The mission of “We are the World: Cross Cultural Communications” is to foster a dialogue between different cultures in our cities in order to promote a mutual sense of understanding and respect that will allow us to work together toward a more just and humane world.

 

Because people grow up in communities reflecting their own culture and way of life, they often reach maturity with a limited understanding of communities other than their own. They tend to associate and form relationships with people who think and live similarly and who come from a similar background. Their opportunities to learn about other cultures and ways of life in a substantial manner (as in through dialogue with another) are limited and their understanding of people of other cultures is likely to be flawed or incomplete. Our group, however, believes that cultivating a dialogue between different cultures and a mutual sense of understanding is important because it allows us to recognize both our similarities and differences. When we recognize these similarities and differences, it better equips us to resolve conflicts, to seek common ground, and to strive toward the creation of a just and humane society. We realize not only what makes us unique but also how we can leverage these qualities to foster cooperation and beneficial change in the world.

As Andrew Smith, author of Doctor Who, put it, “People fear what they don’t understand,” and as we have seen countless times in history, in wars and in genocides, a failure to communicate and to understand can lead to great tragedies. At a time when our own country has been wracked by conflicts urged on by failures to understand (whether between civilians and the police or between lawmakers), it is all the more imperative that we emphasize this need for communication and mutual understanding. We do not promise that we will be able to prevent all such future conflicts, such a goal would be naïve and doomed to fail. However, we do hope that in our project we will be able to foster a dialogue that carries across cultural boundaries, enhances our understanding of the communities around us, and inspires the people we interact with to pursue further such interactions and relationships.

 

 

Project 1: Relationships and Opening Up Lines of Communication

For our first project, we felt that we needed to open up the lines of conversation when it came to culture. We reached out to someone at our workplace from a different cultural background that we could learn more about and started a conversation on why culture is important. We asked them a set of seven questions that varied from what cultural background did they identify with, to why they were proud of it, to how their perception of their culture has changed. Allison, who is currently working in New York, interviewed Emmet, a 3rd year medical fellow at MSKCC, from Ireland. Alex, who works in DC, interviewed Salve Bernabe, a former World Bank employee who grew up in the Philippines and then moved to the US at the age of 25 to work for the World Bank in the Caribbean. She now lives in DC and works at a foundation in connection with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Oliver, who works in Houston, interviewed Kent, an employee of Clean Line Energy who studied in an international school in Japan and then moved to US at the age of 18. He identifies himself as a half American and half Japanese. Myrna, who also works in Houston, interviewed Mario Salinas, a past employee of Mi Familia Vota who now volunteers with the organization. Mario identifies himself as a fourth generation Houstonian. Finally, Andrea, who is working in San Francisco, talked with one of her co-interns at work. He is currently in college and, although born in the U.S., has a very strong connection to his Mexican heritage. Through our conversations we were able to identify three recurring themes: the ethnicity people appear as isn’t necessarily the culture they identify as, these individuals seem to want to keep a link to their cultures, and that new cultures are constantly being born.

Something that a few of us noticed when chatting with our coworkers, is that the ethnicity people appear as, isn’t necessarily the culture they identify as. Mario may look like a Latino, but he makes it a point to introduce himself as a fourth generation Houstonian. Based on stereotypes placed on Latinos and Mexican-American culture, he felt disconnected from the Hispanic cultures that others identified him by. However, with his family history and personal involvement in Houston, he decided that being a part of the Houston community came before being a part of the Latino community. In addition, the co-intern that Andrea spoke with mentioned that since he is Hispanic, people tend to assume that he changed his name from a Hispanic pronunciation to a typical American name. They assumed that he “sold out” his name to fit into American culture, when in reality, he was given an “American” name to begin with. Even if he has a very strong connection to his Mexican heritage, he doesn’t appreciate the assumption that people make. In general, it seems that in the process of trying to show our appreciation for different peoples’ cultures, we can assume a connection with a culture that may or may not be true. In that situation, sometimes we can unknowingly show our ignorance and further distance ourselves. Directly asking people what culture they identify with and why is a more effective method of communication.

