa. I was only six years old when she became a part of our family. I remember asking my parents why she looked different, and how is she my cousin if she looks totally different than my other cousins! That was a great learning experience for me. It amazes me that children are automatically very understanding and accepting of other races. I shared in a response post, that I nanny and have noticed how the girls (7 and 9) are so open to all friends. I think that as children we are open and understanding to all races because we don't see differences. As we get older, we make and create our own opinions about others.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, it is totally a generation thing. In the 50's, when our elders were likely young and thriving, they experienced segregation and believed that was normal. Where as now a days, we are far more open minded and accepting of others - which is how it should be. It is merely taught.
After completing the timeline activity along with writing my paper, I learned that I have always been open to other cultures. I think that the reason why I am so accepting and willing to learn more about other people is because of the way I was raised. Both from my parents at home, and my teachers in elementary school, I was taught to, “treat others the way you would like to be treated”. Since I heard it so much it really stuck to my brain. The way that I comprehended that saying when I was younger, opposed to now, is completely deeper. I don’t think that I saw someone of a different race than me as “different”. Now, being almost 20 years old, I do recognize the physical differences, but that is all I recognize. In my eyes, if someone or some group of people are a different race than me, I do not think twice about their worth and meaning in life. I think that everyone has their own ways of going through their day to day lives, and yes, it is sometimes hard to understand why people do the things that they do, but I accept it.
Growing up I never really understood where i belonged or who i belonged to culturally or ethnically. After writing this, I now understand more of how i have developed. I spent most of my time with adults, I never really went outside to play, unless it was for practice or a game. I was an only child until i was 16, imagine that! And with that I honestly matured faster than the rest of my peers. I understood that I was different, and so was everyone else, but most importantly, I am a unique individual. I am the only person who can change the way i feel, to stop being so down and to go make friends. That my skin color does not define me as dirty or dry. I have accepted me for me and i am fortunate enough to realize this at such a young age rather than struggling through life being ignorant toward people who are not the same as me.
Tonight, My brother, who is 5 & just started kindergarten, was in the tub scrubbing and scrubbing to the point where he was crying. He told me he was very upset & i asked why. He told me that he wanted to look like the other kids in his class and that maybe if he scrubs hard enought the brown will come off. it broke my heart :(
That is just so terrible and heartbreaking. I can't even imagine how hard it can be for little kids these days and we like to think that the world is becoming more diverse and these problems are getting better but that isn't the case yet. People are horrid to one and other and he needs to know that he is absolutely perfect the way he is!
What did you say to him!!!! I hope you were able to explain how wonderfully perfect and how important he is, just as he is!!!! He's too young to have to deal with indifference! I have a five year old... This breaks my heart!
I let him sleep in my bed that night & we watched movies and ate popcorn & just hung out.. I told him that he is most perfect little boy in the world. It was so completely sad. I have a son who is 7 months, i hope he doesn't have to go through this!
Hi all. While writing my paper and working on my timeline I found myself really thinking deeply into the subject of multi-cultural backgrounds and how, as children, we were raised to accept others. I have always been very open to learning about different cultures, and befriending those with diverse backgrounds. Race and religion aren't as important to me as character, friendship, shared interests, etc. As a child I had a diverse group of peers, and I truly loved them all. As I grew, due to stigmas in play yards, boys turned into vile gremlins that had cooties. I would run from them and was not so kind. I wasn't accepting of their 'differences' perse. In high school, I was bullied, as were others, due to differences. Others weren't as accepting to those who were different from them, and made it known. I'm sure some of my classmates have been on both sides of this spectrum. It all comes down to what you learn. I was taught as a child to accept everyone for exactly who they are, and love them for it. Other children were not taught the same, and were hateful and demeaning. They weren't culturally diverse or accepting of others. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, I have learned a lot along the way.
