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Please take a moment to view both short film clips below before responding to the blog prompt written at the bottom. These clips were selected to illustrate what some cross-cultural interactions might be like. As you can see, assumption, expectation, and understanding all affect our ability to build relationships. Below is a clip from Gran Torino (2008) that highlights the growing relationship between a man named Walt, played by Clint Eastwood, and his Hmong neighbors. Below is a clip from a documentary called, God Grew Tired of Us (2006), produced by National Geographic Films and Newmarket Films. It is about four boys from Sudan who embark on a journey to America after years of wandering Sub-Saharan Africa in search of safety. The Poisonwood Bible (Book 1: Genesis):
The opening statement of Leah's narration has to be one of my all-time favorite lines: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle" (Kingsolver 13). If you've never heard of it, a Betty Crocker cake mix is a boxed, prepackaged cake mix made by an iconic all-American brand. In The Poisonwood Bible, this trivial box of flour and sugar acts as a flawless symbol of the Price family's unpreparedness for the cross-cultural shocks they are about to experience. As the family sets foot onto totally foreign soil, they "carry in" much more than their American goods which they soon realize are utterly useless. They carry with them their misconceptions and ignorance about their new home, as well as their frequent prideful inability to humble themselves and adapt to their starkly new environment. I want you to personally reflect on these struggles. When you consider a cross-cultural experience of your own, can you recall ever allowing your own misconceptions, assumptions, or inaccurate expectations to negatively affect your experience? Have you ever allowed your pride to affect your ability to take a humble attitude in an unknown, foreign setting? What did you learn as a result? Conversely, have you ever been the recipient of someone else's cross-cultural misconceptions? How did you feel? React? Primary Blog Expectations (respond to the prompt above): 200-250 words, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful and thorough writing. Please use a name that you select as your nom de plume and be sure to add word count. Due by 11:59 pm on Friday 2/15! Secondary Blog Response Expectations (read everyone's primary responses, select two that interest you, and respond to their ideas): 100-150 words EACH, minimal errors in grammar and usage, thoughtful, and thorough writing. Please use your nom de plume and be sure to add word count. Due by 11:59 pm on Sunday 2/17!
Edward Newgate
2/15/2019 10:21:18 am
One of the most embarrasing moments of my life was the first time I went to my friends house in the United States. I was still adapting to the language and the culture of this new unknown land, so my manners left much to be desired. When I first arrived at the house, my first mistake was greeting both their parents by their first names. Since this was a very religious household, they did not take that lightly. After being corrected and slightly scolded, we sat down to eat dinner at the table. My family is also religious but we had never prayed before a meal. So my loud and excited chewing gravely interrupted their sacred praying before the meal. They looked at me as an unwanted guests, since throughout the day I continued to behave in a matter that would be frowned upon when looked at through the lens of their culture. By the time I went home, I had to tell my mom what happened and she spoke to them on my behalf. Thankfully, they acknowledged I had no bad intentions and invited me again some other time. The same mistakes were not made the next time, and every time after that.
Flora
2/17/2019 08:56:53 pm
I’m sorry you had to go through that kind of experience. But, to be fair if you were a child they could have explained to you their customs instead of judging you for not knowing them. I find this very interesting because I have also seen many different ways of living when I've been to other friends of different cultures houses. Thankfully, I haven't had an experience as embarrassing as your's, but I do relate the general concept. I have been to other’s houses as a child and been so shocked to see differences as small as walking in the house with shoes.
2/15/19
2/15/2019 10:24:07 am
You may not know this, but I am not just a student at East Hartford High school. I also take classes at Glastonbury High School (just my electives). As you may imagine, this is a big cross-cultural clash. We all know East Hartford is the “poor”, minority town and Glastonbury is the wealthy all-white town. This is a pretty extreme difference. Growing up in East Hartford, I have witnessed a variety of different races and identities. In Glastonbury, tere is not a lot of non-white people, so those students haven’t really experienced a lot of other races. One Big difference I first experienced when going to Glastonbury was the money. Every student gets an ipad, a very large privilege. I remember Freshman year, a senior was complaining about how horrible the bathrooms were and I was so shocked because, compared to the ones at EHHS, they were gorgeous; they were big and clean, and mold-free! I know this is only a bathroom but it goes to show the higher standard that exists at GHS. People always look down on out-of-town kids at any school. This was no exception for me. Even in East Hartford, The place where I grew up and called my home, I got comments about how I was a Glastonbury kid and how I must love Glastonbury and fit in so well, but that wasn’t the case. Glastonbury kids looked down on out-of-town kids too. Kids who weren’t in the program called the hallway where the ag program is the “ghetto hallway”. Even kids in the program looked down on us for being from East Hartford. Especially as they started to become apart of the Glastonbury society, even though they were from out-of-town too. Last semester, one of my teachers said “Hola, Como Estas?” to the class to get their attention and this girl turned to me and said “where are we? East Hartford?”. I just find it crazy how just crossing a town line can create so much hatred and disgust.
