Diversity and Assimilation

I would like to begin with saying the first person I talked to an Indian coworker named Nita. Nita to be seemed very much involved in her heritage but I was really surprised by the answers she gave me about culture and diversity. She told me about her daughter who is in 5^th grade. Through out the years, the administrators and teachers would constantly get her name wrong, even as going as far as spelling it wrong on a certificate she received in school. Nita said she tried to explain to her daughter that she had a difficult name and to have understanding when people were not able to pronounce it. I told Nita about our reading and how this is really an event that chipped away the spirit of this little girl. What I had taken out of the conversation was that assimilation was more important to Nita then diversity. The reason I came to this conclusion was because with each example of an Indian tradition that was taken from my reading there was an excuse why this couldn't take place in an Early Childhood setting.

My husband says culture says a certain number of people who have similar beliefs in society while diversity is people with points of views or backgrounds/differences.

The last person I asked about culture and diversity was a parent of Chinese decent. We had a conversation on how American and Asian culture were different. She told me that she did not practice a lot of the traditions that were from her home country. An example of this would be, on the child's first birthday the baby picks from a group of objects to determine what their occupation will be when they become older. She thought this was silly when she thought of others doing this. She said it didn't bother her when she thought people thought she was something other then Chinese. What I had gathered again from this conversation is assimilation is more important and traditional cultural values have taken a backseat.

“All young children first develop their self-concept within their family, getting their initial sense of place in the world from who their family is and where they fit inside it. By preschool age, they begin also developing group cultural identities and social identities.” Sparks, D. L.& Edwards O. J. (2008)

I really enjoyed talking about other peoples cultures and it opened my eyes to assimilation and diversity. With the people that I talked to there was a lot less of the diversification that I expected.

Reference

Sparks, D. L. & Edwards J. O. (2008) Anti Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves. National Education For Young Children