The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
From My Home Curriculum
My Intercultural Communication course is done now and I'm still thinking about Cortes', one of the scholar's, concepts of the "home curriculum." One of the ways we learn about culture is at home, growing up.
In a number of ways, I came from a super-judgmental home and it bred some poison, e.g., perhaps a higher-than-average amount of envy...or a higher-than-average awareness of my envy; a sort of parochialism/provincialism and a protectionist attitude. It also invited being minutely/pettily critical of others.
For example, yesterday, I was taking a ride with a relative and at a stop-light, pointed out: "Look at the decal on that Honda!" (It appeared ahead of the driver's door and featured a side-vent with flames coming out of it.)
My relative responded, "You know what *that* is! Just look at his [big, beefy, white] arm! [The driver's crooked elbow was leaning on his car door.] Pure W.T."
W.T. stood for White Trash.
Was every family this prejudiced? This critical?
I might have wanted to answer yes prior to taking the course on Intercultural Communication; I met a classmate who came from a multiracial background and who said that it was precisely because of the identity-mix of the classmate's background that caused the classmate's home curriculum to focus on not judging others, since that family knew what it was like to be judged.
Parts of my family were less mature than my classmate's. Growing up, even as a kid, a number of times, I wanted to tell my offending relatives: "You should know better. After all, you know how many people have negative things to say about Jews. You shouldn't put others down." But I never did.
Years ago, I formed a theory based on my experience with a number of my family and when the whole Crown Heights thing blew up -- when a Chassid ran over someone Black and terrible tensions were sparked; my theory was that every minority was seeking to be not the lowest among the minorities, e.g., a number of Black people might think, I may be Black, but at least I'm Christian, and a number of Jews might think, I may be Jewish, but at least I'm White.
Asserting My Independence
I don't want to be like the part of my family that is prejudiced. It's like gossip. If I engage in it, it's just a matter of time before someone will be talking against me. And like gossip, it's like slipping into a warm bath, but a bath from which I emerge dirty.
The last thing I want this posting to sound is self-righteous. I'm full of intercultural faux pas, waiting to happen, but it's just that I don't want to relish putting others down intentionally. The members of my family who were most virulently prejudicial and critical were the least successful people in their work and friendships.
If I'm to assert my independence from the legacy of prejudice, first, I need to show some compassion, maybe, to the family that are stuck in the cycle, i.e., they're being proactively prejudicial in their minds; they figure, everyone's an anti-Semite, and so if I'm disdainful first, I'm invulnerable. That *must* be it.
Or they're simply victims of human nature, which can be pretty clannish, i.e., we're the best and everyone else is inferior. Again, it's a defense against vulnerability.
What's the worst that could happen if we were vulnerable? The Holocaust.
Well, the worst has already happened, to Jews and others, unfortunately...and I've been thinking that if the Bernie Madoff scandal hasn't kicked off murmurings of the virtues of Jewish genocide, then the world really has advanced since the '30s and '40s.
That reminds me of more junk from which I need to gain independence: having been taught to avoid producing a "shande fur de goyim," (roughly: a disgrace in front of the gentiles), which is really just a particular shade of self-hatred. To prove that I don't want to come across as overly-self-righteous, as well as to tell on myself, so that I stop doing it, I'll share the most recent example of my own prejudice...against my own people(!):
Last weekend in San Francisco, Pat and I spent time with one of our relatives; growing up, our relative learned the same Yiddish phrases as I learned -- we're six months apart in age. Earlier in the weekend, over dinner, we discussed the concept of a "shande fur de goyim," but just academically.
On Sunday morning, on our way to the Pride Parade, on Market Street, we passed a rail-thin man, wearing a white tank-top, satin shorts, red knee-socks, black dress-shoes, a big Star of David around his neck, a super-hero cape, eye-glasses from the '80s and perhaps a silly hat to top it off, though I may be embellishing about the hat.
I turned to my relative and said, "A shande fur de goyim!"
Showing posts with label independence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label independence. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
India-pendence Day
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Happy Fourth!
Two years ago, I celebrated Thanksgiving by myself -- in an Indian restaurant in Shanghai. Today represents, as some local colleagues would say, an "upgradation" because for this major U.S. holiday, I am not alone.
Pat and I went to the fancier restaurant in the hotel tonight in celebration of the holiday. Again, it was Indian food. Pat is a sport.
We're starting to know some Hindi words: bagh is garden; murgh is chicken; and chollo is slang for let's go/see you later.
A couple of nights ago, a colleague and I learned that both of us blog. We exchanged URLs and today, right before the meeting, she said, "I had a look at your blog."
"Probably more than you ever wanted to know about me...."
"No, that's just what blogs are for...." What a relief. I think there's something ultimately liberating about writing here and sharing a number of the thoughts I have in a given day. Certainly, I felt great when she acknowledged that a blog is for expressing ourselves however we wish.
Hindi Immersion
This morning kicked off the first day of a three-day meeting of the team. We began by interviewing one of our colleagues for a few minutes and then transferring what we learned to a sheet of flip-chart paper, in preparation for introducing the colleague.
