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Rainbow Nation Child
The poster child for diversity is South Africa, a country with eleven official languages and a mixture of skin tones, religions, beliefs, and ethnicities. South Africa has advanced from periods of hardship, adversity, and misfortune to become the Rainbow Nation it is known as today. South Africa is a country that embraces diversity, breaking boundaries that have separated people through the generations. I am a product of South Africa; I am a Rainbow Nation child.
Growing up in a multi-cultural nation, I occasionally experienced opposition from my own peers. One of my most profound moments occurred in my first year of school. There were very few people of color, but all I wanted was to be accepted by my classmates. As the
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Everyone was fascinated with her. She always brought traditional Philippine food and shared it with the class. Although a few students conveyed a negative attitude towards her food, she continued to proudly promote her culture and customs. Never once did she ebb away from who she truly was. We were both racially unique, yet everyone acknowledged her for who she was. I suddenly realized that the only reason nobody welcomed me into their cohort was because I distanced myself from my identity rather than share my heritage with the rest of the class. As a result of this, I decided to embrace my diversity and the beauty of my distinctive characteristics. As a South African Indian mixed with European descent, I am proud of my own ethnicity and I have actively influenced others to embody their own differences throughout my school life and into my university …show more content…
Subsequently, her father approached me and apologized profusely. He handed me his business card and enlightened me about the “Teach English in Korea” program. At first I was uninterested since I could not even point out South Korea on a map, which made me realize that I lacked knowledge about the rest of the world. I decided that this could be a great opportunity to educate myself about other countries, societies and even cultures. I knew that traveling would change my perception of the world, or so I was told, but I had no idea of how substantially it would change my life. Living and teaching in Korea, I gained an outsider’s perspective while integrating into a new culture, helping me reflect upon my own experiences of integration in South Africa. However, I did not just want to be a foreigner looking from the outside. I wanted to apply myself into their
Ever since I was a young girl, I was taught to love those around me and to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. I always looked upon everyone the same way, regardless of if they had a different skin tone or facial features from me. This philosophy, however, did not prove to be a popular one held among my peers in my middle school years. Middle school was the first time I truly experienced confusion regarding my ethnicity and culture. I vividly remember the time when a group of students blatantly mocked and teased my Asian ethnicity.
I wanted to wear brand clothes/shoes they did, I wanted to do my hair like them, and make good grades like them. I wanted to fit in. My cultural identify took a back seat. But it was not long before I felt black and white did not mix. I must have heard too many comments asking to speak Haitian or I do not look Haitian, but more than that, I am black, so I always had to answer question about my hair or why my nose is big, and that I talked white. This feeling carried on to high school because the questions never went away and the distance between me and them grew larger. There was not much action my family could take for those moments in my life, but shared their encounters or conversations to show me I was not alone in dealing with people of other background. I surrounded myself with less white people and more people of color and today, not much has
In public schools, students are subjected to acts of institutional racism that may change how they interact with other students. In the short story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by Packer, readers are allowed to view firsthand how institutionalized racism affects Dina, who is the main character in the story. Packer states “As a person of color, you shouldn’t have to fit in any white, patriarchal system” (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere 117). The article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” by Brodbelt states “first, the attitudes of teachers toward minority group pupils” (Brodbelt 699). Like the ideas in the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” Dina encounters institutionalized oppression on orientation day at Yale.
This stage of my adolescent life was very memorable. This was the time when my life was becoming more complicated as I struggled to find my own racial identity, and constantly questioning myself, “Who am I?” “Where do I belong?” while facing the pressure of “fitting in” as a biracial teen in prejudicial Asian society.
For instance, I have always been viewed as an extroverted person because of my ability to navigate social situations with charm and articulacy. Nevertheless, when a social situation begins to deepen, and I find a person getting too close to me, I withdraw and hide parts of myself from them. I control my conversations with others so that the focus is always on their life and issues. This keeps my relationship with them at a superficial level so that I am able to hide in plain sight; I appear open and approachable without disclosing too much about myself or emotions.
In the early years of my life, adapting to the foreign customs of America was my top priority. Although born in America, I constantly moved back and forth from Korea to the US, experiencing nerve-racking, yet thrilling emotions caused by the unfamiliarity of new traditions. Along with these strange traditions, came struggles with accepting my ethnicity. Because of the obvious physical differences due to my race, the first question asked by the students in elementary school was, “Are you from China?” These inquiries were constantly asked by several of American students until middle school which transformed to “You must be good at math” referencing the stereotypical intellect that Asian are perceived to have. Through continuous insult on my Asian heritage, I began to believe and later hate the person I was due to criticism made by teenagers which I started to see true despite all the lies that was actively told. This racial discrimination was a reoccurring pattern that
“An array of knowledges, skills, abilities and contacts possessed and used by Communities of Color to survive and resist racism and other forms of oppression” encompasses the main idea of Community Cultural Wealth. It is vital to understand that students will step foot into the classroom with a variety of cultures zipped up in their backpacks, and it is our job as educators to make sure that equality is instilled/taught in our classrooms. The second a student feels a sense of discrimination, whether from ourselves or their fellow classmate(s), is when the safe and comforting environment of the classroom begins to diminish. Here I will discuss just how important it is to see the differences amongst students as an advantage
On the first day of school, I was in culture shock. There were so many different races of people: from Whites to Asians to Hispanics to Blacks. This diversity was foreign to me and the only diversity that I was exposed to ...
