Welcoming Families From Around the World

Welcoming Families From Around the World

The name of “your” family’s country of origin

 

Russia

 

At least five ways in which you will prepare yourself to be culturally responsive towards this family

 

1.     Learn about their beliefs on child development.

2.     Learn about the Russian culture and traditions.

3.     Learn about the foods that they eat.

4.     Learn basic words in their dialect so that I can communicate with the child and family.

5.     Place Russian language, clothing, dolls, foods and books around the center so that the family sees and knows that we value their involvement in the program.

 

        

A brief statement describing in what ways you hope that these preparations will benefit both you and the family

 

I hope that these preparations will benefit me by giving me information that will help me to better understand the families culture and their traditions. They will also help me to make the center feel comfortable and safe for the family by including items from their culture and language. I hope that it will help the family to feel comfortable leaving their child in the center and know that their child will be taken care of. Also that the center is willing to go beyond the call of duty to help them and help their child in the adjustment of living in a new country.  

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?

 

I have experienced prejudice and bias many times during my life. As a child growing up I had people that refused to be my friend or shake my hand because it is burnt. When you’re a 10 year old and your peers refuse to play with you because your hand is different it hurts. I actually had peers call me “crispy”. The most hurtful experience I had with prejudice happen when my husband and I went for a time share seminar. We had taken a break and the man doing the presentation told his  female co-worker to “go get that fat black beach whale b***h.” After this weeks learning’s I now see that there were some oppression in there too.

 

In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

 

It diminished equity by making me feel that my black race was not worthy of being there and that as a woman he had not only shown disrespect to me but all women. It made me feel that as a mixed race over weight female that I was not worthy of his time in presenting the information about the time share (which I had wanted to buy until he made those comments). I have never been to another presentation like that again; I try to avoid activity that is presented by males.

 

What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

 

This incident had me feeling like I was worthy less, a was a fat whale and that as a mixed female that I was seen as unworthy of owing property. I also had a major dislike for white males for many years after.

 

What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

 

I believe that he and his female co-worker would both have to change in order for this to become an opportunity for greater equity. He needs to learn how to treat people equally regardless of their race, weight or gender. She needs to learn the same things because if he talks about me as a female like that he will talk negatively about her being a female.

 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

The microaggression that I detected this week was sexual orientation microaggression. I am the Site Supervisor for a center that has four programs, two part-day classes, one LAUP class, one full-day and one city program. In my LAUP program I had one child that was picked up one and a half hour after her pick up time. We waited thirty minutes and started calling her emergency numbers, we left messages on the numbers that were working but a few of the numbers were out of service. About five minutes after she was picked up the father called. He told me “I need to come in there and teach you how to use the phone.” This was not the first time I had to deal with this father; he seems to have no respect for any of the female staff at the center. This really upset me and had me questioning this man’s up-brining. I don’t believe that his attitude towards females is that way with just the staff members because I have seen him interact with his wife in the same demeaning way. The next day I had the child’s teachers ask me could I be the middle person when it comes to dealing with the father because he made them feel like they were incompetent at their job because they didn’t continue to call him tell he answered.