After writing my timeline and my paper I realized that I have always been very open to other cultures and that I always enjoyed learning about the different cultures. Though I must have always known that, the one thing that really struck me was that I seemed to be living in a type of "box" when it came to the negative thoughts that other people had towards different cultures and people from different cultures. When I was young I thought that most people were open to learning about other cultures, but the more I got to know the experiences of people from other races/cultures, I found this was not always the case. I also realized that although it is a good thing not to teach your children stereotypes or talk down about other cultures in front of your children, it can also be detrimental not to teach your children about some of the tough times that other cultures had to face and continue to face nowadays.
After completing this exercise I realized I've always had way more issues surrounding religion than race. I grew up in a very diverse city, but I went to a catholic school, which I absolutely hated. Forcing religion on me made me have an issue towards people of faith, which doesn't really make sense but it's the truth. I like to think I know a lot about discrimination and the issues surrounding race, but I have a lot of prejudice regarding organized religion and historically that's just as bad if not worse. Working on this time line made me think back to when and why these ideas were formed, and made me wonder what I would have been like if I never attended that school. Who knows, if god wasn't pushed or presented in the matter it was I could have turned out extremely religious. It's interesting to think about how our experiences and surroundings shape us.
Hi Chelsea, I can completely see how you came to have a prejudice view on religion. I would have been a very miserable young girl if religion had been forced upon me. I cannot even handle taking a class on religion. I love learning about different cultures in a hands on setting but sitting and being forced to learn about it and follow it is not okay. And it is interesting to think about "if things were different"...in my case, my grandparents were very catholic and very racist and I can only imagine how I would have turned out if my parents believed the same thing. I am so thankful I grew up in Worcester and always had a diverse group of friends. -Andrea D'alio
This assignment did open my eyes to many things I had forgotten from my childhood. For example, when I was in elementary school one of my best friends was Spanish and I would spend countless nights at her house just having a good time. Looking back, I realize that I learned so much about her culture and how it was so different from my own. For example, her family was very religious and always took me to Sunday morning mass with them, something I had never done before. I also learned about the types of food they ate, times they ate, and how they were so close to relatives. In my family, we could go months without seeing grandparents or aunts and her family was completely the opposite. All of this was very conflicting for me at such a young age because my grandparents were very much pure catholic and born and raised in Italy and they were not at all onboard for a diverse world. Thankfully, being born and raised in Worcester, MA...their attitude and belief did not rub off on me and I have always surrounded myself with different cultures. I can only imagine though how I would have turned out had I not grown up in Worcester and had parents who believed in the same things. -Andrea D'alio
A previous post mentioned generational differences , that resonated with me when recalling some of the events on my timeline . When I was a teenager in the 1980's it was not uncommon when out with a group of friends (in Worcester) for passersby in cars or on foot to yell slurs or make threats . In the current time if this were to happen I think most people would file some type of report or complaint with the local police.Progress has been made in that I believe most people are cognizant (especially Millennials) that this type of verbal assault is socially inappropriate behavior. However there seems to be a modern day version of this in social media. The comments section of any current event or popular story where people espouse these views under anonymity.
Upon completing the cultural competence timeline review I realized two things. I realized that as I suspected I am not as culturally competent as I would like to be, and that as a white Caucasian I have had it extremely easy in this world as opposed to people of many other cultural backgrounds, which is something I knew, but actually doing these assignments is bringing to my attention how lucky I am to have never personally endured discrimination. As I have said before in a previous blog entry, I almost feel guilty or ashamed of how culturally incompetent I am. It was brought to my attention while filling in my timeline that at a young age my cultural competence was mainly a product of my environment including what I observe in school and social situations, saw in media, and knew from my own family; however in my adulthood my career and college education has a lot to do with what little I do know about other cultures. I grew up in Marlborough, which when I was growing up lacked much cultural diversity, although now has many more Hispanic/Latino families living within it, so I wasn’t really exposed to a lot of diversity, which was apparent in my timeline. At my present job I encounter families of many varying cultural backgrounds as a preschool teacher, which has taught me more about cultural differences through conversing with family members of the children I teach.