Another common theme we found in our conversations was that many of the people we interviewed were strongly committed to maintaining a connection with their culture regardless of what it was or where they moved. Although they adopted certain elements of the new culture they entered, they often tried to retain the values and customs connected with their upbringing or heritage. When Allison interviewed Emmet she found that he was proud of the Irish music, food, and values, particularly its emphasis on strong families. When Alex interviewed Salve he found she was proud of the diligent and hard working nature of the Filipino people and their determination to successfully establish both themselves and their families in a new nation. She loved the Filipino sense of courtesy and respect for their elders and wished to instill some of these values in her own children. When Oliver interviewed Kent he found that Kent valued elements of both his Japanese and American backgrounds and that he formed a culture of his own grounded on gender equality and statue equality. Although Kent had mixed two different cultures, he was proud of this hybrid culture and was willing to defend it. When Myrna interviewed Mario she found that he was very proud of his Houstonian identity and culture. He loved the city’s diversity and artistic richness and enjoyed recounting how his family had lived in Houston for generations and had contributed in their own way its rich atmosphere. Finally, when Andrea interviewed her co-worker she found he was very proud of his Mexican cultural heritage and customs. He enjoyed describing the food and how his family bonded and gossiped over the “super sweet” coffee.

Cross-cultural communication is not only for the cultures that are already well defined, but also for the cultures that are newly born. As more and more people travel and live in multiple locations, new cultures can be born based on their unique experience. Kent has identified a unique culture for himself, the culture for half-American and half-Japanese. He was treated as American in Japan and a Japanese in America but he did not feel confused about his cultural identity. As a half-American and half-Japanese, his lifestyle was always a hybrid of both, but the way he talked was more like Japanese. He told us that the best thing for his hybrid culture was that he could accept both cultures or neither of them freely. Although having such a unique culture has made Kent an outsider outside his own community, Kent has got used and felt proud of his own culture. To talk to people like Kent, cross-cultural communication is no longer about American culture or Japanese culture, but about that unique culture for half-American and half-Japanese.Kent would not be the only one with his own unique culture since more and more international students came to US and the immigration would never stop. Therefore, it is a good time to extend the cross-cultural communication beyond the cultures well defined, to the newly born cultures. In the case of Mario, him identifying himself as a Houstonian, has given him the opportunity to integrate other cultures inside this term. When talking to him, he mentioned that he loved the term Houstonian because he could mold it to be whatever he wanted it to be. Both of these individuals have been able to create a new culture within the cultures that have already been established.

Overall, it was amazing to learn about our co-workers in a way that might not normally come up in everyday conversation. One person’s cultural identity is something that is easy to take for granted based on small assumptions. We discovered several patterns through having dialogues in all our workplaces. Through our conversations we learned that your ethnicity doesn’t necessarily reflect the culture you identify with. The importance of preserving parts of your culture, no matter where you are or what culture surrounds you, was another central theme. Then lastly, we learned about communicating within a new culture, and recognizing and respecting the unique qualities of different cultures. People have many different identities, and for some people, their cultural identification is a large part of how they see themselves and the world. We learned a lot by talking to our co-workers, but also realized how much we still have to go. We are looking forward to continuing these conversations over the next month and a half, and gain even more insight into what cross-cultural communication really means.

 

*****

 

REFLECTION TWO:

 

Theme 2: Exploring Other Cultures in Our Communities

Project 2: Attend a cultural event or exhibit to increase understanding of other cultures within our communities.

For the first project, We are the World interviewed co-workers about the culture that they identified strongly with. For our second project, we each attended a cultural event to increase our understanding of other cultures within our communities. These events ranged from festivals, to museums, to parades. By attending these events we would have the opportunity to experience a culture in a way we hadn’t before. After the cultural event we all took time to journal and reflect on what our activity meant to us, and how we could share it with the rest of our community.

