Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

      An example of a mircoagression that I have experienced this week is one that I experience almost every time I go out for a cruise in my classic car. I get comments from people like, "Wow, is that car yours?" or "You must sell illegal drugs to be able to afford a car like that." I take these comments as complements towards my car. The microaggression that I can pull from these comments is of the racial kind. Most of the people that tell me these comments are from white upper class white men. I drive my car up the California West coast line known as the Pacific Coast Highway and a lot of upper middle class white people reside here. A stereotype for a Mexican who drives a fancy car is that he must sell illegal drugs to be able to afford it. I sometimes feel a sarcastic tone when they tell me so It then does not feel like a complement. It makes me feel like I am not worthy of such a car. I have worked three jobs to help pay for it. As far as classicism goes, I consider myself to be in the working class and when someone who looks to be in a high class and makes comments like that, I would think that if would make them feel powerful over me.   These racial microaggrssions reflect a view of superiority. I do not pay attention to these details because I do not have time to wonder what and if people are using subliminal messages with their comments. I try to take comments for what they are, word per word.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this assignment I decided to talk to my 72 year old neighbor. Greg, an African American 40 year old custodian male. I choose someone who I felt is really difernet from me in regards to gender, religion, race, and class. It was my fairly new 23 year old friend Amy, who is studying abroad from India.

My neighbors definition of culture is defined with one word which is tradition. He defines diversity as a mixture of people of different nationalities  all in one geographical area. Greg defines culture as what ties people together. Greg defines diversity as people having different cultures.  He talked about how to better keep unity amongst friends and family was by focusing on the similarities and building on the differences. My friend Amy, she described culture as the ethnic foods she prepares, the music from her country and her identity associated with that of Hinduism.  She defines diversity as someone who is does not practice what she believes in or does.

Aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course include all the answers my friends gave as their personal definition. Some responses can be defined as surface culture like the ethnic food, religion and music defined by Amy. The other responses that include how we interact  are deeper yet also valid responses. I feel nothing has been omitted as everyone is entitled to their own definition of culture. I feel that am, being so far from her friends and family, needs to duplicate ethic rituals to help her not feel home sick. How they each expressed their definitions makes them who they are.

Representing My Family Culture

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

If I had to decide on what three items to bring along with me that represents my family culture they would be a family photo album, my Spanish guitar, and vegetarian cookbook. My family takes pride in collecting family photographs and showing them to visitors who come to our home. Usually for any type of family gathering, either my father or I play the guitar and we all sing songs in Spanish. My mother , sister, and myself are vegetarians. Since my aunts and father eat meat, we always have to cook two meals, one meat and one non meat. We have done this more than 25 years. I would hope that the new country does not look down on vegetarians or vegans.

How would I feel if upon arrival to our new country and had to discard two of the three items? I would not feel too bad as I would have had felt bad already for having to have left behind some many other things that represents my family culture. In essence, I feel that everything in our home is a representation of our culture. This would lead me to an insight I gained about myself and my family culture. Every object that we interact with throughout the day on a frequent occasion, is a representation of our family culture.