The timeline activity was a very interesting exercise. I reflected on the fact that because my mother is adopted and my father passed away when I was young. I grew up unaware of my cultural background. We had no cultural or ethnic traditions and I had no idea where my ancestry came from. I was always jealous of other families that had stories passed down through many generations. I still feel like I missed out on something quite meaningful. It is so important to honor and remember the past. We can learn so much from listing to the stories of others and learning to appreciate them. This also led me to think about my work. I process paperwork for student and faculty from other countries who are working or studying in the US. Because I meet so many people, I have to make a conscious effort to not say to myself, "all people from XX country are rude" or "everyone from XX country has poor hygiene." Realizing that people don't live by the same standards as we do in the US. Hygiene, social graces, politeness vary immensely from nation to nation.
This timeline activity definitely gave me a new perspective on cultural differences. I was raised as a first generation in the United States of America. Being a first generation definitely had its ups and downs. I always was teaching myself how to assimilate into this culture without leaving my Indian roots. Throughout my middle and high school years I did go through a lot of stereotyping and it was hurtful. However, over time I was definitely able to embrace both cultures in a way I did not give up my Indian roots and made sure to still be able to get used to the American lifestyle. It was a learning experience over the years to incorporate both worlds.
As I looked back at these events, I was a little surprised at how easy it has been for me to be accepting of different cultures. My grandfather and other elders would have probably had completely different stories because of the time that they had grew up in. From this paper, I have learned that there will always be someone who will judge others, but it is up to us to break the vicious cycle that has been laid out for us by our ancestors.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I had never pondered about until now was when I first noticed that not everyone had the same skin color as I had. I just feel like this never was something I worried about and therefore I never questioned it. I feel like children are so different in the way they accepted others. They don't immediately judge instead they wonder and our amazed at differences. It is truly beautiful. If we could all see things the way children do, I feel like the world would be completely different.
I feel like through this paper a difficult subject to think about was when the world that I lived in seemed to shift from rainbows and butterflies to war and hate. I think this is a difficult topic because those early years ultimately shape the people that we become. When we learn from others to hate, we begin to hate. But when we learn to see the good side in others, we begin to love. I was lucky enough to have parents that taught me to love, but other children are taught to hate those around them and blame others for the problems they have faced in life. We need to listen and learn from one another no matter the color of our skin or the languages that we speak.
Racism is thought ,among other things!
DeleteI agree, I was also lucky enough to be raised by parents who took the time to discuss that people are different and its okay to accept them even if others say not to. It doesn't matter what a person looks like, you'll never understand them if you don't give them a chance. Sometimes the differences people share bring them closer together.
DeleteI agree with you that it is an amazing thing that children are automatically understanding and accepting of all races. I nanny two small girls and I know that they do not see people in colors. I asked the younger girl one time how to pronouce one of her friend's names and she responded with, "how could you not know how to say his name?!". In my town of Shrewsbury (where I grew up and nanny today) the town has become so much more diverse than when I was a child. There are many different students in the girls' classes with different races and ethnicities. This is a great thing.
DeleteHi,
Deletemy grandfather def had a different point of view when it came to different cultures than I did. I agree that it had a lot to do with the times that he grew up in. I think it is great that we know that this is wrong and dont follow in their footsteps. Your statement about seeing the world as a child does reminds me of pictures I have seen on the internet where two children from different races are playing together and the thought of prejudism is nowhere to be found. How amazing chidlren can be!
I have learned a lot in life and I am still learning as I get older. I am originally from West Africa and migrated to the United States about fifteen years ago. I remember my first day going to high school when my dad said learn from others, respect them and be vigilant. I did not understand him back then, but now I understand. what I am drawing at is that, it does not matter where we come from, we should love one another. I have learned a lot when it comes to culture and society. We all have different beliefs, values, customs, habits, language and morals, however learning from each other makes us one body and we can build a community and make differences in our children's life's.
ReplyDeleteBarbara,
DeleteI love what your father taught you. I hope I can convey the same message to my children that he has taught you. We may not agree with what someone's believes in, but accepting the differences helps us to become a better society overall. Great post!
