Ama is Ghanaian and she believes that culture entails people
who have a set of shared values and customs. Her Ghanaian culture involves good
food, Kente cloth worn for special occasions, music, dancing and being
hospitable. One of the traditions in her culture is what they call a “Naming Ceremony”.
This is where parents who have had a child present this child to family and
friends on the 7th day after birth and they name the baby and have a
grand celebration as well. Ama believes that diversity is like a big bag of skittles;
different groups of people, involving race, disabilities, sexual orientation,
religion, economic backgrounds and education.
Leticia is Puerto Rican and she believes that culture entails
her roots; where she comes from, who she is and her beliefs ….is her identity. Leticia
says that Puerto Ricans are noble and humble people, hard workers, transparent,
easily embrace other cultures and prideful when representing their culture.
This is what makes up her culture. Leticia believes diversity is different
personalities, mindsets and different ways of seeing things.
Tequia is African American and she believes that culture is
a set of values, belief systems of a group and their environment. Her African
American culture is family oriented, loves traditions (e.g., having Sunday
dinners with the entire family). Also, having family celebrations on different
occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. Tequia believes that
diversity is different ideas, perspectives and different makeup of groups.
As I am looking over my interviews I realize that Ama and
Tequia gave very conscious or surface answers about culture, but Leticia gave unconscious
or deeper answers about her culture. I couldn’t look at a Puerto Rican and know
that they are humble or noble. This was great information to gain and I look at
each culture’s differences as sources of strength. The aspects of culture that I
think were omitted in the interviews was the mention of cultural pluralism;
something we all deal with today in our society. Everyone must fight to bring
their individual culture to surface and it be accepted and even encouraged in general
society. This has influenced my own thinking about culture. There is very
little mutual respect in society of individual culture and we often advocate
for it in our workplace, neighborhood, and churches, just to mention a few.
Everything we do is related to culture and it is learned from the people around
you. Diversity is a bonus and should be added to our lives as a richness on top
of our own culture. We should not have to suppress our own culture to fit in or
to impress people. Our culture matter!
References
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Culture and diversity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and
Education (5th ed., pp. 8–13). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
No comments:
Post a Comment