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Personal-Cultural Analysis and Identity Development Natalie R. HillWake Forest UniversityAbstractIn establishing my own cultural and racial identity, I have come to understand the pivotal role that the collection of all of my previous life experiences has played on my own ability to connect and identify among the multicultural construct that exists among all clients and how it will influence me as a counselor. My own cultural competency is contingent upon embracing and learning from my previous life experiences. In order to understand my client’s own racial and cultural identity, I must be able to embrace my own biases and limitations as a person and a counselor. Interaction with Diverse GroupsProfessionally Little diversity exists among my co-workers with regard to culture and race. The majority of the workforce consists of middle class, Caucasian American females in their mid-30s. There are only two African American males at the agency where I work. Upon beginning this course on multiculturalism, I have wondered how the African American males that I work with, might feel considering being surrounded by such an overwhelming demographic of Caucasian American women. There is quite a bit of religious diversity amidst this same group of individuals. The majority of the workforce is made up of Southern Baptist Protestant believers. In the mix are also, progressive Christians, agnostics, atheists and pantheistic. This can sometimes cause conflict as the majority group will occasionally attempt to push a religious agenda in the workplace. At times, some of these devout Christians have placed fliers and handouts in the waiting room or have attempted to handout other religious propaganda to clients. Emails with religious connotation abound from time to time as well, despite this being a community agency with no religious affiliation of any kind. Most of my colleagues are relatively unscathed by the occasional pushing of a religious agenda. One of my colleagues who identifies spiritually as being pantheistic finds this type of behavior to be offensive and will complain to the administration when such situations arise. Her concern is that this behavior could be offensive to clients, as she finds it to also be offensive. In my professional life I encounter a wide variety of diverse ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic groups that differ greatly from my own. I work for a local community mental health agency as a mobile crisis clinician; this means responding to other community agencies, such as schools, jails, doctor’s offices, the local hospital, just to name a few. In addition to responding to other agencies within the community, we also respond to people’s homes that are experiencing a mental health crisis. We come into contact with people from all walks of life. Mental illness does not discriminate against the populations that it affects. I have walked into homes in the most affluent neighborhoods in the county and have also walked into people living in squalors where I have literally left the home with tics attached to my clothing. I see people of every age group, race, sexual orientation, and cultural background. In addition to interacting with different religious, cultural, and racial groups of clients; I also regularly interact with other professionals in the community who are of different religious, cultural and racial groups. A few of the doctors at the hospital, where we respond regularly, are of Eastern Indian decent. There are also African American doctors that we work with regularly and one doctor of Russian decent. On one occasion I witnessed a horrible interaction with one of the African American doctors and a client that I was there to assess. The client became belligerent with the doctor and yelled derogatory racial slurs at her out in the hallway with several people (both hospital staff and other patients) witnessing the incident. I was mortified for the doctor, but said nothing; I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to apologize for the client’s actions, but felt compelled to maintain my level of professionalism. My interaction with all of the doctors remains on the same level, professional. SociallyMost of my social interactions are with Caucasian middle class Americans, similar to myself. The majority of my friends are married with children; both parents are working, and have children near the age of mine and my partner’s children. Our lives are shockingly similar in many ways. Most of us own our own homes and spend much of our free time supporting our children at various sporting events. We all grew up in similar areas geographically (in North Carolina) and our childhood experiences with our own families of origin are also similar; growing up in middle class families and being exposed to Southern Baptist Protestant theology. Although we may share similar cultural backgrounds, our religious beliefs are quite diverse. I identify my belief system as being a progressive Christian. I believe in God, but do not actively practice my faith in a church setting, mainly due to the area that I live demographically not having a progressive Christian church that is accepting of gay and lesbian families. I have friends who are atheist, agnostic, and even pantheistic. Religion is never the topic of contention among my social group. Everyone is respectful of each other’s religious identity. We are not socializing together for spiritual reformation; we are socializing together because we enjoy each other’s company. One of my closest friends identifies as being pantheistic. She also incorporates some Native American spiritual beliefs and she has shared some of her beliefs at times with me and my partner. She believes drastically different than anything that I have previously been exposed to. She believes in spirit totems and believes that animals or insects that she sees regularly are her spirit totem and that she is seeing this particular creature for a reason. She believes that the universe is trying to communicate something to her through this creature. For example, she takes her dog regularly and walks trails near the lake. During a few of these walks she saw a snake, so she decided that the snake was her animal totem and should learn more about this animal and consult with her Native American friend as to what this spirit animal could be communicating to her. It was difficult for me to be attentive to such beliefs that are so foreign from my own. Her reasoning for identifying the totem seemed illogical. For instance, she walks on trails near the lake which is a perfect habit for a snake and she