Essay On Ethnic Identity

“The History, Development and Future of Ethnic Studies” by Evelyn Hu-DeHart mentions several issues young scholars faced during the time of need for multicultural curriculum in higher education. Young scholars were demanding to uncover the missing facts and accredited sources that American history, culture, and society have left out for centuries. The solution the students concluded in solving this dilemma was to bring attention to the need of ethnic studies programs. With enough support from the student body and willingness of universities, institutions were able to recruit professors and thus create ethnic studies programs. According to Hu-DeHart, by providing ethnic studies programs and departments, the academic field would provide, “…a

As American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez expressed, “Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.” Respecting everyone’s culture is a necessity, no matter their ethnic background, or if they stand out in society. Language, customs, food, and religion are all parts of a culture everyone possesses. All individuals have a viewpoint, a perspective of what cultures the world around them is compromised of. The culture in every human influences how they view the world around them by hiding one’s own culture, giving people biased views of others’ ethnicities, and weighing down the minority groups.

Firstly, increasing one’s cultural competence is instrumental to becoming a more empathic and understanding person and teacher. Cultural competence involves understanding another person’s culture without judgement and realizing that even if their ideas or beliefs are different, that does not mean they are wrong. If one learns about their students’ cultures and backgrounds, they will be able to speak and interact with these students in an appropriate way. If the students are refugees and come from a traumatic past, teachers should approach any personal questions they have sensitively. Sometimes people have prejudices or believe stereotypes and they may not even realize it. The Hmong people were widely dispersed and no two Hmong people will be the same. It is crucial that teachers do not assume that each person has the same values and

Teachers can begin by incorporating Banks’ five dimensions of multicultural education. In addition teachers must take into consideration DuPraw and Axner’s six fundamental patterns of cultural differences. Then, parents and the community will need to be educated on the cultural differences. However, the parents will need their voice to be heard in order to decrease cross cultural miscommunication. As our country’s population diversifies, it will be our responsibility to not only educate ourselves but our students as well as our parents in order to have a successful

Nowadays, people are exposed to more cultures that they are not accustomed to than in the past. As the years go by, more interracial marriages are being accepted exposing future generations to multi-cultures. I am an American teenager with an Hispanic background. My parents, born and raised in Guatemala immigrated to the United States a few years before my birth. Since my birth, I have been exposed to two very different types of cultures. I have lived in the United States all my life while I have visited Guatemala a couple of times for a few weeks each. Being more accustomed to life in the United States, life in Guatemala is very distinctive. Communicating with family in Guatemala was definitely more challenging than communicating with the family back home in the United States. These types of situations have led to “complexities” in communication, a topic that LaRay M. Barna analyzes thoroughly in her article “Intercultural Communication Stumbling Blocks.” The “complexities” in communication that Barna addresses are spread into five stumbling blocks: language, nonverbal signs and symbols, preconceptions and stereotypes, tendency to evaluate, and high anxiety. These five stumbling blocks can occur in any shape or form in communication between two cultures. Language, nonverbal signs and symbols, as well as preconceptions and stereotypes are the stumbling blocks that occurred most when communicating with my family that reside in Guatemala.

When we teach different cultural backgrounds, students from other backgrounds can be more informed about their classmate’ s culture. “Although about 80% of Latinos in Utah originated from Mexico, many other nationalities are represented here. Many individuals raised in the U.S. speak only English and have assimilated to European American culture.” There are a distinct few of people who have different ethnic backgrounds can not speak their home language. This is why schools should help students embrace different cultures, so they can learn different languages and help their brains develop. Learning about classmates languages and cultures, can help people have a bond with each other. Students learning about how other cultures affected America, other than white European, can give student another point of

I have been involved in building programs and cultural training through my work as a Community Advisor (CA) in university residence and as a volunteer for the Centre for International Students and Study Abroad (CISSA). As a CA, I have created educational programs for student residents from diverse backgrounds to promote community engagement. My team and I have organized activities such as language workshops and study abroad events to foster international curiosity and friendship. Volunteering at CISSA has also been a tremendous resource in offering training in cultural competency and inclusivity. I will integrate my cultural training and expertise in developing residence programs to create engaging classroom lessons that emphasize global curiosity, diversity, and intercultural friendship in