Baboo chaat masala
2/16/2019 07:05:44 pm
We have divided ourselves so much that if we were step into something smaller, it can create a hell lot of problems for you and I mean it. Of what you say is true about the situation of glastubury then the question is what kind of principles are we following, the great ones or the typical ones. The thing is that we are never gonna get out of this, no matter how many protests we stage or how many sacrifices we give it's just gonna be like that. Reading your post seems like to me you are living in two different worlds. The thing is none of us are perfect, no matter who we are. It's all of us fault
wee woo
2/17/2019 02:56:54 pm
Wow. I have always found it interesting to see how other schools are and how those students function. When I hear the way some people talk about East Hartford and the high school, I am shocked at some of the things that are said. I know that our school is not perfect, but I never considered it to be terrible compared to other schools. In attending East Hartford public schools all of my life, I have always felt like we are more of a community than anything. Also, when I speak with friends in other districts, I often find that their school environment is much less welcoming and friendly than ours. While many outsiders talk down on us, they don’t have the right to speak on anything because they never experienced it. That goes for everything, you can’t give an opinion on something you don’t know about.
Azalea
2/17/2019 10:51:35 pm
Yeah, I understand. I truly like the teachers at East Hartford High because they're concerned about whether you learned something and most of them don't really sweat it if you don't pass a test, but they care if you didn't try. Other schools may have better facilities, but they are much more hostile and judgy. They only care about what people can see from the outside, but actually attending the school all it's cracked up to be.
Coral
2/17/2019 11:03:50 pm
It sucks that you had such a negative experience while you were attending GHS, but I think it’s important to look at other people’s perspective when it comes to situations like this. It’s no secret that life is unfair. It’s inevitable that some people are just going to be born with advantages and others are not. The only thing that matters is what people do with what they are given and how those people act. We can’t blame GHS kids for having what they have because that’s just the way things work in their community. I don’t think they mean to look down on us because even most students in our school tend to joke about how ghetto we are. I know for a fact that some EHHS kids look down at GHS or similar schools and assume that they are all snobby and stuck up even if they’ve never met someone from there. Ehhs has a reputation, some students fall into that reputation and some don’t, and it’s the same thing for students at GHS and other schools.
F
2/15/2019 10:24:57 am
Having an identity can deeply affect how you interact with that person. I personally don’t make assumptions on other cultural life-styles, but I have witnessed many people who are interested in the topic expect something different from another culture. Although it is not entirely bad when someone is interested in a person’s background, it does hinder the experience. You think of them as a person with characteristics rather than a person with traits. When someone discovers I’m filipino (especially other filipinos) they expect me to understand them more than I can. I don’t know the language or largely about the culture besides what I have learned from my parents which still isn’t much since they’ve integrated much of American life styles into their lives. It also creates a group and seclusion mindset to many people in society. Recently. I’ve been thinking about the difference between “blacks being discriminated” and “being discriminated because you’re black”. They both mean thing in casual conversation, but there is a slight difference to each. The first creates identification; the second sentence provides a characteristic. The identification is what causes expectations. We expect blacks to behave a certain way, talk a certain way. When being black is just a characteristic, it is seen very differently. It is very similar to how people think about someone’s favorite color: Interesting, but not the entirety of the person. Identifying is not entirely bad, but it does hinder how you perceive yourself or how someone perceives you.
wee woo
2/17/2019 03:29:06 pm
I agree with what you’re saying 100%. I like how you said that identities impact interactions between people. Because I am in the patient care class, I go to Riverside Nursing Home on every week and provide care for the residents. One of the residents that I have frequently been caring for is of strong Polish descent and moved to the United States when she was in her late teens. Ever since I told her that my family was from Poland as well, she has not stopped mentioning it and asking if I speak the language. While I don’t mind this at all — I actually find it interesting — it does still show how her knowledge of my ethnic origin has changed the way we interact. For example, from time to time she will say things to me in Polish, and even offered to teach it to me.