Thank you Nena T.
DeleteI appreciate your perspective of this. It is amazing to hear that your father told you exactly what a lot of our parents told us too! No matter what the cultural background, everyone wants to be treated with respect. I also agree with you that we are still learning as we get older with more experience and wide knowledge. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteI think this is very well put and yet so simple. It reminds me of what I hope to teach the young children in my class. I want to teach them to appreciate and respect one another's differences. I agree that it is important to learn from each other and I am always in awe when I learn something new from the children in my class.
DeleteWow, Barbara I totally agree with your comment. What your dad said was very powerful and I think it proves the point that parents and those who raise us make a huge difference in the way we see and accept others. It is so important for parents to guide their children in a way of appreciating the life around them. Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteAngela our Parents do make a huge difference in our life's.
DeleteIdeally it will be awesome for everyone to just get along and be accepting .But in all of our differences there is this uniiqueness that should be celebrated.I know its easy to call out our difference and make that a statement as to why certain people are different.I find it so amazing that though we are all on this earth ,where we live ,race ,culture has shaped us so dramatically.Its even amazing to me how I can meet other black people but yet you get this feeling of how different their culture and background might be.Let alone people of other races.There is an experiment done by a teacher Jane Elliot called brown eyes vs blue eyes that is very important as to how easy it is for us to discriminate based on what we are told .This is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84sIts easier to lump people together and be judgmental .
ReplyDeleteHi Laurencia: I do know that brown eyes vs blue eyes very well, I am a psychology major and have a lot of developmental classes. Discrimination can happen in a split second. We have to keep our guard in practicing respect for all. We won't necessarily love everyone, but we can learn to treat each individual no matter what race, ethnicity, or socio-economical status as if that person were us. This, I think, takes practice and takes an open heart. Each day I ask to lead the day with my feet on the ground and my heart open. Each day I do this, because it is easy to get caught up in other things.
DeleteVery true...unfortunately race and race issues is such a dominating issue in this society that it takes away from so much that we could be doing .There is such a separation between people in our society and a struggle for power (who is right and who is wrong).Even our media ,churches,schools and all is deeply divided.
DeleteHi everyone. I grew up in the public school systems of NYC during the late 1960's into until 1977. I don't like to age myself...but the reality is that time was a tumultuous time in the underlinings of society in the city, not that I necessarily knew exactly what was going on at the time. But there was a school strike for a very long time across all the public schools - this was specifically about Blacks and Jews,not blacks and whites, but blacks and Jews: the battle of hiring and firing based on color or ethnicity. It was a power struggle discrimination. I can say this: Schools in NY then and I believe now, are closed on all the Jewish Holidays...who won the battle of the school system and the labor unions. I worked in NYC and we were closed on the major Jewish holidays. Either way, there's discrimination that people learn to just accept. So my time lining brought me back to my school days and more details pop into my head. I believe that cultural competency happens through constant discoveries along the way, discoveries of ourselves and our own reactions. There are so many variations, aside from race, ethnicity,, cultural values and morals, and socioeconomic status. There are language barriers, the timing of coming to America, meaning what did they leave from: natural disasters, war, or did they come to America for a better opportunity with perhaps no opportunity to be had? While I do believe we need to love and accept, we have to learn to love and accept. One of the best ways I can think to do that, is to try to remember that we do not know what another person's status is. So when someone needs our help, yet they can't express themselves to ask for help...can we help them, or to we ignore them. If we can't do it in small ways, we can't do it in big ways. While we need to be aware of cultural competency, we need to practice communicating and interacting with different cultures. Time, love, and determination to understand our differences eventually allows us to understand our commonalities.
ReplyDeleteHi Christine,
DeleteMany of us taking this course are from another generation, so I appreciate you sharing this experience. Those strikes and the civil rights movement at large was not so long ago, and there has certainly been lasting and real change as a result, but we still have a ways to go. Like you said, we need to learn to love and accept.
Brittany K.
