Upon filling out my personal inventory, I realized that my life is much more open and diverse than I once thought. I have never thought of myself as a “multicultural” person, even if My Life Experiences assessment says otherwise. On the scale of assessment, I scored in the slightly multicultural, something that was shocking to me. I felt that many of the things in my past, like where I worked, schools I attended and exchange students my family has hosted, was more of a common thing. It just made me realize how much my parents did behind the scene to build me as a complete individual.
One thing I did not find that shocking was where I fell on the survival chart. I have always found myself to be uncomfortable in the “higher” wealth society. I find the lower-middle class/middle class to be something I have always gravitated towards because of my family and who my friends are. I’m very proud to be who I am and what I have become what I am. To me, wealth is not everything. Happiness is the real goal in life and being comfortable where you are, and for me, that is middle class.
- Dominick Mancini
Dominick,
ReplyDeleteConsidering your status as a "middle class" white person, and your wording that your parents did work "behind the scenes," I inferred that your upbringing would have been rather monocultural were it not for your family's great efforts. As a parent myself, I always look for advice in ways to raise my children with attitudes of curiosity, acceptance, and love for everyone on this planet. However, some methods feel rather artificial and still do not draw my children out of our rather monocultural status. I am interested to hear more from you about what your parents did to help you become the multicultural person that you are.
It's kind of tough to keep it short and explain it all. They did so much by enrolling me a school that kept me in very diverse classes, who they kept as friends and also the restrictions they placed on me. They would encourage me from my first year of schooling, at age 5, till now to never judge a book by it's cover.
ReplyDeleteEarly formative experiences shape our attitudes about diversity. As an adult, how have you built on your experiences that you've mentioned in your post?
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