L7 10/24/17 Cross Cultural Students

Cross Cultural Students

Understanding different cultures requires experience and interaction with other cultures. There are many things I have learned from other cultures only by immersing myself in that culture. I have become very familiar with Hispanic culture by living in South America for 18 months, as well as surrounding myself with friends from different Latin-american countries, or whose parents are from Latin america. I have also begun to learn more about Mongolian culture from dating a Mongolian-American.

I have spoken a great deal with two of my friends about their experiences having parents from different cultures. I will speak about my friend with parents from South America and how she felt trying to fit in with her peers, and about my friend from Asia, and his parents expectations for him to preserve his culture.

My friend, I will call her Maria, has parents from a country in South America. She was born in the United States, and went to a predominately white high school in Washington D.C. She shared with me her experiences of not wanting to invite friends over to her house because her family was so different from theirs. This was something she struggled with all growing up.

My friend from Asia, I'll refer to him as Dung, was born in Asia and moved here with his family as a child. When he became old enough to date, his parents wanted him to date girls from his same Asian country. This was frustrating because he felt like they brought him to America, but did not want him to participate in American cultures.

We can see cross-cultural conflicts in different generations of the same family. These are issues we will definitely come into contact with as educators. We want to help students embrace as many cultures as they possibly can, their own and other wise.