I too grew up not noticing other cultures. I believed that we are all unique, but did not fully understand why. It was not until I was older that I really started noticing the differences between myself and others. I wanted to understand those differences, so I asked questions. Lots of them. I am sure I drove people crazy with the amount of questions I asked. I loved learning about different cultures and the uniqueness that made us who we are.
ReplyDeleteI was a military wife and moved to a few duty stations. I would try to learn about the customs and cultures of each of the places we moved to. I would also incorporate some of these newly learned customs into my family's lives. I tried teaching my children to embrace new things and learn what you can about different cultures. I hope that by doing this, it will help my children to be more accepting to new cultures and people that they will meet. I hope that my wanting to learn about new cultures will continue with my children as they get older.
The biggest thing that I have learned throughout my years, is that I do not have to agree with someone's beliefs, but I do have to be understanding to them. Acceptance is something we all need to learn.
Hi Neena:
DeleteI enjoyed your comment and your desire to learn about other cultures. You were excited, so most people probably enjoyed sharing with you.
I believe your children will grow up learning and accepting other cultures as a part of who they are because you are teaching them.
I decided to raise my son in this small town in MA instead of Queens. However, I learned by 2nd or 3rd grade that he had no cultural experiences happening here. So I took him to NYC and to Boston many times to see new "faces", and also to know what public transportation was!
Hi Neena!
DeleteI think it was great that you were able to have such wonderful experiences throughout your moves with your husband. I think it is nice that you try to bring other customs into your home as well. I hope to one day do that for my family as well.
Hi Nena, that's very interesting. Being a military wife, you have probably experienced numerous cultural differences and seen how being American is probably perceived so much different in other countries.
DeleteWhile writing my paper I realized how open I have always been to learning about different cultures.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting while writing my paper was I really had to think about the first time I learned about a different culture. That was when a Syrian Muslim shared some information with me about her culture and faith which are so deeply intertwined together. I remember being fascinated about how different her culture is and how it led her to have a different lifestyle from me. Every year in school I remember for a month during Ramadan she could not eat lunch or have snack with us. She told us she could only eat during certain hours. I remember being so fascinated to learn this and being amazed she could last twelve hours without a single drop of food or water while us Americans could barely last part of that time with the way we are with food.
Another thing I noticed was how I always recognized the difference of cultures that sometimes led to severe conflicts. I believe this stems back to my love of learning history. With history many events and conflicts start off as being due to a difference of cultural beliefs. So I have always been aware of this and how the difference of beliefs and practices in a culture can cause racism.
Overall, I have always been open to different cultures and learning about them. I also recognize that what they believe and practice may not always be what I believe or what I think is right but I respect them for what they believe and do.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteWhile I was writing out my paper, I began to revisit some dark memories I had growing up. I remember resenting the fact that I was asian-american. I remember constantly being tormented about how my eyes look and my constant mocking of my language. I remember coming home in tears balling my eyes out and hating so much to be different. As I got older, I began to embrace and take pride in my culture, it was either that or be embarrassed and ashamed and I didn't feel like I should be bullied into believing something was wrong with me. Because of the constant teasing, I think it made me more sensitive towards other cultures a lot more open minded and accepting. I think that people should at least be respectful of one another, you don't necessarily have to like what they believe in but at least learn to respect one another.
Vi B
Vi,
DeleteI'm really sorry you had to go to this dark place while writing your paper. It's horrible the way you were treated and I can't believe it even happened! But I am happy that you were able to come to terms with your culture and being to embrace it and even come to take pride in it. I absolutely agree with you and this is also something that I wrote about in my paper that even though you might not accept a culture or its beliefs and practices you still should be respectful of it.
Hi Vi, sorry about the dark memories. However I am glad you have realized how important other cultures are to you and the importance of every culture. Migrating to the States as I said has had a big impact on my culture, but it has not change mine because culture varies across time and place. An example is in West Africa, we do not celebrate Thanksgiving, but I had to learn it and celebrate it because am an American now and my family celebrates it. and I love it.
