Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

            I had the pleasure of interviewing my cousin Mia, who was adopted from China, my best friend Ania, who is a first descendant from Poland, and my neighbor Nan, who is ninety years young. I wanted to interview people with different ages, backgrounds, and who are culturally different from myself.

            Many of them had very similar definitions about culture and diversity, in regards to culture, I heard how culture encompasses religion, language, music, food, what certain individuals believe as right or wrong, and even how our behavior is towards loved one. I was interested in hearing from my cousin since we took classes to understand her traditions and customs while also intertwining our Italian customs. She said she see’s herself as an Italian, her mannerisms, her language, her traditions, and beliefs resemble my own. While we still celebrate Chinese New Year and she loves when grandma and her mother make traditional Chinese food (dumplings, wontons). If you ask Mia what she is, she will say Italian-Chinese, just as I am an Italian-American.

            When asking Nan about diversity, she believed that culture and diversity were the same things. I responded culture is characteristics that are inherited by family and society members whereas diversity is how you can be apart of the same culture but still have very different values and beliefs. I believe that many of us are multicultural in the sense of trying to belong to so many groups. In school, you try and fit in and be friendly with one another, but nowadays many families are not just marrying with in their culture. Within a community there are so many individuals with all different abilities and skill sets, not everyone can do someone’s work, and we should pay recognition to the people we admire.

            Much of what I have learned from this course has been answered by some of responses I received, but not everything was answered so clearly. Mia was confused as well as to what diversity was and Ania nailed everything on the head with her answers. Hearing how other people define culture and diversity allowed me to see a few things. I also asked a nine-year-old for fun and he explained it to me as this. So Chinese people eat with chopstick, Indian people sometimes don’t eat pork, my mommy loves tacos, and my daddy likes bratwursts. We all like and do different things but that’s what makes us, us. Hearing these words from such a wise nine-year-old made me realize that he even understands this world better than some adults. I can only hope that more children can be like him and be open to new and different people.