I asked three colleagues their definition of culture and diversity, their answers can be found below.
Brenna a Caucasian American said that she felt culture is what identifies where someone is from and what their beliefs are. she believes that diversity means peoples differences.
Xinuha is Chinese she identified culture as being a person's a person's ethnic background belief systems and traditions. She identified diversity as being what makes it's different from one another.
Anastasia an African American transgender woman identifies culture as being more than a person's ethnic background. It is the thing that shapes a person into who they are it can be their heritage traditions music and soul. She believes diversity it's the things that make us different but it's also the things that connect us in some way. Diversity is acceptance and tolerance end inclusion.
I like how Janet Gonzalez-Mena describe culture as an unconscious rule that governs everything that we do, everything that we learn, and culture and gender are always intertwined (Walden, 2011). I believe when we continue to study culture and diversity, we will see that those two things are very different for everyone. It can be as simple as a person's perspective. Janet Gonzalez-Mena also described culture as being an iceberg the part that is shown is what is easy what is celebrated, but the hard part the things that are rooted and grounded in us are the big things that's underwater.
This is true of both of my friends Xinuha and Anastasia. I know the hurt that Xinuha has experienced, as a Chinese woman in America, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anastasia, who I have known for 20 years as a male and now as a transitioning female. I know being gay in the African American community is hard and often unaccepted. I have been a first-hand witness to her rejection from family members so when she says that culture is what shapes a person and who they are I understand.
She is where the analogy of the iceberg comes to life for me. she has celebrated so many accomplishments for the LGBTQ community, but those things are surface. I know how that hurt and rejection has affected her and those are below the surface.
When I think about the omissions of both of their definitions of culture in diversity because I know them both and I know that they have left off how the pain of cultural biases have shaped them. Unfortunately, we all have some bias. When I was talking to my colleagues and our conversation got deeper, things that I would not put on this blog, I saw the hurt, disappointment and even the fear in their eyes when discussing their cultures.
Hearing their definitions of culture and diversity helps me to understand that is different for everyone try as we might to narrow down a definition it is going to be always more than what is said.