 

Oliver

I attended the cultural festival at St.Thomas University with a group of friends. The festival was focused on the African Culture. People from different nations set up their own booths and showed their culture to others. Also, traditional performances and free local food were given. My friends and I walked around those booths, learning some interesting facts about different nations and tasting the delicious food. The pork I had was extremely juicy and spicy while the rice roll was really soft. When we hung around, people from booths invited us to take a picture together to celebrate the cultural diversity. After that, we even got invited to join an African dance, where boys, girls, the old and the young danced all together.

The most interesting thing based on my observation is that people may not be interested in knowing you but they are absolutely passionate about letting them know your culture. When I dropped by a booth, a man from Ghana just asked my name and where I am from. I replied and asked which culture he was showing here. The next 15 minutes was solely for him to introduce his nation and why he was so proud of his culture. He talked about the climate, food, traditions and many other things. He seemed to want me to fully understand his culture this time.

Another thing that really impressed me was the engagement people showed in their culture. Many people joined a African group dance in the middle of the square. Even though people did not necessarily know each other, they held hand in hand, dancing and shouting. It seemed that they were so engaged in their culture that others from the same culture just became their friends naturally. It was really hot, more than 90 degrees in the noonday sun but none of them seemed to be willing to stop.

The cultural diversity in Houston was demonstrated and celebrated. People from different cultures showed a great commitment to their own culture and were eager to let more people to learn their culture and get involved. It was a feast of cultural diversity in Houston.

 

Allison

Given the excitement of the recent Obergefell V. Hodges Supreme Court decision, I thought an appropriate cultural event to attend would be Pride NYC. Instead of just watching the parade, I thought that it would be interesting how people differently people would respond to me that day if they thought I was heterosexual or homosexual. My friend and I showed our support by wearing large rainbow flags as capes to the parade, but we also held hands at different points in time.

What I found was that people were incredibly excited for us, as a “happy couple” who felt comfortable walking around in public together. People assumed that we would know all the directions to the parade and the route the parade would take. People also made a special effort to make eye contact with us and smile, in support. People cheered for us, when they would make no such effort for other heterosexual couples. I wondered if homosexual couples ever minded this attention, that singled them out as an “abnormal couple” that needed to be celebrated.

In general, the parade was a celebration filled with constant cheering. However, the event was not just about gay pride, but also about self-expression and a means to promote more awareness. Many parade participants used the attention to advocate an end to discrimination in prisons, workplaces, and healthcare. While most trucks had people dancing to music, many more also had large signs to spread awareness of other social issues related to social equality and discrimination. People all across the gender spectrum felt free to dress as they pleased, rather than to follow social constructs of female or male clothing.

Although the parade did not go through Manhattan’s Chinatown, I noticed that when I walked through Chinatown with my rainbow cape, I did not generate any attention. People were indifferent, if not a little judgmental for my choice of dress. It was interesting to observe the differences of downtown Manhattan, and a more specific communities’ response to Pride weekend. Most shops even a couple blocks down from the parade hung flags in support. In Chinatown, it seemed like any other weekend.

Many of the parade attendees were cisgender and heterosexual. In some cases, heterosexual couples seemed more excited than even the homosexual couples. I found that inspiring, as it seemed to display a genuine support for the progress in equality, and it promoted the same cross-cultural communication that our group seeks.

 

 

Andrea

I chose my cultural event to be going to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. I spent a couple of hours roaming the different galleries they had on display, and observing both the artwork and the other people at the museum. The museum displayed artwork from different countries and regions of Asia, including China, Japan, Koreas, South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines). The biggest exhibitions were of China, Japan, Korea, and then India.