DeleteI think people often overlook the prejudice Asian-american's face because it's not talked about much in the media, which is unfortunate because these issues are nothing new (Chinese exclusion act, WW2), and should be addressed.
ReplyDeleteI agree , it seems that this is not really addressed in public forums whether the media or social platforms. While Asians make up the majority of the worlds population you typically do not hear a public outcry or call for awareness regarding Asian related discrimination or derision of Asian culture.. I think that many non-Asians in general are not concerned with Asian discrimination as being an issue due to the nature of some of the stereotypes surrounding Asians and the misguided belief that Asians are not disenfranchised .
DeleteExactly, people over look it because they are seen as the "good minority". I think people sometimes think it's okay to use these stereotypes because they don't think it's insulting to be deemed "smart" or "exotic" but it's still discrimination, it's just sugar coated.
DeleteGood topic! People don't usually see these stereotypes as derogatory. However, if one doesn't fit the stereotype it can be very stressful! Good comments!
DeleteAfter going through the timeline and writing my essay I realized that my family taught me well when they told me to treat people how I wanted to be treated. I am accepting of all, and have many friends who come from all different religious and ethnic backgrounds and different parts of the world. As far back as I can remember I always had someone in a class or on a sports team who may have looked “different”. It never bothered me or made me resent them. I think some people are too caught up in the business of others when they should just be worrying about themselves. No one has ever been or will be exactly the same and there will never be a universal correct way of living. People will continue to be different and need to be accepted and just because they are different doesn’t make them right or wrong. Some people were raised to believe in something completely different and there is nothing wrong with that. You have to get to know someone before you can even begin to judge them. How I live my life and how I was raised doesn’t make me better or worse than the people around me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say that you think some people are too caught up in the business of others when they should be just worrying about themselves! But are we too caught up in ourselves? Should we be learning about these different cultures that we are unfamiliar with?
Delete"But are we too caught up in ourselves? Should we be learning about these different cultures that we are unfamiliar with?"
DeleteI'm with you Hannah!
This was a really eye opening activity for me to experience. My parents always taught me to treat others with respect and kindness. I have to admit that I have experienced and witnessed my grandparents discussing different races in not a great way. I have never seen them actually treat someone of a different race badly or differently; I think it's something they only do within the privacy of their home. Which of course, does not make it right!! It is definitly a generational thing. However, my parents always went above and beyond to teach my siblings and I to accept and respect everyone. I have a cousin who is adopted from Africa. I was only six years old when she became a part of our family. I remember asking my parents why she looked different, and how is she my cousin if she looks totally different than my other cousins! That was a great learning experience for me. It amazes me that children are automatically very understanding and accepting of other races. I shared in a response post, that I nanny and have noticed how the girls (7 and 9) are so open to all friends. I think that as children we are open and understanding to all races because we don't see differences. As we get older, we make and create our own opinions about others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you wholeheartedly, it is totally a generation thing. In the 50's, when our elders were likely young and thriving, they experienced segregation and believed that was normal. Where as now a days, we are far more open minded and accepting of others - which is how it should be. It is merely taught.
DeleteAfter completing the timeline activity along with writing my paper, I learned that I have always been open to other cultures. I think that the reason why I am so accepting and willing to learn more about other people is because of the way I was raised. Both from my parents at home, and my teachers in elementary school, I was taught to, “treat others the way you would like to be treated”. Since I heard it so much it really stuck to my brain. The way that I comprehended that saying when I was younger, opposed to now, is completely deeper. I don’t think that I saw someone of a different race than me as “different”. Now, being almost 20 years old, I do recognize the physical differences, but that is all I recognize. In my eyes, if someone or some group of people are a different race than me, I do not think twice about their worth and meaning in life. I think that everyone has their own ways of going through their day to day lives, and yes, it is sometimes hard to understand why people do the things that they do, but I accept it.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up I never really understood where i belonged or who i belonged to culturally or ethnically. After writing this, I now understand more of how i have developed. I spent most of my time with adults, I never really went outside to play, unless it was for practice or a game. I was an only child until i was 16, imagine that! And with that I honestly matured faster than the rest of my peers. I understood that I was different, and so was everyone else, but most importantly, I am a unique individual. I am the only person who can change the way i feel, to stop being so down and to go make friends. That my skin color does not define me as dirty or dry. I have accepted me for me and i am fortunate enough to realize this at such a young age rather than struggling through life being ignorant toward people who are not the same as me.