The key to any personality is to understand where your weaknesses are and to be willing to work around them. I have learned to understand that I am an introvert, but know that I cannot allow that part to dominate at work without risking the performance of my job. I have also ensured that those close to me, at home and at work, know that I am an introvert, so that when they see me withdrawing they understand why and no one takes it personal. Luckily my job has had all of the leaders in classes so that we have all had our personalities discussed openly among us. This has helped us all take advantage of our individual personalities and helped us learn how to deal with others that are different. All my peers know that I like to think about things before I act and that I have expectations of how we should all be performing at work. Understanding my personality has been a blessing to me. It has allowed me to not withdraw to far, and to jokingly let others know that I will withdraw at times. I now realize that introverts can seem aloof to others and that I have to make an effort at times so that other leaders know that I am willing to help. My wife stated that this did not help, since she already knew this about me. We once had an argument about going on vacation. She stated, “If it was up to you we wouldn’t go anywhere”. I was unsure if the argument was over or who had one, because she was exactly right. I would
The air hung around them, tensed and quiet. The fragility of her emotion was threatening to shatter. It is as if that time stood still for her. She fingered the brim of her notebook, nervously and took notice of the cup of coffee on her side. Controlling the sudden urged to drown the caffeine all at once; she carefully picked the cup and warily sipped its content. It had long been cold, and her tongue appreciated that fact.
The oppression that African American individuals endured for years, is still being practice with racial discrimination and prejudice. One strength of identifying as African American is the increase of belongingness that gave me the ability to share and live amongst individuals with the same physical appearance and in some cases, the same obstacles. However, this was not always the case. Growing into an adult gave me the advantage to travel and meet other African Americans that I believed shared some of the same historical and ethnic background. In this time period I was introduced to what is called within-group differences, which is the differences among the members of a group (Organista, 2010). Wanting to be around individuals that I believed to have a common core with was one of my flaws, but while traveling with individuals that I thought was like me I experienced that I had nothing in common with some of my travel friends. One of my friends stated that we had nothing in common with each other, because of our different social economic status, education and employment. At first I was offended, however, after taking psychology of ethnic groups in the United States there was a sense of understanding that not all individuals that look alike, are alike. This assumption that all groups function
After completing the assessment exercise I have been able to carefully my personality. The exercise consisted of an evaluation of four areas: Locus of Control, Personality Type, Stress Reactions, and Learning Styles.
...In South Africa cultural diversity is a sense of behavior that has been learned from hard experiences passed through communication from one generation to the next.
Now that we have explored my past, present, and future experiences with diversity, it is time to see how they are present within and effect each other. Firstly, let’s look into how my future is present in my past. The most obvious portion of my future that is in my past is my willingness and efforts to love and include everyone and to spread this world view. It took a fellow classmate of mine to demonstrate to my third grade self that we are all human beings and we all deserve to be treated as such. In my future, I aspire to demonstrate this world view to my students and inspire them to treat each other accordingly. This aspiration directly reflects my world view struggles I went through in third grade, for I want to help my students come to
Such situations have contributed to my personality, which is categorized as “agreeable” and contains characteristics, such as empathy and caring. At the age of six, I lost my father to brain cancer. From that point on, I was raised by my mother and my grandparents. At a young age, I was introduced to the loss of a loved one and at the time did not quite grasp everything that accompanies that. However, over the years, I have come to recognize and appreciate the love and support my mother and grandparents continuously provided in an effort to make my life be as “normal” as possible without a father figure. I feel that this example of love played a significant role in developing specific traits within my personality including kindness, love, and empathy. Because I was shown these traits and received a wonderful outcome from them, I now want to show others these same qualities during their time of need in attempt to pass on the same love and kindness that was extended to me at an early age. One principal that was instilled in me early on in my life was the golden rule, which states to always treat others the way you want to be treated, as you never know what someone might be going through. I always strive to put myself in “someone else’s shoes” so that I can treat them with kindness, love, and respect. This leads to another experience I had in a sales job. I feel that my personality traits make it very difficult for me to perform a sales job. I am so reserved and do not want to feel that I am taking advantage of anyone. I will do whatever it takes to make sure whomever I am dealing with is happy and has an amazing experience. While ordinarily such characteristics can lead to success, this type of personality is probably not the best if your desire is to become an accomplished salesman. Author Christian Jarrett wrote in The British