It was interesting for me to see how the artwork from each region changed over time. The religious works of art were great indicators of how the culture from one area had begun to merge with the culture of another. For example, Buddhism began in India and therefore that is where the earliest relics are from. However, in later years you begin to see relics and antiques of Buddhism in other countries as the missionaries spread across Asia. A more modern example was of a Korean painter who fused a classical Korean art technique with more of a modern, western style. It was a beautiful example of merging two cultures in an artistic way.

Art is a great way of understanding what is important to a culture at the time it was created. Most of the ancient Indian artwork revolved around religious idols, where ancient Japan reflected much more nature in their pieces. The special exhibit that was on display when we were there was modern Chinese artwork, 28 pieces in total. These pieces reflected both aesthetic beauty of the technical age (using computers for the physical creation of the vision) and political ideologies (an artificial body of a person who was silenced by the government).

I also made it a point to observe the other people who were in the museum. I saw families from many different ethnic backgrounds looking at the artwork. When walking around, I noticed that people would spend the most time in areas where it seemed they had an ethnic connection. There were also a variety of ages at the museum, and it was interesting to watch the interaction between the adults and their children or grandchildren. I saw several cases of the adult recognizing a piece of old artwork, or what it represented, and then trying to share that with the kid. Sometimes the kid was receptive, sometimes not. I noticed a particular moment between a mother and young daughter, the daughter being about 10 years old. They were discussing the artwork and that led to questions about language, and how you say a certain word in Chinese. Artwork is a great way not only for different ethnic groups to discuss what culture means, but for there to be communication across generations to discuss tradition, cultural influence, and heritage.

 

 

Myrna

 

I attended an International Development Breakfast & Business Expo in Downtown Houston hosted by the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The chamber set the tone for the event with a presentation that focused on the importance of international trade and communication, as well as cooperation between communities.

Mi Familia Vota, the organization that I work for, had a booth. Our main goals were to register people to vote, bring awareness about the lack of civic engagement in Latino communities, and to speak with business leaders about partnerships and going into their offices to register their employees to votes. I got to talk to different business leaders, emerging entrepreneurs, other non-profit and government organizations, and media outlets. The people that I talked to were from all backgrounds. When we talked about the Latino vote and empowerment, which is what my organization pushes for, the attitude of many was that even though the Hispanic community in the US represented different countries, we needed to unite as one. There was a focus on not losing our cultural roots but coming together in our similarities to have our voices heard.

 

 

I was able to start conversations with people about the importance of working and knowing more about other communities outside of their own. It was interesting because some of the individuals we talked to, pushed for communication between different communities specifically for business and political reasons. They did not seem very interested in getting to know communities in cultural and personal aspects. Others seemed more inclined in having a better understanding and involvement with communities outside of business reasons. One of the most interesting conversations that I had was with a lady that was part of British Consulate here in Houston. She came up to our booth because she wanted to learn more about the Latino community. Her reasoning was that the US and the UK have always had such a great relationship and that they felt that to keep on having this communication they needed to be able to know more about the fastest growing community in the US, which are Latinos. By the end of the conversation we set up a meeting for them to come to the office.

 

Overall, it was an event with a good portrayal of the interaction of different communities. It was a great forum to start a conversation and be able to hear people’s opinions. Even though a lot of the conversations had a business aspect to them, people’s thoughts and values came out.

 

Alex

 

This past week I attended the Washington, DC Folklife Festival, a summer festival where representatives of another culture and often country come to DC to share their customs and way of life. This year the festival celebrated the Peruvian culture and featured food, music, dancing, crafts, and artwork all depicting different elements of life in Peru. People from around Peru came up to share their customs, experiences, and stories with visitors, and many more people of Peruvian descent volunteered at the festival to describe how they went about reconciling life in the US with keeping their traditional culture and values. I had the opportunity to speak to several of them about their lives and backgrounds and to share about my own culture and background. I found that everyone I talked to was eager to tell me about their lives and to hear about mine and that there was a surprising degree of diversity among the visitors from Peru. They came from all over the country and had many different customs yet they all celebrated their unity in being Peruvian. This reminded me strongly of how the US is made up of many different peoples and cultures but how we all are united under the American label and how we tend to share certain values and ideals. This recognition was my first takeaway from the event, that although it is easy to associate a single culture with a country, countries are in fact heterogeneous and are made up of many different people groups with their own traditions and cultures.

