Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

This week, while working as a server in a restaurant, an interesting conversation emerged with some of my guests.  A rich, white, heterosexual male made a comment to be about managing the restaurant.  I explained that I was only working there part time to support myself through a Master's program in Teaching and Diversity in ECE.  He responded to me in Spanish, "Yo soy perdido."  I was both shocked and confused by his response as I'm a white woman who studied French but understands a little Spanish.  "I don't understand", I said, "you're lost?"  "No," he said as he corrected himself, "I am learning."  However, he was unaware of the lesson I was about to teach him.

When I asked him out of curiosity why he chose to speak to me in Spanish, he explained it was because I said I was studying diversity.  His wife and mother immediately chimed in with an explanation about how cultural diversity in America is about more than the Hispanic population.  As a retired elementary teacher, his mother offered several references to ethnic diversity in her classrooms such as Asian-American, Russian and African-American. Obviously feeling a little uncomfortable, the man explained that he worked in the world of high finance and that many of his clients were Muslims, Sikhs, and Latinas.  The mixed reference  between religious groups, ethnic groups and (unintentional) gender groups actually made me a little uncomfortable as I realized that this highly educated man had never deeply thought of cultural diversity or it's many complex forms.

At the risk of my tip, I continued to engage in a challenging conversation with this man not because I needed to prove him wrong, but because I wanted to educated him on the importance of supporting culture, diversity and education at the preschool level.  As a part of the dominant culture, he controls much of the social, political and economic power in society which in tern effects many aspects of early childhood education.  When he commented that he did not have children, I took it as an opportunity to make him realize that his "Muslim, Sikh and Latina" clients probably do.  As well, with minority populations on the rise in America, more and more diversity will be represented in positions of power and social influence; by teaching children to respect diversity and culture early in life, we prepare them for peaceful race relations and social compromise.  ECE is not merely for individuals and their families, it is for the advancement of society at large.  By understanding how we are all uniquely, individually and culturally interconnected especially through the world of ECE, we not only make great advancements toward positive outcomes for children, but efforts to restore tolerance, education and respect in society.  The entire conversation was a wonderful exercise in relating my studies to real world scenarios for others outside the field and understanding how much a brief conversation with a stranger could impact their relation to young children and the ECE field.