R. Reese, Multicultural Review (June 1997)
A Proactive-Interactive Approach to Bridging Cultural Differences
Background
In March 1991 an African-American teenager named Latasha Harlins walked into a South Central Los Angeles convenience store owned by a Korean-American merchant. Shortly after entering, she got into an intense argument with the Korean-American clerk over a bottle of orange juice the clerk thought the teenager was attempting to shoplift. Words were exchanged as the two grabbed for the orange juice bottle. After the scuffle, Harlins attempted to exit the store, but before she could leave, the clerk shot her fatally in the back.
This tragic incident weighed on my mind for months. There had to be way, I thought, to defuse such situations before they escalated into tragedies. I believed, as others in the community believed, that Latasha Harlins' death was the climax of growing ethnic tensions between Korean Americans and African Americans in the South Central neighborhood. My resolve was further strengthened the following summer, when South Central erupted in violence following the acquittal of four police officers who beat African America motorist Rodney King. Many of the stores destroyed at the time were owned by Korean Americans.
I had just begun a doctoral program in the School of Public Administration at the University of Southern California. I pledged that I would use my studies to find ways to defuse tensions among the diverse groups who live in urban communities. In May of 1993, my second year of my doctoral program, I was selected by the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California as a “Presidential Fellow.” The Leadership Institute was founded by Warren Bennis; James O'Toole and Burt Nanus were the directors. All three of these scholars acted as my personal mentors.
The Presidential Fellowship program allowed select students from the University of Southern California's 17 graduates and professional schools to participate in an intensive leadership training program. One component of the program required each Fellow to create and lead a community-based program. The creation of the “Colorful Flags Human Relations Module” stemmed from my dissatisfaction with the state of race relations in our society, especially in Los Angeles.
Rationale and Philosophy
I developed the Colorful Flags Human Relations Module in August 1993 as an experiment in multicultural education. The problem in multicultural education in the past is that it was nonexistent. We are suffering the consequences of that lack of education today, as many adults are unprepared to live in a culturally diverse society. The problem of muticultural education today is that it is too passive. Many of the multicultural approaches do not involve social interaction. intergroup education, or cooperative learning principles. Many approach fail to encourage students to engage proactively in cultural learning. In other words, these approaches provide students with opportunities to read about other cultures, but they no not embrace strategies that foster direct, face-to-face contact and interaction that stimulates and nurtures cultural learning.
The problems of racism, stereotyping, and ethnocentrism are too serious to implement a passive multicultural curriculum. Schools need a stronger intervention, one that is proactive. Moreover, we cannot simply add one unit that deals with different cultures. Adding an additional unit to a curriculum does not reduce racism, stereotyping, or ethnocentrism, nor does this approach empower culturally diverse students. Students need to be taught aspects of different cultures that create appreciation and empathy. Students need to understand and appreciate the commonalties among cultures, the universal feelings we share because we are human.
Furthermore, students need to be taught how to defuse tense intergroup relations in their classroom, on the playground, and in their communities, and they need to practice these skills over and over. Adding another multicultural unit to the year's curriculum will not stop racial slurs or name-calling on the playground, but the active intervention of a student's peers may. In order to understand the philosophy behind the “proactive-interactive human relations” approach of the Colorful Flags Program, one can compare it to other approaches prominent in the field of multicultural education. These approaches have been described in detail by James A. Banks (1991, 1993, 1994) and others.
The Proactive-Interactive Approach
This approach espouses interaction coupled with proaction. It assumes that the neat classroom setting does not represent the reality of the world, especially in an ethnically tense community.
How is the proactive-interactive approach accomplished? two methods are used. One is the providing of information, specific facts about another culture. The other is the conversation stimulus, including phrases in another language; these phrases encourage those of different groups to engage one another actively. Once the student engages someone from a different ethnic background, communication barriers are then broken down. Each of the participants is empowered. Perhaps one person is teaching and the other is being taught, but everyone involved in the dialogue is learning.
This approach is not a one-shot introduction of knowledge nor is it merely an additional ethnic unit. It arms students with an instrument to use at school, at home, on the playground, and in the community. The proactive-interactive approach encourages students to incorporate learning about other cultures into their daily lives, in school and out of school. Hence, the language phases and cultural facts learned in the school setting will enable the students to start intelligent conversations and engage others from different ethnic backgrounds.
The Question of Language
Language must be considered one of the most fundamental human resources. “It is impossible to consider any form of education -or even human existence- without first considering the impact of language on our lives” (Cole and Scribner, 1974). In the proactive-interactive, language is also used to empower bilingual students. This approach pays attentions and puts emphasis on the original language of bilingual students. The proactive-interactive approach enables bilingual students to shed their inhibitions about speaking their home language. When these bilingual students are encouraged to use their home language, they feel liberated and empowered, as they loose their inhibitions and are prompted to teach their peers their home language.
As Darder (1991) states, “giving attention to the home language raises it to a place of dignity and respect, rather than permitting it to become a source of humiliation and shame for bicultural students” (p.102). Schools should therefore create cultures that encourage the use of home languages.
According to John E. Walsh, one way of stating the relationship between language learning and culture learning is: “All other things being equal, the person who knows the language of a culture will be able to learn that culture much more readily, directly, and fully than the person who does not know that language” (1979, p.54). Language is an enormously helpful and powerful tool in culture learning.
As Walsh states, the primary reason that learning the language of a culture is so helpful to learning the culture itself is that language and culture are not separable in reality. “There is not one thing to be called culture and another to be called `the language of that culture'” (1979, p.54).
The Original State of Ethnic Relations
The original state of ethnic relations in our society is mistrust. Ethnocentrism prevails because individuals see themselves as part of the “in” group or the right group. They see others as the “out” group. Problems of racial insensitivity in our society will not magically solve themselves. These problems must be aggressively attacked. This is the fundamental philosophy of the proactive-interactive approach.