My second takeaway came from a conversation I had with a lady of African-Peruvian origin. She described how her culture originated from a mix of African and Peruvian customs along with some Western customs and Catholicism. She described the huge celebrations that villages in her region of Peru would have during major Christian holidays but also her worries that her local subculture was threatened by the larger Peruvian culture and globalization. I realized the value with which people hold their local cultures and the ways in which they try to combat its loss through celebrations and passing on stories and customs to their children. As I talked to some of the Peruvian-American volunteers and attendees about their own culture, I gained a better insight into their struggles in balancing their traditional cultures with the culture and values of America. Although they loved many of the traditional American values such as liberty and individuality, they also prized their Peruvian roots and wished to share them with others.

Furthermore, I recognized while talking with people both from Peru and the US the tension between modernity and tradition. Peruvian parents both from Peru and the US feared their children would lose their culture ties and values such as family and community to the tide of postmodernism. In this concern, they show striking similarity to parents and families across the US and around the world. Finally, communities within Peruvian culture such as the Kukama seek to preserve their culture through innovative methods like Radio Ucamara where they connect their traditions and worldviews with today’s problems. Although these methods may appear modern in appearance, they, nevertheless, reflect people’s traditional cultures and values.

 

 

 

 

There was a lot to take away from all of our unique experiences, and we each learned a lot from the rest of our group members. We had a large diversity of events and of conclusions from those events as you can see from our personal excerpts above. We each learned a lot from our cultural events and have had great conversations with each other and with people in our local community about these experiences. For our third and final project, we are looking to not only participate in a cultural or community event as a bystander, but to take an active role and volunteer to help throughout the event. We are looking forward to working alongside members of our respective communities in order to help share a culture with the rest of each of our cities.

 

REFLECTION THREE:

Theme 3: Advancing Cross Cultural Communication within our Communities

 

Project 3: Volunteer or participate in a community service or outreach event and create dialogue with other participants.

 

For our third and final project regarding cross-cultural communication, We are the World thought it would be a good idea to volunteer in our communities and have a dialogue with the people we volunteered with and who we served if applicable. We each went to widely different activities or places and gained unique experiences. Being an active volunteer is a great way to become more integrated in our cities and local communities. What we learnt from our experience gave us different perspectives and helped us think further.

 

Allison

 

When I found the one-on-one Judaism discussion sessions through Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE) online, I was under the impression that MJE welcomed people of all backgrounds with any interest in Judaism. When I arrived on the 10th floor, Chani was quick to correct me. It turns out that these one-on-one sessions were more like tutoring sessions than discussion sessions, and as the only Asian in the entire room, I felt starkly out of place. At first, Chani was more inclined to refer me to the local synagogue for a broader introduction (and eventual conversion), but since I had already paid the entry fee, she directed me another classroom to study the Torah with Rabbi Avi Heller.

Rabbi Avi Heller was enthusiastic and warm. He held the Torah study with a small group of students, who tried not to note how out of place I was. For an hour, we studied a passage in Numbers that described Zelophehad’s daughters. He spoke Hebrew beautifully, so even if I didn’t understand the context of the passage, it was pretty inspiring to hear him speak a language he knew almost better than English. He didn’t refer to the English translation at all. The study was so in-depth that in the hour that we pored over the text, we only analyzed about 8 or 9 lines. Rabbi Heller asked his students why each person of the lineage was mentioned, why Hashem chose to accept the specific wording of the daughters’ proposal, and why Moses failed to give an answer when first approached. He opened the floor for speculation and encouraged people to propose ideas, without shutting down any possibility.

