Digital Storytelling and Bicultural Identities

At today’s meeting we enjoyed learning about the recent work one of our members, Young Song, has done with young immigrant students to help them express their dual identities through the arts. She has worked with Korean American, Japanese American, Haitian American, and Chinese American students thus far. She shared a DVD of the process of her work, including examples of the students’ art, on exploring Korean and American identities through various art projects. They made art from recycled materials, books that showed inward and outward appearances, and finally videos to explore digital storytelling. Art allowed them to move out of their comfort zones, take risks, and look at things in new ways so they can learn to move back and forth gracefully between their two cultures.

We also wanted to mark the recent passing of two great critical pedagogues. Joe Kincheloe, who edited the recent book Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? and was a leader in forming the theory of critical pedagogy. Also Augusta Boal, author of Theatre of the Oppressed, passed away recently.
You can read their obituaries online: Joe Kincheloe and Augusta Boal.

Recovery from Trauma

In our last meeting on mental health in war-torn countries we discussed the Recovery Model (originally from Judith Herman and her book Trauma and Recovery) in which survivors are empowered and new connections are established. This model centers on the power of healing in relationships, affirmation of life, and the role of integrity and trust in healing.

1. Establishing Safety
People need to find a space in which they can trust each other and begin to have normal discourse and form relationships. Even if there is not yet a full sense of safety in the country, a safe community or center must be established to begin recovering.

2. Remembrance and Mourning
At this stage it is important to give space for negative feelings. In order to mourn first people must express rage, anger, and hatred. We are so often discouraged from expressing these emotions, but in the face of horrible acts of violence and abuse these feelings need a space. Part of the mourning process is also processing the lost and understanding the relationship between the sense of loss and the sense of self. As people work through loss they can begin to form a sense of self where loss isn’t the only defining feature.

3. Reconnection with Ordinary Life
At this point people can begin to imagine a future for themselves and their communities. Part of this process is constructing meaning out of the experiences they have had and incorporating that into one’s sense of self. People come to understand that their reaction is a natural reaction to an unnatural act.

Healing has many dimensions including personal, cultural, familial, and political. Reconstruction and rebuilding are important processes in creating new lives and moving through these healing processes.

Mental Health in War-Torn Countries

In today’s Critical Pedagogy meeting, Eleanor Roffman talked about her research that she presented at the Gaza Mental Health Conference in October, 2008. We will post more on the discussions we had around the issue of psychosocial support for individuals and communities who have survived trauma and war, but in the meantime please go to the conference website for references and information on this interesting and relevant topic:

Gaza Mental Health Conference
You can access Eleanor and others’ papers by using the left-hand navigation and clicking on conference papers [English] at the top.

Diversity Mistakes

One of our committee members forwarded us the following insightful tips from Carmen Van Kerckhove: The Top 4 Mistakes Meeting Planners Should Avoid If They Want Diversity and Inclusion At Their Next Conference

Savvy meeting planners carefully sculpt both their advertising and their agendas to appeal to a culturally diverse population. But far too many planners still don’t understand the fundamentals of culturally-sensitive hosting.

Here, then, are the four biggest mistakes meeting planners should avoid, followed by their more appealing and appropriate counterparts.

Mistake 1: Use diversity as window dressing only

Don’t assume that providing ethnic buffets and displaying stock photos of smiling people of color in a brochure is enough is entice the unconvinced that you have them in mind, too. Especially if you follow up by publishing an agenda and inviting speakers who don’t know very much about the people of color in attendance and can’t speak to their concerns or interests.

The Fix: Step outside your comfort zone and call people of color in your industry to find out what issues are on their mind. Incorporate their concerns into your agenda. Find knowledgeable speakers of color who have had success dealing with the issues raised and then advertise those who will be tackling and shedding light on the subjects that their constituents most want addressed.

Mistake 2: Wait until the last minute to reach out to people of color

If you reach out to people of color only as an afterthought, when everything is buttoned up and ready to roll, you won’t get good results. It won’t go unnoticed if you scramble to get a more diverse audience at the last moment because you suddenly realize that you’ll look intolerant if too few people of color show up.

The Fix: Make it part of your job to seek out and cultivate relationships with people of color. Involve them in the planning process from day one. Get their input early when their insights and contacts can help launch the event into the stratosphere instead of slapping a band-aid on something that will need a tourniquet later.

Mistake 3: Tokenize speakers of color

Don’t place people of color into designated “conference ghettos” of your own making by asking them to serve on marginalized panels where they talk only about issues regarding their race or culture. People treated this way look and feel like tokens.

The Fix: Incorporate diversity into the very fabric of the conference itself and invite people of color to be main session speakers. It’s far more powerful if you have a panel of top executives that includes a person of color discussing a business issue than it is to just plop that person of color up there to talk about their race.

Mistake 4: Assume no one wants to hear from people of color

Meeting planners often assume that the only issues that people of color have are “pet issues” for dealing with “identity politics” and that what they have to offer will not be of widespread interest or use to other people attending the conference.

The Fix: Open your eyes and ears to what can be learned from inventive people of color. Communities of color often have fewer resources at their disposal and must come up with sometimes unique, creative solutions that others haven’t thought of or tried. Discover how an enormous talent for making lemons out of lemonade might benefit your own industry.

By making these few course-corrections, thoughtful meeting planners can anticipate an influx of new faces showing up. Just make sure that you spend the time to get to know these new audience members so that they can become an ongoing part of your network and event outreach.

© 2004-2009 New Demographic.
Carmen Van Kerckhove, president of the diversity education firm New Demographic, specializes in working with corporations to facilitate relaxed, authentic, and productive conversations about race. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and has visited as a guest lecturer at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, among many other colleges and universities across the country. If you want to learn how to boost your career by mastering the changing dynamics of race in today’s workplace, get your FREE TIPS now at www.NewDemographic.com

Identity in the Classroom

In addition to class issues, we also discussed identity at large and how to bring identities out in the classroom. One professor mentioned having students bring in a list of all the different identities (race, gender, class, religion, country, language, ethnicity, etc.) to class. The diversity that you find in just one classroom is amazing and really helps them realize how much our campuses here have to offer them.

Having these conversations can also help white students start to recognize their cultural identities that often are ignored. Their identity remains invisible because of their power and they begin to assume that everyone is alike. We need to combat this. They dismiss their identity as ubiquitous and therefore not special because it is part of the dominant culture.

Activity: Have students consider something false that has been ascribed to them based on one of their identities. They can consider their strengths, weaknesses, and stereotypes they face. They can formally recognize these stereotypes and unpack the feelings around them. For example some students have given the following responses:
I am American, but I am not stupid.
I am Israeli, but I don’t like war.

This activity can bring up great stories that are very powerful. No matter what identity they have chosen to focus on there are interesting issues to consider. The students have already made assumptions about each other and hearing these stories and issues can be helpful to them and to us as teachers. Other questions to ask:
What is one thing that is great about a group you identity with?
What is something that you do not like about that group?
What is one thing you never want anyone to ever say about you?