Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

The beauty of culture is the diversity it brings to the world. No individual is the same when it comes to every aspect of culture. People differ in their thinking styles, their language, perspectives, experiences, and so on. It is with this in mind, that I asked three very close friends to me to share their experience with culture and diversity.

My good friend is a homosexual male who has spent his whole life knowing what his sexual orientation is and came out at a very early age to his family. As his parents were both extremely welcome, he has not had to endure the stigma often associated with coming out to loved ones. He admits that the worst part of admitting his sexual orientation came from when his close friends in college found out. As they were both conservative Christians, they immediately stopped talking to him and refused to acknowledge this very important part of his life. In fact, one of his friends still refuses to speak with him to this day, while the other decided to ask questions and to try and understand his way of life. While it was still hard for him to speak with this friend after they initially rejected him as he truly was, he understood that their culture and way of life made it difficult for them to understand his sexual orientation, but the fact that they were willing to learn about his culture was comforting.

Another friend married into a Jewish family and as she was born and raised in a Catholic household, she lied to her family for the first two years of her marriage that she still attended church every Sunday, when in reality, she attended temple every Saturday. It took her two years before she finally told her mother who opened up to her daughter that she herself was born and raised a Baptist. She had also lied to her family when she got married to a Catholic man, stating that she was still a practicing Baptism. My friend felt relief after telling her mother, yet was taken aback that her mother had hid this from her knowing her situation.

My final interview was actually friends who are identical twins. While they both lived the in the same household until college, practicing the same traditions and customs of their Indian family, they both have renounced certain customs to adapt to the dominant culture of where they live in Los Angeles, California. They said they both chose to go against their cultural customs and expectations in order to pursue careers as artists. They have not talked to their family after their move which has been about five years. They do not regret their decision as it has led them into a different world in which they enjoy, yet the fact that their family broke ties with them based on their decision to adapt to the dominant culture is heartbreaking.

When I asked each of my friends their definition of culture and diversity, they each expressed their idea of culture as their childhood. The customs and traditions that they shared growing up exemplify their definition of culture as being family and the way they interact with one another. While the first friend expressed how open-minded his family was and the way in which culture was acknowledged and celebrated was altered when he arrived at college and realized that his friends grew up completely different as their families were so conservative. My second friend believed culture was how she also grew up, with the knowledge that Catholicism was key to everything one did. She defined diversity as the chance to mix things up, elaborating that diversity is what gives spice to life; it changes the world around us and makes us know that we are unique. The twins both exclaimed culture represented a world in which they could not express themselves, yet they also acknowledged how the dominant culture in which they live accepts them for who they are and what they want to do.

It shows that even families differ in their cultures and practices and perhaps the most important aspect is how people change. While culture and diversity seem so set in tradition and certain ways of life, humans are beings of choices which means that change is always possible.