generally walks during mid-day while a snake would be out on these paths probably basking in the sun. My mind does not identify these events as a sign from the universe, but rather a coincidence and normal snake behavior that she seemed to be encountering due to the place and time that she is taking her walks. I did not challenge her beliefs in anyway. After all, she had never challenged my illogical belief of a magical man in the sky, who once came to earth to be killed only to be raised from the dead and ascend into the sky in three days. Acceptance, not only in friendships, but in life and in counseling, I believe to be one of the most powerful gifts that you can give another person. First encounter with racismI was aware of racism before I first encountered it. I knew from an early age that people of a different color were somehow perceived to be different from me. I was exposed very little to other cultures or races as a child. It wasn’t until I started school that I encountered any culture or race different from my own. My preschool was made up of all Caucasian Anglo-Saxon American children, my Sunday school and church group was made up of all Caucasian Anglo-Saxon Americans. The only occasional exposure to a different culture that I had was with my pediatrician, who was of Chinese ancestry. My parents often had a difficult time understanding him, but kept him as our pediatrician for all of my childhood, because of his exceptional medical knowledge and the care that he provided his patients. I was in elementary school the first time that I encountered racism. It was an experience that has stuck with me my entire life. I was in the fourth grade and me and two boys were up out of our seats clowning around. The teacher was out of the room and the boys were swinging me around and kinda playing tug of war with me (just kids being kids). One of my friends was standing in the doorway and she had her hand in the door jam. I all of a sudden I broke free from one of the boys grasp and when I did, I feel back against the practically open door. This force shut the classroom door and nearly cut off my friend’s thumb. The teacher, who was out in the hall, heard her screaming and immediately sent all three of us to the principal’s office. On the way to the principal’s office I was crying and one of the boys said to me, “don’t worry about it, I bet you don’t even get in trouble” and I said, “Yes I will! I was the one who pulled away and shut the door, it was my fault.” When we entered the principal’s office, we began telling the story of what happened. I told the principal what I did and I will never forget her response, “Now, Natalie did these boys tell you to say that? You have never been in trouble a day in your life. I think I know what really happened, you run along and go back to class.” I couldn’t believe the principal’s response, but paralyzed with fear, I said nothing more. I let the two African American “trouble makers” take the fall for something that I was responsible for. Even as a child, I knew that these boys were treated unfairly. I can remember going home to tell my parents of the injustice that I had encountered and although they too felt that the situation was unfair, they too did nothing to correct it. The two boys had been the scape goat for as long as I could remember. They were good kids, but always in trouble, always the first to be accused of anything that happened in the classroom. One of these “boys” was recently released from prison and the other is known in the community to be a drug dealer. The school and community labeled these young boys as small children; sadly they have lived up to these labels into adulthood. Advice about DiversityParent and Family Advice on ReligionReligion was at the core of everything that my mother did. She did some missionary work and traveled to Uruguay for a few months when I was four years old. She was always involved in Church; in teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir or directing the choir, and she spent many years devoting her time trying to become a gospel singer. Many of our weekends were spent traveling around North Carolina for my mother to sing at different churches. When she wasn’t singing at Church functions, she was practicing for her next event or attending Bible study groups with some of her friends. There was nothing in her life that did not involve God. Our family was in Church every time the doors were open. As a family, we had mandatory Bible studies and were required to memorize Bible scripture and all of the books of the Bible. This was usually in anticipation of a visit with my grandparents and extended family on my mother’s side. As devout of Christians as my family may have seemed to be, we were pale in comparison to my grandparents and extended family members on my mother’s side. My grandparents were both Sunday school teachers, my grandfather was a Gideon, and they both weekly volunteered at the local jail doing missionary work. Family gatherings were a time for each family to try to prove themselves as being the most devoted to Christ. The grandchildren were required to recite Bible scripture and sing songs of praise to show their steadfast devotion. My family never won. My cousins, who were all homeschooled, would be able to recite entire books of the Bible shaming my mother and making her feel inferior, probably further fueling her need for validation from my grandparents of “holiness perfection”. This validation never came. This lack of validation is probably what drove my mother in search of a more radical church family. She then began involving herself and our family with a fundamentalist Holiness Church and it was during this time that she imposed some excessive rules for what she felt was “unholy”. I was no longer allowed to watch My Little Pony and Rainbow Bright, my brother and I had to play the Nintendo on mute, because the music that played in the background of the videogames was demonic. I can remember her throwing my brother’s He-man action figures into the fire because she decided they too were demonic. She thought that she saw demons in our home and spent much of her time in prayer or reading her Bible. The Church believed in the gift of the prophecy, speaking in tongues, and the laying of hands for healing; just to name a few of the extreme practices. I can recall my mother talking to me about speaking in tongues and the gift of the prophecy; and even as a child I felt that these practices were irrational. Religion remains the core of all things for my mother and my extended family. My mother and other family members do not involve themselves with anything that is secular. All