Doesn’t everyone have a culture? If we share the same citizenship, does it mean that we are all the same? This issue was particularly poignant while I was participating in a local activity where everyone was asked to share something from their cultural background. The students of Asian, African, Latin American and Jewish descent had no problem coming up with a presentation. Some were first generation Americans, others were third or more. At that time I don't think anyone identified as Native American though most southerners, black and white, have Native American ancestry.
The white students began to feel left out. They felt they didn't have a culture. The director of the program at the time was highly skilled at facilitating this issue. As the program evolved, one of the advisors developed the category “plain ol' American.” As part of her presentation, she usually shared U.S. American cultural symbols such as baseball and apple pie. The more I encountered people who were unsure of their cultural identity the more I wanted to learn about how people perceived themselves. It has become a significant part of my journey as an interculturalist.
Ten years later when I was developing a course, this issue resurfaced. Before launching a course or adding a new activity to an existing course, I usually put together a focus group. We were researching activities to stimulate cultural conversation. My intern, who is white, couldn't tell me her ethnicity. She identified more as a Catholic. This became particularly relevant to her when she moved from a place with a large Catholic population to a Baptist university in a Baptist town. We concluded that our concept of identity had to be more inclusive.
I attended a Catholic high school, where most of the students were white. However, they knew their Irish, Italian, or Greek roots (See Diverse Birmingham). Even if there was intermarriage in their backgrounds, they knew the cultural roots of each side of their families. Looking back, many of them were children of recent immigrants and there may have been grandparents who kept the family traditions alive. So how would I approach this issue with people who don’t recognize culture?
In part 2, I will share how I work with people to help them develop a cultural identity.
I think it is interesting that people who label themselves as "plain ole Americans" don't see that "mainstream culture" is about them!
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in New York, I have observed that the "plain ole white" category is more common in the South. What is unfortunate is that many people in the south have generally muted their ethnicities in order to "become white."
Interesting T White. Thanks for your comment. Check out Paul Gorski's work on "whiteness" when you get a chance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendation! I've read a lot of the historical literature on whiteness (Frederickson, Roediger, Bay, McIntosh, Ignatiev, etc.) but none in education.
ReplyDeleteSome scholars believe that the availability of higher education to a greater diversity of people in the mid-sixties increased intermarriage among people of European descent. Intermarriages led to he blending of cultures, ethnic and religious backgrounds. I can't put my hands on the material at the moment, but I believe the focus was in the northeast and mid-west.
ReplyDeleteWe spent time on this in a class I took with William Cross, author of Shades of Blackness. He is at CUNY I believe. You may check him out too. He is a New Yorker so I promise, it isn't just the south.
It funny how those of us from different ethnic backgrounds look at ourselves. I was very much into my Puerto Rican heritage - Spanish, Taino indian, African.
ReplyDeleteI moved to Thailand - those intricacies of American culture had no relevance. We were just American - it didn't matter to them how I viewed my ethnicity.
I was at a hotel meeting with my Thai-Chinese boss and 2 Iraqis buyers. One of the Iraqis was very emotional when he discovered that I was American. He accused me of being responsible for a bombing that killed a relative. My Thai-Chinese asked me to remove myself. My ethnic diversity did not register with him. So, I actually experienced an Americaness that I never experienced before.
So, the difficulty arises from trying to view your identity from within your own fishbowl. If someone moved you to another fishbowl where you are out of your element - those differences come shouting back at you. You see it.
Games like Branga can be set up to explore these differences. Your kind of shocked into seeing difference. Or setting up someone to work with your group as a Contrast Culture Person - I did this working with a Japanese audience. We got some interesting feed back.
The same thing can be set-up with an American audience. Even ethnic minorities in the group will become aware of just how American they really are. This kind of training can be challenging - need someone skilled at working as a contrast culture person.
You have so much experience Ham. I didn't realize you lived in Thailand too. I am going to post a piece next week about my experience in Malawi and South Africa and how they perceived my identity.
ReplyDeleteBack in the mid-90's I attended a church in Huntsville that we joked was "integrated because I was there." One Sunday evening the associate minister, Brother James Gray, preached a lesson about "the way things used to be." (I forget the exact title, but that was the gist of it.) I found it quite interesting that with only one exception (ironing hair) I could relate to every single thing he said. (BTW, thoughts provoked by that sermon eventually made their way into a poem called "I Am Not 'the Man'" which was essentially my introduction to the African American community at UA.) It occurs to me that many things claimed as black culture really belong to a broader "Southern and poor" culture. I grew up eating the same dishes often labeled as "soul food." Attending church functions at this church was no culture shock to me as regards food, not at all. Any way, kinda rambling now, just wanted to point out that there is a commonality of "culture" among poor whites and poor blacks in the South. For some reason whites don't typically think of it as their culture (or use that particular label) though, but really it is.
ReplyDeleteThanks G. As usual, I appreciate your comments. Most of us don't have a single culture. We usually have a dominant culture and incorporate practices of other people. One of my professors suggested a book to me sometime ago regarding the Europeans who settled in this part of the country such as the Scottish and how our cultures were more alike than persons of English descent.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to figure out the origins of some cultural practices. Food is usually not at center stage when I teach African American studies. However, there is research regarding the fact that certain foods that we refer to as "soul food" were not found in this region of the world until the Enslavement including Okra, black eyed peas and I think yams are in that group. I can't think of any of the researchers at the moment, but you can do a search using the keywords, "slave gardens." The concept of frying is associated with the African continent.
When I teach about culture it includes norms, values aesthetics and more abstract concepts that relate to what we call, "deep or subjective" culture (See Stella Ting-Toomey's "Communicating Across Cultures).
Many black and white southerners are mixed with black, white and native American ancestry so I am sure some of the cultural influences from some of the indigenous ethnic groups influence all of us.
Sorry I'm late on this. (Been busy getting stuff lined up to start this doctorate work. BTW, I will be doing some work in social justice as part of my studies. Kinda excited about that.) Plus, it took me a while to look up the source. Louis Gates, Jr. says that the idea that African Americans and Native Americans greatly intermingled is a myth. He says only like 1 in 20 African Americans have any Native American heritage. Here's one link (it's stated in one of the last paragraphs), but you can google for more.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10567.shtml
On a personal note, there was an initiative in my home county back in the 1990's to establish everyone's Native American heritage. (Somehow I think there was federal money available for education is probably the root of it.) White people used to be ashamed to have "Injun blood" in them, but suddenly it was all the rage to be part Native American. ("Dances with Wolves"?) It turns out I'm 1/32 Cherokee. My paternal grandmother readily acknowledged it once it came out, but somehow her generation just kept it under wraps.
Interesting too: I've got a little more melanin this year than people in Tuscaloosa have seen before since I was somewhat home-bound in my recovery the last year and a half. So far, I've been called Mexican, Cuban, and Hawaiian. I forget what else -- everything but the Cherokee that I am.