Ethnicity and Culture

For this assignment, I spoke to three individuals of varying ages, abilities, race and ethnicities. The answers to the questions in regards to their personal thoughts about diversity were unique.

A teacher friend, who works with fifth graders, shared how her parents worked very hard at giving her and her brother continued exposure to varied cultures and ethnicities. She said that this allowed her to understand that part of our role is to understand support and except the differences in people and learn to celebrate what it is about each of our cultures that make us unique. Her family and her have had the opportunity to travel to various countries and she shared that her “favorite,” culture is and country is Italy. I asked her why? She said of course I love the food and the customs, but what I love most is their celebration of family. The ties between the generations are different then in America, they are very close nit in there ideas of family. My friend knew and understood that the idea of culture and diversity ran deeper then just the celebrations and customs.

  The next person I spoke with I just met recently. She is an administrative assistant in our office she is from Columbia. She came to the United States to go to college, met her now husband and is expecting her first child in May. She too, spoke of the perspectives, which make her Columbian culture unique. She though too highlighted the importance of family. How her culture takes special care and has a unique bond within her own family.

The third person I spoke to is from the Midwest she is in her 60s and is an Early Childhood Professional. She theorized that in Arizona there is a dominant culture. She believes that the dominant culture unfortunately influences the perspectives and views of the less dominate culture. 

Each individual understood how that cultures each have their own traditions, languages. They each though interestingly did talk about the importance of family. Each too believed we as a society, need to be stronger in our convictions when it comes to accepting, and being more open minded to other cultures and ethnicities.  My teaching friend stated that she was really glad that her parents had made the conscious decision to raise their children with a much more open-minded view of the world and the different cultures and ethnicities that exist.

I believe each of the three women I spoke too had a great strong understanding of culture and diversity. This exercise helped me to revisit my own role in regards to how I work with families and children in the early childhood field. It again reminded me that I need to be in touch with my own biases and professionally I have to know to keep the subject matter at the forefront of my work with educators in my role as mentor.