Afterwards, another student and I chatted for a while. She encouraged me to take advantage of birthright, before it was too late. She talked about her own experiences in Israel, and how “awesome” all the rabbis at MJE were. She had dozens and dozens of questions for the rabbi that had built up from the previous study session a week prior. I admired her curiosity and her enthusiasm.

This is the first time I have ever gone to an in-depth biblical study session. I felt uncomfortable by my lack of knowledge, and the clear differences in just physical appearance. I was not even 100% certain on the name of the Hebrew bible, so I opted to keep silent for the entirety of the actual passage analysis, and only spoke before and after the session. Regardless, the amount of detailed attention and critical thinking that the students and the rabbi devoted to Judaism was reassuring to me. While I had intended to have a open discussion where I could ask questions about the role of Judaism in people’s lives, I am happy with the experience I received.

 

 

Oliver

Houston Food Bank.

 

When people talk about the cross-cultural communication, they focus on the ways people from different cultures talk to each other. However, the most important question is more about why people from different cultures would communicate with each other. From my volunteer experience in Houston Food Bank, I realized people chose to communicate not only because they are curious about each other, but also because they have a strong feeling of a shared identity. It is that feeling of belonging that brings people from different backgrounds together, share their feelings and take actions for the same goal.

Houston Food Bank has volunteering event almost every day and people come to their major warehouse to offer their help. My job this time was to sort and clean the food. When I came to the warehouse, I was really surprised by how many people came to volunteer. In the cafe, more than fifty people were prepared to offer their help, including people who just finished work, students enjoying their summer vacation, and little kids. I met a guy who was a worker, Greg. He told me that he was a Hispanic though he never learnt how to speak Spanish. Before the volunteering started, we talked about his background and his friends. He told me that most of his friends were Hispanic only because he was raised in a Hispanic culture. He recognized the unique communication way of Hispanic but he saw the difference more from the accent, vocabulary and specific expression than the communication itself. He told me that the fact of being an American made everyone the same in nature.

After the volunteer started, I was assigned to cleaning the cans. I was working with a Hispanic man, Dalton Cruz and he shared with me his cross-cultural experience. He was a Hispanic and he made friends with everyone. In the church he was working for, most of his colleagues were not Hispanic and his girlfriend was not Hispanic either. He was basically living with people who had a different culture but he was quite comfortable with it. He told me that God loves everyone and he saw no difference in different people. He came to volunteer in the Houston Food Bank to help anyone who needed. Just as Greg, Dalton recognized the different communication ways from different cultures but he strongly believed that having the shared identity as human being cleared up any cultural conflict.

In the three hour volunteering, I talked to people from different cultures and nearly all of them paid more attention to the shared identity of people and the similarity in how people communicate than the difference. Our goal about cross-cultural communication is to let people have more understanding about each other and I think, besides letting people see the difference in the communication, promoting the shared identity and feeling of belonging would be good way as well. The way we define a community is not necessarily geographical, but more like an ideological way. A community is a collective of people who care and help each other and our goal of cross-cultural communication should be building such a regional, national and global community.

 

 

Andrea

GLBT Museum

 

I had several ideas for what I could do for my last cultural activity and I finally decided on attending the GLBT museum that is located in the Castro district in San Francisco. My plan was to go there and dialogue with the people who worked there, and ask more about the museum and their personal involvement. I was also going to walk around the Castro a bit more, because this area is historically known as San Francisco’s first gay neighborhood, and is currently representative of San Francisco’s LGBT community. I had been to pride, but I wanted t o know more about the LGBT community of San Francisco outside of the one day of celebration. However as I was on my way to the Castro district, there were several unfortunate circumstances that kept me from getting to the museum before it closed.

First was the fact that taking San Francisco’s public transportation at rush hour requires one to wait for several trains to go by before shoving yourself into a crowd of people. I had accounted for this and asked my mentor if I could leave early enough to make it to the museum with plenty of time to spare. What I didn’t anticipate was the complete power outage on the train when we were underground. That lasted for about fifteen minutes, still giving me time to reach my destination. What happened next though was what really kept me from my initial plan, and was what reminded me why cross-cultural communication is so important.