ReplyDeleteTonight, My brother, who is 5 & just started kindergarten, was in the tub scrubbing and scrubbing to the point where he was crying. He told me he was very upset & i asked why. He told me that he wanted to look like the other kids in his class and that maybe if he scrubs hard enought the brown will come off. it broke my heart :(
ReplyDeleteThat's not okay. I don't understand people are so mean.
DeleteThat is just so terrible and heartbreaking. I can't even imagine how hard it can be for little kids these days and we like to think that the world is becoming more diverse and these problems are getting better but that isn't the case yet. People are horrid to one and other and he needs to know that he is absolutely perfect the way he is!
DeleteWhat did you say to him!!!! I hope you were able to explain how wonderfully perfect and how important he is, just as he is!!!! He's too young to have to deal with indifference! I have a five year old... This breaks my heart!
DeleteI let him sleep in my bed that night & we watched movies and ate popcorn & just hung out.. I told him that he is most perfect little boy in the world. It was so completely sad. I have a son who is 7 months, i hope he doesn't have to go through this!
DeleteHi all.
ReplyDeleteWhile writing my paper and working on my timeline I found myself really thinking deeply into the subject of multi-cultural backgrounds and how, as children, we were raised to accept others. I have always been very open to learning about different cultures, and befriending those with diverse backgrounds. Race and religion aren't as important to me as character, friendship, shared interests, etc. As a child I had a diverse group of peers, and I truly loved them all. As I grew, due to stigmas in play yards, boys turned into vile gremlins that had cooties. I would run from them and was not so kind. I wasn't accepting of their 'differences' perse. In high school, I was bullied, as were others, due to differences. Others weren't as accepting to those who were different from them, and made it known. I'm sure some of my classmates have been on both sides of this spectrum. It all comes down to what you learn. I was taught as a child to accept everyone for exactly who they are, and love them for it. Other children were not taught the same, and were hateful and demeaning. They weren't culturally diverse or accepting of others. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, I have learned a lot along the way.
After writing my timeline and my paper I realized that I have always been very open to other cultures and that I always enjoyed learning about the different cultures. Though I must have always known that, the one thing that really struck me was that I seemed to be living in a type of "box" when it came to the negative thoughts that other people had towards different cultures and people from different cultures. When I was young I thought that most people were open to learning about other cultures, but the more I got to know the experiences of people from other races/cultures, I found this was not always the case. I also realized that although it is a good thing not to teach your children stereotypes or talk down about other cultures in front of your children, it can also be detrimental not to teach your children about some of the tough times that other cultures had to face and continue to face nowadays.
ReplyDeleteAfter completing this exercise I realized I've always had way more issues surrounding religion than race. I grew up in a very diverse city, but I went to a catholic school, which I absolutely hated. Forcing religion on me made me have an issue towards people of faith, which doesn't really make sense but it's the truth. I like to think I know a lot about discrimination and the issues surrounding race, but I have a lot of prejudice regarding organized religion and historically that's just as bad if not worse. Working on this time line made me think back to when and why these ideas were formed, and made me wonder what I would have been like if I never attended that school. Who knows, if god wasn't pushed or presented in the matter it was I could have turned out extremely religious. It's interesting to think about how our experiences and surroundings shape us.
ReplyDeleteHi Chelsea, I can completely see how you came to have a prejudice view on religion. I would have been a very miserable young girl if religion had been forced upon me. I cannot even handle taking a class on religion. I love learning about different cultures in a hands on setting but sitting and being forced to learn about it and follow it is not okay. And it is interesting to think about "if things were different"...in my case, my grandparents were very catholic and very racist and I can only imagine how I would have turned out if my parents believed the same thing. I am so thankful I grew up in Worcester and always had a diverse group of friends.