Fauna
2/15/2019 10:41:29 am
As someone who grew up in East Hartford and attended East Hartford schools, there are many misconceptions about the students who were raised here. Many of my teachers tell stories about attending events at other schools, in different towns, and getting a look of sympathy or “oh no” from other adults when they answered the questions: “where do you teach?”. Even Betsy Devos, Secretary of Education, fabricated a story from many years ago about how EHHS is failing their students and how we’re simply a “dangerous daycare”. How could these people react so negatively about people and places they have never met or experienced, and simply learned about through rumors? Having been in EH my entire life, the school system wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t awful. Although there are a number of issues in EH, many other places have their own issues to worry about. I felt more frustrated with the people making misconceptions than I did with the people of East Hartford because we are aware of who we are and what is wrong, but everyone else simply highlights these attributes. Ironically, I think I was doing the same with other people from different towns. I had believed that towns like Glastonbury had snooty people who sold drugs and thought they were better than everyone else, which might be true, but not for everyone (which is similar to the case in EH). Although we all have misconceptions about other cultures, we shouldn’t use them against other people and allow them to blind us from who people truly are.
Fauna
2/15/2019 10:41:55 am
WC: 260*
Flora
2/17/2019 09:10:12 pm
I definitely think East Hartford has a bad reputation for no good reason. I think it is because we are so easy to pick on because we are one of the few "minority filled" schools. I hardly hear bad stories about Manchester High or Glastonbury High the way you hear about East Hartford. It is super hard for people to think of anything positive about this school because of all the press saying we have "high rates of chlamydia", or "drugs", or even "mold in the school". I just feel like only the students and staff at EH know what it's like, and it really isn't even that bad.
Coral
2/17/2019 11:38:43 pm
Fauna I agree with your statement that we shouldn’t judge people based off of our misconceptions and that Ehhs has a lot of issues that have been exposed yet nothing has been done to really solve them. For example, some classes I have taken couldn’t even provide us with textbooks, but the school was able to spend money for a new football field/track.
Flora
2/15/2019 10:42:40 am
Although I was born in New York City, I grew up in Connecticut. Because of this, me and many of my family grew up very differently. While I was in the “suburbs” taking school buses, my cousins were in Brooklyn taking the subway to school. It is interesting how different family can be from you when you grow up in different environments. From the taste in music, to independency, to ways of speaking, and overall personality, me and my cousin are completely different and it's honestly a product of our environment, despite only being a 3 hour drive apart. My cousin, whose only 2 weeks older than I am, and I grew up together for the first few years of our life and when I moved and as we got older we became increasingly different, and with that we had different expectations of one another. He expected be to be a soft-spoken, goody-two-shoes, which I am somewhat , and I expected him to be tough, gangster-type personality, which he is, somewhat. I don’t know everything that goes on in his life and he doesn’t know everything about mine, we both recognize this when we get together and despite growing up seemingly drastically different, we get along. And neither of us get offended when the other assumes certain things because we know both of us do this.
Fauna
2/17/2019 11:03:47 pm
It’s nice knowing that regardless of your differences, you and your cousin are able to get along and respect each other. I feel like more often than not, these differences are what cause society to become divided. Because people don’t understand (and don’t bother to understand), people view the world as a “me vs them” issue. If people would put an effort in learning the culture and traditions of others, society as a whole would become more united. These prejudices that exist are the root to many problems facing humankind, such as racism and sexist. These things are fueled by the arrogance and narrow mindedness of many who refuse to acknowledge that time progresses and so do people.
F
2/19/2019 10:41:53 pm
This is a nice example of developing differences based on different environments. It's also a nice example of appearances and cultural differences not getting in the way of a good relationship with family. Many people can get easily irritated by the fact others they know don't act similarly to them, but I think differences are what makes relationships interesting. When you and your cousin interact with each other, it must be really entertaining to have those assumptions about each other as well. They may not be very big in the relationship, but they do play roles. Maybe next time you can both think about why these assumptions occur.
Baboo chaat masala
2/15/2019 04:43:43 pm
The thing about our life is that we as a human being tend to immigrate and emigrate from different countries to different towns. It’s in us and before we start it we get adapted to certain lifestyle and cultures. Leaving them or adapting other cultures gives birth to a term “cross-culture” . Many of us know this term but are not familiar with it, so I will share my experience and hence will explain the meaning of it. I am from PAKISTAN and I came here a year ago and I am asked if I wanna go back and I tell them yes but sometimes I don’t know if that is the right answer. I wanna be a ufc fighter and hold my country’s flag. I wanna be proud myself. To me I think that I am in between the border of two countries and don’t know which one to choose, I say PAKISTAN and outer forces say choose USA, I don’t know what to do, whom to listen. I won’t say that the mixture of cultures is a problem but there is some stuff back home that I miss and you can’t find here in STATES. So now you know how we experience things in different regions and sometimes they don’t make sense.
