Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this assignment I spoke with my sister-in-law Renae. Although Renae is a Caucasian female, she is legally deaf. As a result of this disability, she is often perceived as being different and falls victim to many negative stereotypes. 

According to Renae, culture is part of an individuals personality which is reflected through their beliefs, environment, experiences, and customs. Renae defines diversity as being being different from other individuals within a group, community, are environment. Being deaf, this is something that Renae knows a lot about. 

After reviewing Renae’s responses, I believe that there are a couple aspects of diversity and culture that coincide with the information being discussed so far in the course. The first aspect is having one’s culture embedded in their behaviors and personality. For examples, one’s beliefs and values, traditions, religion, and ethnic/racial background, etc. collectively make up one’s culture. The second aspect is diversity being compromised one individual and collective differences. In addition to gender, race/ethnicity, abilities/disabilities, etc. can influence diversity. 

There is a one thing that is omitted from Renae’s definition of diversity. That is that diversity can only be experienced when individuals encompass characteristics that are not accepted within a dominant population. For example, there is little diversity in a group of 4 Hispanic males that are considered to be Republican. However, if there was a Hispanic, female, democrat in the mix, there would be some degree of diversity. 

There are a couple ways that thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity have influenced my understanding of the topic. The first way is that no matter one’s educational or cultural background, everyone tends to have similar definitions of these two terms.  The second way is that although similar, individual definitions are influenced by their perceptions and experiences. 

My Family Culture

If I were to leave the United States, there are three items that I would bring with me that I believe best represents my family culture. The first item would be photo albums of all of the pictures that have been taken of my family and the special events that we have experienced. The second would be a cookbook of all of my family’s favorite recipes. The final items would be the knitted and hand-made gifts that we have made each other in our family.

There are a few different ways that I would explain to others what these items mean to me. One way is to tell stories about these items and directly explain to these individuals the personal meaning that they hold. The second way is to demonstrate or share these items to these individuals. The final ways is to always keep these items close to me and keep them in a safe location.

If upon my arrival, I would be told that I could only keep one item and give up the other two I would be heartbroken and devastated. This is mostly because these items have sentimental value to me and are the only items that I could keep with me that would remind me of my family and our family culture.

After participating in this exercise I have gained insight about myself and my family culture. That is, the things that I hold most dear about my family and our culture is the events that we participate in and the things that we create together and for each other. At the same time, it can be argued that our family culture is centered around togetherness and our creativities.