As I already mentioned, SF public transportation requires you to be packed in a very small space with a large amount of people. A couple stops after the power outage, two men were trying to cram into an already packed train car. One of the men was being pushed into the train by another who wanted to make it into the car. The man being pushed did not appreciate the actions of the man behind him, and bluntly told him so. In fact he was very upset about it, and began raising his voice. The man who had pushed behind him began raising his voice just a bit, and then proceeded to curse. This was where the cross-cultural miscommunication came up. While it was very obvious to me that the man who had cursed uses that vernacular in his everyday talk, the other gentleman became very offended by it because culturally for him, that word represented great disrespect. The man who was offended was also in his 60s, about 20 years older than the other guy, and it was very clear to me that he also felt disrespected because of how the younger man was treating someone his age. As they argued with one another in a car packed to the brim with people, it was very apparent to me that neither realized the perspective of the other person. That ignorance led to the beginning of a physical fight, and cops waiting at the next stop.

I think what bothered me even more than their ignorance in the situation was the ignorance of the people around me. Many were taking sides, and after the situation on who was to blame. I know that the two men in the argument were emotionally charged, and that that contributed to their actions, but I expected more from the people around me. More of an understanding that both of these two men felt marginalized in some way, and in some ways, both were valid in their feelings of the situation. It was just a really good reminder how easily a situation can escalate if people don’t take the time to understand where someone else is coming from. It was a great reminder as to why I value communication as much as I do.

 

Myrna

 

I decided to volunteer at a Houston Mayoral Candidate Debate that was being put on by several nonprofits and unions in the community. I chose this event because I felt like it would be a place where I could interact with people from all over Houston. It also fit very well with the project that I have been working on with Mi Familia Vota this summer, which is to organize a Houston Mayoral Forum at Rice. Volunteering here gave me the opportunity to start conversations with others but also experience what mayoral debate was like..

I was helping set up the auditorium and I started taking to this lady that was probably in her forties who was an assistant to an immigration lawyer and in her free time would volunteer with a non-profit called Fe y Justicia. It ended up being that she was also from around the same area that I am from, the Rio Grande Valley. She mentioned how she loved growing up there, but once she formed a family, they settled in Houston because of better opportunities. I could notice that she definitely missed and appreciated the vibrant Mexican culture that is present in the valley. She mentioned several times how much she missed the community sense, the food, and her family. The love that she had for her culture reflected the attitude of the many other individuals that my cohort and I have talked to through the summer.

After volunteering we were welcome to stay for the debate. Through the debate I was writing notes and paying close to attention to what was being said. At the end of it, I felt a tap in my shoulder and it was this older Anglo man. He told me that he had never seen anyone write notes so quickly and that I should consider learning shorthand. From there, we went on to talk for about 15 minutes. We talked about the candidates, what points we had thought were interesting, and about Rice (his stepfather and father in law went to Rice as well). He asked what major I was and I told him that economics and Spanish. He goes on to tell me that when he was in college his step dad gave him the opportunity to go study abroad to learn Spanish in Salamanca, Spain for a summer but that he did not take the offer. Not taking that offer is now one of his biggest regrets, because later on in life he became interested in learning about other languages and cultures. He reiterated several times how important it was to go outside of our own cultures and explore.

There was two high school students that I got to talk to after the event as well. We spoke about the candidates and about the stances we actually understood. The three of us agreed that there were some topics that they touched on that went completely over our heads. We got into the conversation on how for this mayoral elections only men are running, and that in the main contenders there is a Latino, two African American and four Anglo candidates. I asked them if someone’s cultural background should be considered when making a decision on who to vote on. On one side they felt that someone from the same cultural background could understand the struggles of a community better, however that didn’t mean that someone from another culture couldn’t understand the struggles or the culture of another community. We came to the conclusion that whoever becomes the mayor of Houston has to try to understand other cultures outside of his own because we are such a diverse city and we all deserve to be considered.