things continue to surround God and religion. It was this center that influenced the way that my family advised me about people of different races.Parent and Family Advice on RaceMy mother and father both believed and taught me and my siblings to treat all people with dignity and respect. “After all, we are all the children of God”, they would say. What was said and the way that my mother and father treated people of different races were drastically different. My father can be racist and I have heard him use the “N-word” more times than I care to recall. My parents in defense of their unintentional racism, would always cite the one time that my father had an African American man over for dinner and that we had an African American baby sitter a couple of times. My family was forced to address their comfort level of racial and cultural acceptance, when my brother married a woman of Filipino decent. She has been a welcomed addition to the family, but many times she is paraded by my mother to exalt her tolerance and acceptance for others. She is deeply committed to family adhesiveness and devotes much of her time and energy in celebration of birthdays and always acknowledges even the most mundane family occasions. My mother was instantly ecstatic at this new union and would gloat about how beautiful her future grandchildren were going to be due to the wonderful completion of my new sister-in-law’s skin tone. She was instantly accepted by my family and my mother even traveled with my brother and his new wife to the Philippians to participate in their wedding ceremony abroad. This immediate acceptance into the family was especially difficult for me to swallow, considering at the time of their union that my partner and I had been together for nine plus years and she had yet to have even met my entire family. Parent and Family Advice on Sexual OrientationSexual Orientation was discussed very little in my home, until after I came out to my family. There was an expectation for you to be in a heterosexual relationship and an assumption that you would be heterosexual. There was also the expectation that you would adhere to the religious connotation of homosexuality being a sin. I don’t recall hearing sermons about it, I don’t recall hearing discussions with my parents about it; it was never mentioned in our home. I can recall when I was a young child; I wrote a love letter to another girl and got in a lot of trouble for it. I can remember feeling confused as to why I was in so much trouble, especially considering that my feelings were purely platonic. I had no idea what it meant to identify as gay or lesbian. Those were not words that were used in our home. This all changed when I left my husband for a woman.I still have in my possession the letter that my mother wrote me when I left my husband. Thankfully, I cannot recall the hurtful words that were written verbatim, but the overall message was that I was sinning against God and that I was abandoning my children. She went on to say how I did not care about my children and told me how much I was hurting her and them. I suffered many years without any of my immediate family members being involved in mine and my children’s lives because of my sexual orientation. My mother even offered at one point to pay to send me to a “pray the gay away” type retreat that she had found online. My relationship with my mother and other family members’ remains strained due to my sexual orientation. There is always a religious undertone to conversations and I am constantly being preached at. The thought is that I have strayed away from God and that it is their job to try and bring me back. My mother once made the comment to me, “It is not like I didn’t expose you to God, it just didn’t seem to take on you.” I still struggle with having my own religious beliefs separate from that of my mother. It is work that I am still actively pursuing in my own personal therapy. Racial/Cultural Identity Development and Effective CounselingThrough my own therapeutic journey, I have come to understand and to accept how pivotal all of these experiences have been in my life and how impactful they will be for me as a counselor. The good, bad, and indifferent of these cultural, racial, and spiritual experiences have molded me into the person that I am today. I am able to honor them and I now realize that I will be a better counselor because of them. They have not only made me a stronger person, but they have allowed me to grow and heal from some really painful places in my life. I realize that I am a product of the racial, cultural, and religious influences that have occurred throughout my life. After all, “Cultural identity and self-concept are developed not only within the context of the consciousness of others’ perceptions but also within historical images and stereotypes of culture” (pg. 4 Thomas and Schwarzbaum, 2011). Although my previous experience with culture and race has influenced me, I have continued to shift within myself. I have accepted some of the principals that I have been taught with regard to my own racial and cultural identity. While others I have abandoned completely to adapt my own framework to better suite my independent beliefs.My hope as a counselor is that all of my previous experiences will lead me to be more empathetic and understanding to the clients that I will serve. “Multicultural competency is broadly recognized as a critical component in effective cross-cultural relationships, fostering empathy and understanding” (Vinson and Neimeyer, 2000). In working toward developing my own autonomy, I have worked at self-discovery and identified instances of my own influence of “white privilege”. Unintentional racism exists in my home and community. I have seen myself move through many of the statuses of the RCID model and still struggle with feelings of disintegration. These feelings may impend my work with people of different cultures, as I cannot be effective working with them while harboring feelings of guilt. Identifying these feelings is the first step in moving toward a more productive status where I can be more effective in working with clients with different multicultural backgrounds from my own. ReferencesThomas, A., & Schwarzbaum S., (2011). Culture & identity:life stories for counselors and therapists(second edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.Vinson, T. S., & Neimeyer, G. J. (2000). The relationship between racial identity development and multicultural counseling competency. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 28(3), 177. Retrieved from ................
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