Diversity Day

Having gone to a pretty diverse high school back in Pennsylvania, I came into USC with a pretty good knowledge of what it means to be diverse. I thought/think of a place as diverse if two or more (usually more) cultures exist there. Obviously the greater the range of cultures present, the more diverse the place/school/institution is. Since coming to USC I would say that my definition has not changed. The only difference here is that I hear multiple foreign languages on a daily basis, not just Spanish.

At Hand Middle School I would say I experience diversity in the sense of the girl I work with is of another ethnicity (she is African American), but the school itself does not seem very diverse in its population; I would say probably at least 70% or more of the kids are also African American. However other than having a different ethnicity, I would not say our interactions are in any way 'diverse' in nature because my mentee and I are not very different. She has some different interests and does karate, but she also is very similar to my sixth grade self in the sense of personality and music interests.

So now that I have finished answering the prompt, I will go off on a bit of a tangent, but it's not that much of a tangent because it is related to the topic. I feel like the question of whether or not we view diversity as important could have been added to this prompt to allow for a longer blog post, and that is what I am going to address now!! (You can stop here, if you wish, for grading purposes. =])

I view diversity as not necessarily being important, but rather helpful. I'm not going to lie and say I had a very diverse group of friends in high school, because I most definitely didn't. However, I am still very interested in different cultures/languages/religions despite not having much interaction with people of other ethnic backgrounds. Religion is the only thing that made my group of friends diverse in any way, shape, or form. I am friends with people from religious backgrounds from many branches of Christianity as well as those who are Jewish or Muslim. Additionally, I have friends who do not believe in any religion at all. However, religion isn't as often talked about in Pennsylvania as it seems to be in South Carolina, so it really has no role when it comes to making friends; it's more something you learn later after you have met the person.

I say that diversity is helpful because it can allow someone to learn about  different cultures themselves without having to base their opinions off of what their parents or peers say. Additionally, it opens them up to the idea that other cultures exist and that no one is superior to the others. However, diversity, as seen in America, can lead to almost a lack of culture. I would even go as far as to argue that because America was such a melting pot it hurt its ability to create a distinct culture. (That's not to say I can't list things that are attributed specifically to America, but, as a whole, I would be hard pressed to define American culture.) Especially having spent long periods of time in Germany, I could definitely come up with a summary of its culture as a whole nation and also regionally (though, admittedly, they had a head start by over 2,000 years... Even so, Mexico--a country younger than the US--has a definable culture, so time may not be the issue).

I could go on about how diversity is both helpful and harmful to culture, but for now I see no need to.

Auf Wiederlesen!!

Holland