Talking with these group of individuals was neat because I got to see how important a person’s culture can be to them and how there are a lot of individual out there who want to explore other cultures. These were patterns my group and I saw when we did our first project back in May in Hermann Park. I loved that I was able to bring culture in the context of politics as well.

 

Alex

McKenna’s Wagon at Martha’s Table

 

Sometimes it takes leaving the place you have grown used to, to recognize its problems and the areas in which it still has room for growth. You can go for years, wandering through it, seeing the same things over and over, but you don’t really begin to understand its issues until you leave and then return to reevaluate it. DC is such a place for me.

Upon returning to my home city from college, I began to recognize issues that I had shut out or maybe just accepted as inevitable in the past. To state it simply, DC is a very divided city–racially, politically, socioeconomically, etc. Not only do these divisions exist, they often overlap and define life within the city. As I heard in one talk this summer, DC is a city split into racial zones and anyone caught outside of their zone has to prove that they belong. In DC the restaurants, offices, cafes, and swanky parts of town are considered “white zones,” conversely the streets, alleyways, and poorer parts of town are considered “black zones.” It is an ugly truth, but one that we have to admit is there, in order to address it.

Bridging this racial and socioeconomic gap was the focus of my third project. I decided to volunteer at the Martha’s Table, a charity dedicated to feeding and clothing the poor, in order to address this divide and to serve and communicate with another community different from my own. On the “McKenna’s Wagon” assignment, I helped pass out food to the poor in DC and had the opportunity to speak with some of the people I was serving. Some of them were homeless and unemployed, living on the streets of DC or in shelters around the area; however, many of them were just scraping by with low paying jobs and families to support. They worked long hours and hustled from job to job, but struggled with rents and purchasing basic necessities.

Almost all of the people we served were African American, further reinforcing the perception of DC’s dividedness. However, what truly stood out to me was not the similarity of the people we were serving but their distinctness.  While some of them wore ragged clothes and had clearly been living on the street, others arrived clean shaven and wearing worn but clearly well maintained button down shirts and pants.  Moreover, while some of them were reserved and quietly accepted their food without much more than a nod, others eagerly talked with the volunteers and even helped us setup and breakdown the serving station.

One man, who arrived early to help us set up and stayed late to help us break down, shared with me about his life in DC and his struggles supporting his family. Another man, who had attended the University of the District of Columbia, shared about his interest in religion and history and asked us to take a picture with him for his scrapbook. Yet another man helped us organize everyone into a line and made sure that all of the women and children received servings before he took one. This diversity of experiences and eagerness to share impressed on me how many backgrounds the people we served were from and how distinct they all were.

Finally, although I differed from most of the people I was serving in terms of background, I found that I could connect with them as they shared their stories and listened to mine. Several of them had gone through college at one point or another and had struggled with finding jobs, balancing different responsibilities, and reaching goals. Even though my life looked very different from theirs in many respects, I found that I could identify with and understand many of their emotions and concerns. Having the opportunity to speak with them and to bridge the communication gap between us, transformed them in my mind from mere ideas to real people, with their own complex and unique lives and set of experiences. I hope that, with these lessons in mind and connections formed, we can begin to cross the divide that separates us and to resolve our differences in search of a stronger and more united city.

After our group decided to focus on cross-cultural communication, we first worked to increase our understanding of the cultures around us, and then to actively create dialogue with other communities in our area. While some of our efforts to reach out to unfamiliar cultures did not go as planned, we learned about others’ views on their own cultures, and in this process, we were better able to understand our own lives and cultural upbringings. Our group agrees that these projects are just the gateway for the ways that we can bring cross-cultural communication to Houston and then beyond. Sharing one’s culture can be done anywhere, and we are excited to take what we have learned and start discussions closer to home.