Let us assume that Person A and Person B in this figure are sitting next to each other at a bus stop. Person A happens to be Mexican American and Person B happens to be Chinese American. These two individuals feel quite uncomfortable sitting next to each other. They look different, they dress differently, and their mannerisms are different. They both assume that they have nothing in common and nothing to talk about. Mistrust exists in the space between the two individuals. No one tries to reach out to the other; no one tries to penetrate the space were mistrust exists. Neither individual wants to proactively engage the other.
If these individuals are forced to sit close to each other, the level of discomfort increases. Among other things, each of these individuals is insecure about their knowledge of the other person or the other person's culture. After these two individuals part company, the state of mistrust remains in its original position.
One might say that two people from the same ethnic background might not speak to each other at the bus stop either. I agree with this point. However, it is less likely to be due to mistrust. These two individuals are more likely to acknowledge each other's presence with a greeting, a nod, a smile, a comment about the weather, or maybe even a conversation, than the two individuals in the first scenario. The two individuals in the first scenario do not make eye contact with each other and their body language suggests that they are uncomfortable. This discomfort is derived primarily from each person's mistrust, insecurity, or lack of knowledge of the other person's culture.
The Colorful Flags Approach
An incident that happened to me as I was implementing the Colorful Flags program in the schools showed me the value of my new approach to overcoming the original state of ethnic relations. One day in the summer of 1994 I went to pick up my car at a repair shop in South-Central Los Angeles. I asked the mechanic, an elderly Korean-American gentleman, if he had serviced my muffler. “Yes” the mechanic said. I asked him had he serviced my transmission. “yes” the mechanic said. The next thing I said to this gentleman brought tears to his eyes. I looked him in the eyes, I put my hand out, and said, “Comop sin me dah,” which is “thank you” in Korean. At first his mouth dropped, and then his eyes watered. He had never heard an American, let alone an African America, attempt to speak his language. It was not my perfect pronunciation that bought tears to gentleman's eyes, nor was it my perfect syntax or grammar. It was the attempt. It was the effort of trying to reach out to him, to show him I cared about him and his culture, through the most intimate vehicle we know: language.
This experience showed me that being able to speak a few words in someone else's language is a powerful tool. It is a tool that I strongly believe can break down racial mistrust. More importantly, this experience infuses the process of self-perpetuating learning (see figure 3). Using my experience as an example, I learned something simple about another person's culture. I use it. I empower someone else while empowering myself. I internalize this positive feeling. This makes me want to learn more. Because of the self-perpetuating learning process, I have learned to speak a little bit of 15 different languages in approximately three years. The Colorful Flags Human Relations Module is a proactive-interactive approach to managing diversity in the schools and in society (See Figure 2). It is a human relations module that involves multilingual workshops geared to children, teenagers, and adults. The program has been shown to make a statistically significant difference in reducing ethnic mistrust and increasing cultural curiosity.
Today, diversity is said to be valued; however, what is diversity if an individual cannot even cordially say “Hello” in another's language? Language is at the core of who we are as individuals. The Colorful Flags program states that it is not good enough to be just bilingual in a multilingual setting. Rather, it teaches students the following five human relations statements in the five most spoken languages in their school's community:
1) Hello. How are you doing?
2) What is your name?
3) Thank you/You are welcome.
4) Please/Excuse me.
5) Good-bye/Have a nice day.
Along with the statements, the Colorful Flags program teaches secondary school students cultural facts about various countries, such as capital cities, geography, foods that are eaten, and positive historical facts. The countries discussed in this module are identified as the five most prevalent cultures/languages in each school's community. The specific objectives. The specific objectives of this project are to:
The Colorful Flags program uses language as a passionate and intimate instrument to reduce mistrust and stimulate cultural curiosity. The program suggests that language is a powerful instrument to show people we respect them and their culture. What matters is not perfect grammar or syntax; instead, it is the genuine effort to learn something about other cultures and the sincere attempt to use what we have learned.
Hence, in an effort to say “Hello” to a Japanese person, one may say “Konnipsiwa” when the proper word is “Konnichi-wa.” If the Japanese individual stops to correct the speaker's pronunciation, then that is the “hook;” in other words, dialogue has taken place. Lack of dialogue is a universal problem. This problem persists in Los Angeles, New York, Rwanda, Bosnia, Tel Aviv, and almost any other place in the world. The philosophy of the Colorful Flags program is that if individuals can start to dialogue, they will have a far better chance at understanding each other.
This approach allows students to learn in a manner that is fun and exiting. It builds upon the natural curiosity of people young and old. Students start to listen actively to the sounds and intonations of different speakers to try and identify the language they are speaking. Students observe the dress of different groups and become conscious of the origins of last names such as Kim, Yamaguchi, and Chen.
Furthermore, this process represents positive discrimination. It allows students to become sensitive to the particular nuances of each culture. Hence, if a student identifies a neighborhood grocer to be of Korean heritage, the student can greet the grocer in Korean. The student will also be conscious of the cultural dynamics of Koreans. He/she will be aware of the public distance, social distance, and the intimate distance when interacting with Korean individual. He/she will be aware if hand to hand contact in the exchanging of money is appropriate. By being knowledgeable and sensitive to the cultural nuances of each group, the student can better understand different individuals before condemning them as “weird,” “mean,” or “crazy.”
Once students become intrigued with learning about different cultures, they gain a great deal of respect for those differences. Hence, when an American student hears Chinese cohorts speaking Mandarin, the student is not mad, offended, intimidated, or annoyed, but rather, curious about what they are saying, and wonders if they will teach him/her.