Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

This week’s assignment focused on forms of microagression, and examples of a couple I have witnessed personally, or learned about.

I have a really good friend and co-worker born Guatemala; she is fluent in English and Spanish and was raised in the U.S. Her parents still adopt their native language, although they too are fluent in English.

While at the grocery store one day, she stood inline on talking on the phone with a relative that resides in her native country, in their native language. As she placed her grocery on the conveyer belt, a man behind her taps her on the shoulders and asked was it hard for her to get her green card to come to the U.S.

The next example of microagression was an instance of gender stereotyping between to co-workers, one male who was an early educator, and a woman who was also an educator. The woman often made indirect comments about the male educator’s sexuality; she assumed he was a gay individual because he enjoyed working with young children. She also made reference to pedophilias’ enjoyment with working with young children.

These two examples of microagression not only was offensive to the individuals involved, but also to myself haven witnessed such display of micoinsults, as well as microinvalidations, indirectly assaulting one’s race, orientation, and integrity.

During this observation processed my understanding of microagressive behaviors have broadened. Although individuals may not be fully aware of how their verbal/nonverbal forms of communication affect others, even the subtle comments can come across to others that are in aim, to be offensive, and insulting, and hurtful. 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to 3 vastly different individuals, asking them to help me define their definition of culture and diversity.
The first individual I spoke with about culture and diversity was a young woman that was originally from Botswana, West Africa. In her surface culture she mentioned her strong religion to Christianity, special dishes during weddings, family gatherings, and holidays they enjoyed together, such as;  Alloco (Fried plantain and chili dish), many dishes made with curry, special soups her mother and grandmother made to help heal colds, and repair the woman’s body after birth. Within her deep culture she mentioned how her family spoke both Setswana, after she and her family moved to the U.S, she was home schooled for the first few years, receiving help with her English language.
Values and beliefs were most important to this individual; an example was how she greets any individual older than herself as m’am or sir, even a couple of years older. She will not eat until all “elder” individuals are served. Eye contact is important, she wears beads around her waist that stands for purity, and youth, and her specific tribe. The beads are not to be removed until she is married.
The second individual I spoke with was a young white woman, living in a very rural area of Buncombe County. She mentioned to me that family togetherness, respect, and love was all part of her culture, growing up in a lower economic status made her value how she raised her own child today. She does not have religious preferences, and believes that all individuals should respect and be able to exist in the world, as long as they keep each race pure.
The third individual was a woman whose mother is white and father black.  She grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, mother has Christian faith, and her father’s practices a Baptist faith. She mentioned that she attended both services many Sundays, and her parents never forced her to choose a specific faith. Growing up, her family celebrated holidays with large family gatherings, lots of food, she lived in a home with her mother, aunts, cousins, and grandmother. She rarely visited her father, but more so individuals on her father’s side.
Our text, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, discuss culture as one’s strong ties to their ethnicity, and how each particular groups live. During my conversation with each individual, I was not looking for a right or wrong answers, in fact it was a learning process, that helped me get to know individuals I have either worked with, or live in a community with.

 We have the ability to achieve, if we master the necessary goodwill, a common global society blessed with a shared culture of peace that is nourished by the ethnic, national and local diversities that enrich our lives.
-- Mahnaz Afkhami 

cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

Reference:

·  Smidt, S. (2006). The developing child in the 21st century: A global perspective on child development. New York, NY: Routledge.

My Family Culture....

This week’s blog assignment encourages my colleagues and I to think about a devastating transition of displacement from our Native home country, as we will be placed with a host family in another country, whose culture is vastly different from our own. We will be able to bring one change of clothing, and three small items that represent our family culture.

The first item I chose to take was a family picture taken around the dinner table. This picture represents togetherness, laughter, love, and enjoying a wonderful meal prepared by each pair of hands sitting around the table.

The next item I would choose would be a small porcelain angel that represents the loss or my mother. I loss my mother after my twin girls were born. The angel represents courage, love, compassion, and strength, all identities in which my mother possessed.

My last item would include a quilted blanket of foot steps. The foot steps represent each monumental moments, and accomplishments we have made as a family.

 As we reach our destination it is a possibility that I would only be able to keep one of my precious family items, and the others would have to be given away. It would be devastating to have to give up any of my items, but the item I would hold on to would be my quilted blanket of foot steps. The reason this item was chosen is because I lost my Native home, but my immediate family is still among me. Having to start our lives in a Country and culture we may know nothing about, my family and I will always make new memories and milestones that can be added to our quilt.

 This assignment has really made me think about my families traditions, beliefs, and customs we share. I also had to think about how it would feel to be in a situation where I had to adapt to another culture, and language, and immediately I thought about how young children I have served felt coming into a classroom where majority of the children spoke a different language, or even looked "different" from themselves.  

 

The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It ... is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be.

MARIANNE E. NEIFERT