We were forbidden to refer to work or to our educational backgrounds, and so we had to describe ourselves in other ways. The son of the colleague I interviewed turned seven today, and the colleague loved Paulo Coehlo's fiction along with the sparkly blue water and white sand of the Maldives.
Among other things, my interviewer learned that I blog -- about what? he asked -- about life experiences; used to go rollerskating in Central Park instead of to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is where my mom thought she was sending me on the train when I was 13 or 14; that I've got a partner of 15 years -- at the end of this month, it'll be -- whose name is Patricia; and that I've got a niece and three nephews, two of whom are identical twins....
My interviewee asked if I wanted her to add her name at the top of the chart, in Hindi.
"Yes, and let's do the whole chart in Hindi!"
She did, and I delivered the introduction by memorizing the order, and speaking English that corresponded with each of the Hindi line items, which felt great.
"Sarah learned Hindi over the weekend!" one of them exclaimed.
My director, who's from China originally, said, "It looks like Hebrew to me!"
And so I asked if my colleague wanted me to write her name in Hebrew and she smiled, Yes. It felt good to know an alphabet other than English characters, since all of them did....It occurred to me to write out all of the line items in Hebrew, too, but I realized that that would be over the top.
One of my other colleagues played cricket on her college team; Pat said that one of her key objectives of this trip is to learn to understand the game of cricket before our return to the States.
Lunch was a special experience: Our manager took us home for a meal cooked by his wife, Sindhu, who has an M.S. in Math and now is studying Library Science. They have two kids, one of whom, at four, already was home from nursery school, and was glued to a Nickelodeon cartoon until his friend came over to play.
Sindhu's cooking was exquisite, and it felt so good to be sitting in a real home, since we're hotel-bound for now. They are Hindu and we took off our shoes before entering their home. I found it ultimately relaxing for an hour in the middle of an extra-full agenda.
Once again, I've nearly fallen asleep at my ThinkPad....
On this Independence Day, I'm grateful that:
Happy Fourth!
Two years ago, I celebrated Thanksgiving by myself -- in an Indian restaurant in Shanghai. Today represents, as some local colleagues would say, an "upgradation" because for this major U.S. holiday, I am not alone.
Pat and I went to the fancier restaurant in the hotel tonight in celebration of the holiday. Again, it was Indian food. Pat is a sport.
We're starting to know some Hindi words: bagh is garden; murgh is chicken; and chollo is slang for let's go/see you later.
A couple of nights ago, a colleague and I learned that both of us blog. We exchanged URLs and today, right before the meeting, she said, "I had a look at your blog."
"Probably more than you ever wanted to know about me...."
"No, that's just what blogs are for...." What a relief. I think there's something ultimately liberating about writing here and sharing a number of the thoughts I have in a given day. Certainly, I felt great when she acknowledged that a blog is for expressing ourselves however we wish.
Hindi Immersion
This morning kicked off the first day of a three-day meeting of the team. We began by interviewing one of our colleagues for a few minutes and then transferring what we learned to a sheet of flip-chart paper, in preparation for introducing the colleague.
We were forbidden to refer to work or to our educational backgrounds, and so we had to describe ourselves in other ways. The son of the colleague I interviewed turned seven today, and the colleague loved Paulo Coehlo's fiction along with the sparkly blue water and white sand of the Maldives.
Among other things, my interviewer learned that I blog -- about what? he asked -- about life experiences; used to go rollerskating in Central Park instead of to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is where my mom thought she was sending me on the train when I was 13 or 14; that I've got a partner of 15 years -- at the end of this month, it'll be -- whose name is Patricia; and that I've got a niece and three nephews, two of whom are identical twins....
My interviewee asked if I wanted her to add her name at the top of the chart, in Hindi.
"Yes, and let's do the whole chart in Hindi!"
She did, and I delivered the introduction by memorizing the order, and speaking English that corresponded with each of the Hindi line items, which felt great.
"Sarah learned Hindi over the weekend!" one of them exclaimed.
My director, who's from China originally, said, "It looks like Hebrew to me!"
And so I asked if my colleague wanted me to write her name in Hebrew and she smiled, Yes. It felt good to know an alphabet other than English characters, since all of them did....It occurred to me to write out all of the line items in Hebrew, too, but I realized that that would be over the top.
One of my other colleagues played cricket on her college team; Pat said that one of her key objectives of this trip is to learn to understand the game of cricket before our return to the States.
Lunch was a special experience: Our manager took us home for a meal cooked by his wife, Sindhu, who has an M.S. in Math and now is studying Library Science. They have two kids, one of whom, at four, already was home from nursery school, and was glued to a Nickelodeon cartoon until his friend came over to play.
Sindhu's cooking was exquisite, and it felt so good to be sitting in a real home, since we're hotel-bound for now. They are Hindu and we took off our shoes before entering their home. I found it ultimately relaxing for an hour in the middle of an extra-full agenda.
Once again, I've nearly fallen asleep at my ThinkPad....
On this Independence Day, I'm grateful that:
- The United States and India no longer are colonies, and are democracies
- As two women, we're free to travel, and in my case work, in this country
- I am more confident in my ability to contribute than I have ever been
- My aspiration to contribute and my contribution both are welcomed
- I have people I miss and who miss me while we're here
- My writing has this blog outlet.
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