Summary
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Subject index
Developing Cultural Humility offers a unique look into the journeys of psychologists striving towards an integration of multiculturalism in their personal and professional lives. Contributing authors—representing a mix of “cultural backgrounds” but stereotypically identified as “White”—engage in thoughtful dialogue with psychologists from underrepresented communities who are identified as established and respected individuals within the multicultural field. The contributing authors discuss both the challenges and rewards they experienced in their own journeys and how they continue to engage in the process of staying connected to their cultural identity and to being culturally responsive. In addition, psychologists who represent historically disenfranchised communities have similarly reflected on their own journey, while offering commentary to the personal stories of White psychologists.
Video available! Learn more about the “Understanding How to Engage in Difficult Dialogues” video and generating more authentic and genuine multicultural dialogues.
Developing Cultural Humility is useful for stimulating discussions about privilege, power, and the impact race has on either bringing people together or creating more distance, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It demonstrates to readers how to engage in the process of examining one's own “culture” in more intentional ways, and discusses the implications as we move towards engaging in more dialogue around multicultural issues.
Finding a Place in the Multicultural Revolution
Finding a Place in the Multicultural Revolution
I think I was in sixth grade the day I was riding home on the school bus and two of the meanest boys jumped Billy. We all lived in rural Ohio, and although my family had a middle-class income, most families did not, the shoe factory being the biggest employer in town. I don't think most of the kids I knew thought of themselves as poor, but everyone thought of Billy that way. Billy was quiet, rarely smiled, and his clothes were often dirty and torn.
On this particular day, one of the mean boys noticed that Billy had a rip in the crotch of his pants, and they thought it would be funny to hold Billy down and show the rip to everyone on the bus. Billy was a big kid, and he fought back, but there were two or three of them, and they finally pinned him down on the bus floor. They spread his legs open and pointed at the rip, as other kids joined in their laughter. I felt humiliated for Billy, ashamed and angry at the boyS' behavior, and guilty about sitting there and doing nothing.
The word “bullying” seems too light for such cruelty, and growing up, there was more than one incident like this toward Billy and other kids who were considered different. Some unspoken code kept us, including me, from mentioning these incidents to any adults. Then again, the bus driver was driving the bus during the entire attack on Billy.
Understanding Privilege
I come from a long line of Scotch Irish farmers, preachers, and teachers who settled in Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio. When I was 15, my immediate family moved to rural Alaska, where my parents have lived since then, and I returned about 12 years ago. Like many White people who grow up surrounded by other White people, I did not have a sense of my cultural identity or cultural influences in general as a child. I remember I had a friend in high school whose last name was Hidalgo. He had dark hair and dark eyes and had moved from Texas to our small Alaskan town, but it never occurred to me that he might identify as Latino or Hispanic.
I see now that the way I learned my culture was through the values I was taught, and each of these values had a message attached to it:
Humility: “Don't get too carried away with yourself”’ (Humor—including gently making fun of one another—was my family's method for instilling this quality.)
Kindness: “Kindness is always the right answer.”
Honesty: “The worst thing you can do is lie”’ (I thought of lying as about on par with murder.)
Contribution/hard work: “The more that's been given to you, the more is expected of you.” (This one sounds a bit elitist to me now, although I still subscribe to it.)
Thriftiness: “Always live beneath your means.”
Individualism: “A true adult is independent/self-sufficient/supports themselves.” (I no longer consider this one entirely positive, and it certainly made my early adulthood much harder than it had to be.)
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