Delete-Andrea D'alio
This assignment did open my eyes to many things I had forgotten from my childhood. For example, when I was in elementary school one of my best friends was Spanish and I would spend countless nights at her house just having a good time. Looking back, I realize that I learned so much about her culture and how it was so different from my own. For example, her family was very religious and always took me to Sunday morning mass with them, something I had never done before. I also learned about the types of food they ate, times they ate, and how they were so close to relatives. In my family, we could go months without seeing grandparents or aunts and her family was completely the opposite. All of this was very conflicting for me at such a young age because my grandparents were very much pure catholic and born and raised in Italy and they were not at all onboard for a diverse world. Thankfully, being born and raised in Worcester, MA...their attitude and belief did not rub off on me and I have always surrounded myself with different cultures. I can only imagine though how I would have turned out had I not grown up in Worcester and had parents who believed in the same things.
ReplyDelete-Andrea D'alio
A previous post mentioned generational differences , that resonated with me when recalling some of the events on my timeline . When I was a teenager in the 1980's it was not uncommon when out with a group of friends (in Worcester) for passersby in cars or on foot to yell slurs or make threats . In the current time if this were to happen I think most people would file some type of report or complaint with the local police.Progress has been made in that I believe most people are cognizant (especially Millennials) that this type of verbal assault is socially inappropriate behavior. However there seems to be a modern day version of this in social media. The comments section of any current event or popular story where people espouse these views under anonymity.
ReplyDeleteUpon completing the cultural competence timeline review I realized two things. I realized that as I suspected I am not as culturally competent as I would like to be, and that as a white Caucasian I have had it extremely easy in this world as opposed to people of many other cultural backgrounds, which is something I knew, but actually doing these assignments is bringing to my attention how lucky I am to have never personally endured discrimination. As I have said before in a previous blog entry, I almost feel guilty or ashamed of how culturally incompetent I am. It was brought to my attention while filling in my timeline that at a young age my cultural competence was mainly a product of my environment including what I observe in school and social situations, saw in media, and knew from my own family; however in my adulthood my career and college education has a lot to do with what little I do know about other cultures. I grew up in Marlborough, which when I was growing up lacked much cultural diversity, although now has many more Hispanic/Latino families living within it, so I wasn’t really exposed to a lot of diversity, which was apparent in my timeline. At my present job I encounter families of many varying cultural backgrounds as a preschool teacher, which has taught me more about cultural differences through conversing with family members of the children I teach.
ReplyDeleteThe timeline activity was a very interesting exercise. I reflected on the fact that because my mother is adopted and my father passed away when I was young. I grew up unaware of my cultural background. We had no cultural or ethnic traditions and I had no idea where my ancestry came from. I was always jealous of other families that had stories passed down through many generations. I still feel like I missed out on something quite meaningful. It is so important to honor and remember the past. We can learn so much from listing to the stories of others and learning to appreciate them. This also led me to think about my work. I process paperwork for student and faculty from other countries who are working or studying in the US. Because I meet so many people, I have to make a conscious effort to not say to myself, "all people from XX country are rude" or "everyone from XX country has poor hygiene." Realizing that people don't live by the same standards as we do in the US. Hygiene, social graces, politeness vary immensely from nation to nation.
ReplyDeleteThis timeline activity definitely gave me a new perspective on cultural differences. I was raised as a first generation in the United States of America. Being a first generation definitely had its ups and downs. I always was teaching myself how to assimilate into this culture without leaving my Indian roots. Throughout my middle and high school years I did go through a lot of stereotyping and it was hurtful. However, over time I was definitely able to embrace both cultures in a way I did not give up my Indian roots and made sure to still be able to get used to the American lifestyle. It was a learning experience over the years to incorporate both worlds.
ReplyDelete