Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I had a meeting with all my co-workers this past Thursday at the state office so this was a great opportunity to get them to help with this assignment. We work out in regions of our state so not only are we diverse because of race, we are also very diverse in our family cultures and cultures of the areas in which we live.

Two ladies I spoke with were my co-workers and the other was a neighbor. The responses from my co-workers for the definition of culture reflected that of surface culture. They referred to culture as the language, ethnicity, food, and lifestyle. My co-workers and I often talk about lifestyle differences in our state. North Louisiana appears to be another state when compared to the culture of South Louisiana. One of my friends is from New Orleans so the culture of a city is very different than that of my southern small town. My neighbor had deeper cultural answers than my friends. She is Vietnamese and she defined culture more in terms of values and beliefs. She spoke more about treatment of the elderly. Her definition was more abstract and less about the obvious. No one used religion as a defining characteristic I think because here in Louisiana most people are Catholic and  do not think of religion as culture.

My co-workers who all work with me in the field of early childhood immediately defined diversity in terms of special needs or varying abilities of children in the classroom. When I asked them to think more about diversity and asked them about our department that we work in. I asked if they thought we were a diverse group of workers. One of the responses was surprising. One of the ladies said no that we were not diverse because we all really respected and liked each other. I then began to feel like I was educating her on diversity. I think her response says a lot about diversity. Automatically people think if you are different from someone, then you must not like them. My neighbor understood more about diversity and to my surprise she said that they do not speak Vietnamese in their home. She speaks the language to her parents but does not force her children to do the same. She says she wants them to become a part of the Western world. She says the United States has been very good to she and her husband and she wants her children to respect the lifestyle they have been given.

Talking to these people made me realize how much I have learned about culture and diversity as a whole as well as my own culture. I had not noticed over the past year how much Walden had changed my perspective of culture and diversity until I spoke with these people this past week. I definitely have a different outlook on both issues.