My_Communitity

Race and My Community Tammy Hutchinson ETH125 Cultural Diversity February 28, 2011 Tenisha Spencer Welcome to Heritage Landing in Saint Augustine Florida. Our little community contains 641 houses. Many of those houses are occupied by racially diverse families. At any given time you can run into people from many countries and states within the United States. There are many local events that hi-light those different ethnic cultures. We have community fairs where you can learn more about those cultures each month. Reading my community news paper shows many of the different aspects of our existing culture. Within our community it is not very common to find people who look exactly alike. Of course in some ways we all look alike being male or female. There are many commonalities yet differences. Of the 14 houses on my street, there is not two families from the same state in the United States or the same other country. We represent the following states, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, and Maryland. Mexico, India, China, England, and Spain are the countries represented. As a group, we try to be active in learning about other cultures. Every other month we have a social in our cul de sac, where the focus is foods from a different area of the world. It has been a lot of fun exchanging recipes and learning new foods. We are always discussing different cultural events that are available in our area and attend together sometimes. One family recently adopted a sibling group from Africa. Since the mother and I are very close, we talked often about the preparations she was making. Some of the special items she had to learn to support the needs of the new children as compared to her existing white children. One of the things I remember most was the care of their hair and skin. She had to learn to braid hair, how to apply lotion and special creams for their hair since it is different texture than her other children. It has been a great learning experience for my family as well hearing about their homeland and the differences between there and here. One of the things they comment on is the type of foods they eat here versus there. She has even learned to make many of the common cultural dishes to make them feel more at home. Outside of our little community, I find our leaders are very open to all types of people. They are open to questions and issues no matter who they come from. I have not noticed them treating other ethnic groups differently. I have not noticed a lot of racism within Florida since it is such a melting pot of people from all different areas. Our city is known as a college town. Flagler College was recently named by US News and World as one or the best comprehensive liberal arts colleges. Flagler is also on the list of Americas best colleges (News Week). I met some of the teachers of Flagler College and asked about racial diversity within the school. They all felt the college goes above and beyond to include all races and ethnicities. Each one had the same opinion of the job they do as a teacher. As far as work for me, I have worked for the same company for eighteen years and have found that over the years as we adopt in many ethnic groups our policies and practices change to help improve relations within the company. They recognize special holidays that are not common United States holidays by increasing our number of floating holidays giving each employee the option of taking the days that are important to their culture. We have also started making materials available in multiple languages to help facilitate communications. They are in support of additional education in the form of languages. I myself have taken some lessons in other languages to at least learn the basics to help bridge the communication gaps. In our local media there seems to be equal representation of each group. Each page of the paper offers stories about different aspects of our community. There are many events sponsored by our local community leaders helping to facilitate improved learning from different cultures. As of today I am not aware of any aspects within our community I would change. In my own personal life race has not had an impact good or bad. I have been very fortunate to live in areas that were very accepting of other types of people. I have not been faced with any adverse affects of race and try to personally strive to learn as much as possible about other cultures. Since I have not been faced with any inequalities I would not be in a position to offer suggestions on how to correct any. As I am sure they exist somewhere within our community without direct knowledge I could not correct. With Florida itself being a large melting pot of ethnic cultures, Saint Augustine follows right along those lines. Saint Augustine is home to many retirees whom have carried with them the vast knowledge of their culture. Some of them have lived in the United States a good portion of their life and some are new to the United States. Many of my close neighbors travel frequently to their home countries and often come home with stories that are very educational. At the end of the day, I could not have picked a better street to live on and the cultural experiences my children have had by learning from first hand exposure to other cultures. The only way it would have been better would have been to actually travel to the other countries and experience it for themselves. I hope that as they grow they will understand the vast knowledge they have obtained about other areas and people. It has gone a long way to help them see other people as just like them not so different. When they all play the same type of games and have the same fears and goals it is a good lesson to teach your children to respect other people. I know I have grown from the experiences offered by our little community. Sources http://www.flagler.edu/ US News & World Report Saint Augustine Community News paper