wee woo
2/15/2019 08:52:41 pm
My mom was born and raised in New Jersey, and almost her entire family still lives there with the exception of two of her siblings. She moved to Connecticut for my father because he was raised here, but since their divorce, I often am in New Jersey with family and friends that I have grown up with. Throughout my many stays in Jersey, I have come to the conclusion that people there are MUCH nicer and definitely not as nosey as those in Connecticut. I first started to realize this last summer in NJ when I went to Shoprite with my mom. I have a birthmark that covers my entire right thigh — front and back — and ends at about the middle of my knee. Throughout my entire life, my leg has been stared and pointed at everywhere I go; people have always made their ignorance known. However, I began to realize that when I am in Jersey, the amount of people who acknowledge my leg, a minor thing, is down to either one or none. On the other hand, when I’m in Connecticut, I can’t leave the house in shorts without receiving some kind of look from multiple strangers — they’re not even slick about it either, they will deliberately look right at my leg, then my face, back and forth, making me extremely uncomfortable. While only being a few hours away from each other, the “cultures,” so to speak, of Connecticut and New Jersey are completely different.
wee woo
2/15/2019 08:53:20 pm
word count: 250
Azalea
2/17/2019 10:57:59 pm
I actually experienced something different. For me, at least, compared to other places, people in Connecticut seem to mind their own business. Before I lived in Connecticut, random people would ask you how your day was, give you a hand if you needed it, or just start up conversation with you at the bus stop. Here, everyone seems a little stand-offish because no one talks to you if they don't know you and they're generally only looking to satisfy their own needs. Again, this is just in my experience.
Azalea
2/15/2019 10:49:48 pm
I've been around different cultures my entire life because I’ve lived in Africa, London, and America, so I’ve just learned to accept everyone because I’m also different.
Baboo chat masala
2/16/2019 07:38:41 pm
This was the same case with me too. I used to think it was going to be terrible in high school, I was so dumb to actually believe what hollywood was showing and telling me that these are the high schools in USA, where bullying is your no. 1 enemy but when I reached here things were pretty good actually not one case of bullying actually. It is actually pretty amazing here and now I know why people call hollywood a "scripted neighborhood". The second thing is yes I have seen different people that are me but are not actually me. They do different stuff and sometimes I think that are they me or just another group of people.
Diana Lemos
2/15/2019 11:54:20 pm
Since my parents were born and raised in another country (Colombia), it is clear to see that there are many different cultural expectations than those in America. For example, in my parent’s country, family is significantly valued. My parents have always told me about how almost every house in Colombia is filled with your whole extended family (meaning you live with your grandparents, your uncles/aunts, your cousins, your parents/siblings, etc.) and you don’t ever really leave. Even though I was born and raised in America, I grew up living with my uncle and cousin along with my immediate family. Because of this, I always thought that was how everyone else lived too. So the older I became, the more it surprised me how normal it was in America for a person to just move out and live independently at the age of 18. Also, in America, people seem to be focused more on individualism while in Colombia people are more focused on collectivism. So in America, people seem to make all of their decisions based on how it would benefit/affect them as an individual. However, in Colombia people base their decisions mainly on how it would affect their family such as dropping out of school at a young age to help support their family by working. Sometimes the expectations from the two different cultures can make me feel like I’m at a crossroad, but I do find myself leaning towards doing things inconsideration of my family and occasionally putting my own self-interest to the side.
Fauna
2/17/2019 11:11:13 pm
It’s great how you’re trying to balance the culture you come from and the culture you were raised in. I face a similar situation where your extended family is expected to live/stay with you, especially when you’re older, and it is sometimes difficult to deal with. Although I do want to live on my own for a bit and fully experience independence in the “real world”, I don’t want to let down my family. This crosswords of cultures appear to be an issue faced with children who were raised in America and come from different cultures, but we all still have a say in how we want to live our lives.
F
2/19/2019 10:35:24 pm
There are differences in how people in countries interact, and it's important to note why. American tends to focus on individualism because many arrive in America for a better life than in other countries or descend from families who were. As well as, since we are a melting pot country, there is not a one, clear culture to adjust to which makes people generally distant from each other. Despite being at crossroads with Columbian and American lifestyles, it is actually a complete American lifestyle in itself to be very close to your family yet distant from others. People love to clump together because it makes them feel stronger and safer, so familiar faces are always more welcomed. It’s one of the very reasons why we have China towns and other culturally-sections areas. Comments are closed.
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