Welcoming Families From Around the World

In the event that I were to have a family join my center/ classroom from a country which I do not have any prior knowledge would make me want to learn no more than five things from their culture before they entered my classroom. I would do so as a sign of respect for their culture. The name of the family's country of origin that I know nothing about is Afghanistan.

I would hope that the family would be on an internet social network like facebook. This would give me the opportunity to view their pictures and get a visual idea of how they portray themselves.

I would like to go online and look for information on this country. I would want to learn things about the climate, geographic surroundings, and the societal structure (city or countryside or jungle,...) of that area.

I would go to the library or online to find information on the history of the country. This would include the type of government it has and the language or languages spoken.

I would then get written words in the language they spoke if from what I looked on line would be the main language used there. Translated words in English and their language like hello, restroom, friend and other words that would facilitate.

I would not want to investigate any further as I would be assuming they spoke, dressed, and acted a certain way. I would not want to insult them if I took a tourist approach to address them. I would want to learn as much as I could about the children and family once I meet them in person. I hope that my attempts in learning about this family will benefit both them and myself as I hope it would ease their welcome and make them feel respected.  

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

An incident I can think about that has made me a target for prejudice within my own ethnic group is my name. Before I continue to explain, I need to share a bit of my parents history. Both parents migrated to the United States and were the target of many racial profiling and where treated vary unjustly in the 70s and early 80s. They received  this at work and in their vary same neighborhood where they lived. When I was born, they wanted to name me Francisco, a name that is commonly used in many Mexican families. Francisco is the name of my grandfather and it is the middle name of my father. They wanted to continue the tradition but were thinking that it may cause me problems, mainly with acts of prejudice. My parents thought that if they named me frank, short for Francisco, that when people would  see my name like in a waiting list for school or a job position, I would have a better chance to be selected as they thought that if a racist person was in charge, they would not pick my name that is associated with a Mexican.  

Now to the prejudice part that I have received from other Mexicans and Mexican Americans. All I can say is, "dammed if I do and dammed if I don't". My parents good intent on trying to make me fit in with Americas was a good deed on their behalf but overlooked the reaction from other Mexicans and Latino populations. An example I can share is that some people think that I changed my name because I was ashamed of being called a name that is so commonly used in Mexico. They tell me to keep it real and to never deny my roots. Some people even tell me that I am a liar and should not misread my name on my birth certificate. Some of my close friends have called me a wannabe whitewashed Mexican. They do not believe that the name spelled on my birth certificate is Frank. All I know is that things like a person's name can be tied into a person's social identity and as a professional, I must be mindful in not to insult anyone by changing their name even if I cannot say it. The story that Dr. Euguene Garcia told in one of this week's videos made me remember this. I sometimes feel like his sister , Cipranita felt with the unintential microaggression that she experienced on her first day of school when the teacher, not being able to pronounce her name, changed it to Emily forever. It creates thoughts of insecure feeling of which name is better. This is not a good thing for children to experience as it can make them question their roots.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2011). "In His Own Voice: Dr. Eugene Garcia" [DVD] Baltimore, Learning MD. Author.

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.

When I Think of Research...

I have learned different types of research designs. I have also gained insight on ethics that revolve around research that involves children. One must take into consideration the guardians as well as any other people who might be relating to the child participant(s) during the study. The insight on including qualified personal to carry out the research whom are either trained in child development or even better, who work with the children already to be able to collect real information from children when they  are acting normal around people they are accustom to.

From comments from the teacher I have learned that I must choose a specific age and not a range. I started to do my simulation research on children 0-5yrs then from 3 - 5yrs. I have narrowed my participants to 3 yr olds. This gives a more precise outcome as I can relate it to just one age and not have to account for extraneous variables like developmental milestones of an older or younger population.

 A challenge I came across was finding a research topic that had not been already researched. I wanted to be really creative and choose a new topic. I was able to overcome this by choosing an always new topic (technology) and work off of current researchers limitations. I used their extraneous variables as part of my independent variable.

My perception of an early childhood has made me be more sure that we should feel and be viewed as professionals in our field. The fact that I have learned about research and that I have read many article an research done by people from our field, well it raises the bar since we can have an open dialog with scientists, doctors and neuroscientist. Being able to understand their terminology makes use that more versatile and we are needed to in adding our expertise on child development wear these professionals would lack experience.

Research Around the World

The organization I chose to look into this week is Early Childhood Australia. The link to their site is http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/. A current international research topic that is being studied in Australia is social issues that include children's social and emotional development and wellbeing. The study that I read on is called Growing Up in Australia and it is a longitudinal study of 10, 000 Australian children and their families. The study began in 2003 and is still being tracked. It is funded by the Australian government, Community Services and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I find this an international issues as no matter where people are, social acceptance has a lot to do with the healthy development of a child's self esteem. If the child is socially and emotional stable, they suffer in other areas of development. A surprising fact about this early childhood website is that it is compared to  the National Association for the Education of Young Children by Walden University. This is what caught my attention in the first place as why I chose it over the other links. This organization has their code of ethics that professionals in Australia can follow. I am not sure how different our main social beliefs and practices are from that of the main culture of Australia but as any group of people living in different parts of the world, I am glad that they did not decide to completely pick up ethics from another Nation and force them upon their workforce. It is go that they created their own. A noteworthy fact about the site is that they have pictures of diverse families and children. They show an acceptance of different nationalities and cultures.