“The New Kids” is a great read with simply astonishing stories. I find the stories very humbling, and the book teaches me to be understanding and nonjudgmental of others, especially my future students. I do not know what my students had to go through in their native countries, and what traumas may haunt them. Thus, the book is a reminder to me of how many hurdles, newcomers to this country still face, and how much they struggle to overcome them. They need to stay extremely patient and humble, and very often resign from what they were taught, and what was “normal” in their culture to “blend in better”. I also realize that I must not make any assumptions about my students’ behaviors or attitudes. There may be so many reasons why they behave in the certain ways. They may be shy, afraid of speaking, some may not simply know the language, or they may just be abiding the rules of their culture. I must never think that they are unintelligent, odd, or unimportant, just because they cannot express their thoughts clearly. Going through the cultural transition is very hard, painful and in many cases, it is a long process. For many immigrant families, it is also very difficult to find

My mother has blonde hair, green eyes, and a skin condition known as rosacea that turns her milky skin pink. My siblings, Alina, Analise, and Petr, each have light brown hair, brown or hazel eyes, and white skin. They are adopted from Romania and though they are all related to each other, they are not related to me or our parents. My father has coarse salt-and-pepper hair, dark brown skin, and hairy arms.

Society has always struggled to discern the difference between the appropriation and appreciation of race and cultures. With the advent of new media and anonymous interactions, these struggles reach a new level of complications and concerns, thus necessitating an open platform for the development of proper etiquette. Virtual communities have an incredible potential to help individuals of different racial backgrounds understand one another, however, this potential is stagnated by the relentless perpetuation of racial stereotypes on various domains.

Racism and discrimination directly and indirectly affect me because I come from a poor, uneducated Muslim family, all of which puts me into the minority category. As a minority upward mobility seems like an impossible dream. My mother was never able to attend school, and my father only studied up to the 10th grade. After moving to the United States in 2006, my parents' relied on my siblings and me to take care of many tasks that required understanding English, which forced my siblings and me to maneuver the adult world on our own. We are obliged to help with tasks such as paying bills, completing legal paperwork, and even taking my parents to the doctor and grocery stores. My family responsibility requires me to be mindful of my parents’ income, how we live, and our health. My father, who works as a cook in a restaurant, earns scarcely enough income to make ends meet. Many times these worries pressure me and I feel it is necessary for me to work and help out my family. If I do choose to take that route, I wouldn’t get my education and therefore would have a low paying job and be back in the same position as my parents and still remain poor. This is how upward mobility becomes impossible for many minority groups like me. Luckily, coming to America gave my siblings and me the opportunity to attend college. I am even more

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2011). Experiencing intercultural communication. (4th ed., pp. 226-227). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Previous researchers have found that for a person to achieve better and more effective communication competence, it is necessary to develop skills that allow an appropriate participation in specific situations. The ability to listen, ask questions, and express concepts or ideas effectively is an important part of communication competence. Intercultural communication presents an unexplored and challenging field that needs to be understood for a better development in communication. (Dillon and McKenzie, 1998). The variables of listening depend on the different perceptions that a person obtains through their cultural background. Furthermore, culture often affects the structure of consciousness in the act of listening. When a person seeks to

The three things that have made the biggest impact on and have influenced my life that shaped me into the person I am today are family background, experiences from my school year, and religious beliefs. Our culture provides a lens through which we view the world and interpret our everyday experiences. In order to know who I am today, I must look at who you’ve been. Many educators around the country are interested in developing a multicultural approach in their teaching. They find themselves in classrooms with 25 children of varying racial and cultural backgrounds, and are looking for ways to connect what they do in the classroom to the cultures represented by their students. Before we can begin to understand others, however, we need to understand ourselves and what we bring to our interactions with others.

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.