My Experience With Diversity And Diversity

This paper is going to cover my personal reflection of what diversity means to me. I will discuss the messages I learned as a child about various minorities and majorities, and how my views have changed since then. I will also describe a situation in which diversity directly influenced my life. This paper will also include reflections of the common read novel The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. I will detail how the main characters experienced diversity. I will give examples of how diversity changed their lives and which person I personally related to the most.

“The multicultural training movement has indeed contributed to a greater and much needed understanding of the differences among various racial, ethnic, and cultural groups (Speight, Myers, Cox and Highlen, 1991).” In looking at this statement counselors will need to expand their thinking outside of the Western European contexts. There is a difference between Western culture and other cultures. Sue & Sue, 2012 states “ each cultural/racial group may have its own distinct interpretation of reality and offer a different perspective on the nature of people, the origin of disorders, standards for judging normality and abnormality, and therapeutic approaches. (p. 45).” As we are brought together with more cultures it is imperative to understand the differences, which will enable counselors to become culturally competent.

Everyone has their own experience with diversity growing up. Some kids grow up in a very diverse neighborhood and school district, while others grow up in small farm towns where their closest neighbor is five miles away. It is always interesting to see how everyone is raised, their beliefs, and their personal experience to diversity. No matter how an individual is raised, as an educator we need to make sure everyone feels welcome in our classroom no matter what their background is.

As an occupational therapist, healthcare worker, and an immigrant, I am a part of diverse communities. Living and working in diverse communities have not only helped me to become culturally competent but also grow personally and professionally.

My diversity experience began on November 12, 2016 in Wilmington, North Carolina at the Jamaica’s Comfort Zone restaurant. I chose this experience because I feel I need to learn more about Jamaica, Jamaicans and their culture. Also, because there appears to be a large number of Jamaicans residing in various parts of the United States, particularly in New York, Florida, and Georgia (Atlanta). Prior to searching for an authentic Jamaican restaurant, I decided that I needed to do some research regarding the culture of Jamaica; and, as a result of my research, I discovered that the culture of Jamaica is quite interesting to learn about. In fact, Jamaica is a mountainous Caribbean island just south of Cuba (see Figure 1) with a population of approximately

Interestingly enough, the main diversity-related obstacle I’ve faced in my life has been the categorization of diversity itself and the notion of being “enough” in these categories. I’m a person of color, and I’m a person of mixed race. My late father was English, and my mother is African American. It was always awkward growing up without my father, because I was a drastically different skin color from my mom as a very pale and white child. People often asked my mother ignorant questions like, “Is she yours? Are you watching her for someone else?”

Regardless of my town’s homogeneous population, I grew up accepting diversity and was taught about different cultures even amid the same racial group. One of the first experiences of diversity I can recall as a child was the various religious beliefs within the Black community. My parents believed “exposure to the world around you” was one of the primary factors to raising a well-rounded individual. Therefore, we often visited different churches of various faiths.

I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas; to be more specific, the lowest income suburb of Dallas, Texas. The elementary school that I went to was the school for the lower income families and we were so equally diversified, that there was no such thing as a minority. Price Elementary was the name and the teachers were wonderful. They could have chosen to work in a school in a nicer neighborhood but they wanted to be there for children that really needed them. Although the school was great, the neighborhood was a rough place to raise a family. My parents worked very hard to move our family to Colorado Springs and to give their children a better opportunity. Their hard work has paid off. My brothers and I are all on great paths to success.

When asked to describe the world I come from, I am immediately taken back to the amazing amalgam of religions, cultures, interests and unique life experiences that have molded me into the diligent, culturally conscious, and empathic person that I am today.

Growing up, my understanding of diversity came from watching television and reading books; from these sources, I deduced that diversity meant embracing people with a different skin color or culture from your own in order to realize that they are people just like everyone else. This narrow view of diversity came from the fact that I had little personal experience with diversity. I grew up in a small town, and everyone in my school was either Native American or white. There didn’t appear to be any discrimination based on this difference; any adversity that anyone faced was based on personality differences or family feuds. That all changed when I started college.

Once a young adult I moved to a more diverse community. The neighborhood consisted of quite a mixture of people. area contained the elderly, African Americans, Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, Native

It is important to understand the broader issues faced by families, this is so you can respond to each family’s individual needs and provide them with support to help them more effectively and attentively. The best way to do this is by asking lots of questions and finding out as much information as possible. For example, finding out the Child’s country of birth, where they grew up, how long they’ve lived in Australia for, what languages they speak, what food do they want their child to eat and is there anything they would like us as educators to do that may help enrich their child’s experience while they are at our centre. Understanding of the children and families in our service is very important because it enables us to share each child’s

When it comes to diversity of people, one will not learn to appreciate a different lifestyle without being educated. Diversity requires education, because it is very easy to place yourself in a bubble and not learn to coexist with all of the different varieties of people. Now that I have learned how diverse people are in more than terms of race or religion but experiences in life, I will be more open minded and considerate of others. Someone's physical appearance is not the same as someone's mentality, and it isn't fair to judge that person based on their appearance when you are almost always going to be wrong about that person and/or offend him/her. Knowing this information impacts my life in the way I use language and see the people around me. You don't know everyone's life story and you don't know what their emotional trigger is. If I have a comment or thought

Everyone has a story that makes them the person they are today. Wherever you are, there is diversity, different backgrounds to take into consideration. Diversity doesn’t necessarily mean division by color of skin but your upbringing, significant changes, and what you learned or taught. Not everything can be seen, some are felt that makes every person different.

We live in a society where people come from different countries, they belong to different cultural, religion, ethnic groups, and races. All these factors come together and contributes to differences that make us unique from each other. Hence, a multicultural country with huge diversity. This reflection journal will cover what “human race” is and what role it plays in ones’ personal life and in a nursing profession. Moreover, what bias, assumptions and judgements are, and how to avoid them. Lastly, what caring is and what role does it play in nursing.