Blog Assignment: Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The people I spoke with about diversity and culture all seem to agree that culture is how you grew up and the things you did when you grew up. They felt that culture was the way you celebrated things such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. One particular friend thought of culture as how they celebrated their daughter's 16th birthday with a huge celebration. She would dress up in a beautiful gown and they would consider this her coming out party or becoming a woman. They all felt religion was a part of culture also believing that most believed in God and even the differences in how they worship.

Also, there was some commonality on believing diversity was defined as the different races working together for one purpose. They believed having all types of people that included African-Americans, Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, and Caucasian and the like going to school or working together made things diverse.

Before starting this class I believed the same about culture and diversity. Reading all the information that describes culture as being more than just religion or dress or celebrations but also the things around you that helped to mold you into the person you are. Learning that the different classes of people, employed and unemployed, married and unmarried, even widowed persons could be considered diverse groups. Also, finding out about the dominant culture and how we may relate or even begin to change the things we learned to fit into that dominant culture may cause other problems in you being the person you were born to be.