Irvine Diversity Grant |
Diversity Seminars |
2003-2004 Participant Reflections
Junior Scholar Program |
Summer Diversity Program
Intercultural Meets Multicultural:
Pedagogical Border Crossings
Maria Torres
My thoughts about intercultural, multicultural and border crossing issues began some time ago in the dusty fields of the Coachella Valley. I never felt like an alien, and yet that is what the government labeled me. I always wondered why being bilingual and multicultural made me less of a person rather than a fuller person.
Therefore, it was very exciting to participate in an Irvine Foundation Diversity Seminar that focused on multiculturalism as a central discourse over issues of national identity, the development of intercultural sensitivity, the politicized aspect of diversity, and cultural relativity. In addition, the seminar allowed us to explore the intersection of the academic discourse with the notion that we are all cultural border crossers. Some of the discussion based on Giroux’s theories, centered on how Pitzer can become a place where students and teachers can engage in critical and ethical dialogue about what it means to bring a variety of cultures into the discussion of how power relations function to structure racial and ethnic identities.
Our discussion group focused on exploring the concepts of intercultural and multicultural in relation to the various experiences that each of us brought from our own perspective. The group included a mix of academics and administrators, with diverse ethnic representation. Therefore, the discussion was rich and invigorating in its content and depth. The readings selected for the seminar served as the basis for much of our discussion. This was expanded by a dinner discussion and the two presentations by Dr. Milton Bennett. The grand finale was a four-hour seminar where we put all of our ideas on the table and worked our way through the numerous models, ideologies, theories, dialectics, and the politicization of the dialogue in academia.
We discussed at great length Bennett’s intercultural approach to diversity that includes theory and practice that spans a broad range of cultural differences, including nationality, ethnicity, gender and class. We considered how this applies to the students, the faculty, and to the administration of Pitzer College. The dialogue led us to global multiculturalism defined as the process of acceptance, adaptation and integration to another culture. Furthermore, there is the relationship to domestic diversity and the interconnectedness of cultures within the U.S. Our group discussed Bennett’s model of Ethnocentric Stages to Ethnorelative Stages, and came to the agreement that we could place various groups of the college in completely different stages of development in the continuum from denial, defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, to integration. What the Bennett model allows us to postulate, was that we could possibly use the Freshman Seminars, R. A. Training, Leadership training, as well as other first-year student activities, as potential vehicles to educate students, and to get them from one stage of development to another.
Our seminar group also discussed Pitzer’s objectives. We were seeking a way to connect the compartmentalized objectives and weave and integrate them through the curriculum, campus life, and moral fiber of the college. We discussed how to create, guarantee and encourage safe spaces within the college in which student, administrators and faculty groups could interact and dialogue with each other about differences to be able to develop a greater understanding of cultures, identity and gender. We focused on the prevailing construct of power and privilege, and the effect that has had on academic institutions. In addition, our discussion also centered on the way that various mainstream groups have appropriated the term diversity so that it becomes devoid of historical context and real meaning.
The group was creative and supportive and realized that we could be effective in some arenas by proposing a number of ideas that we had discussed. We learned a great deal about each other and our relationship to the college. We found that Gloria Anzaldua was right in her book Borderlands, that we are all crossing borders of one sort or another for multiple reasons. One of our goals was to find the connections between what we learned in the seminar and our experience at Pitzer. There are many interconnections, and our challenge is to find ways to bring about critical changes that will benefit the community. Global multiculturalism is a process by which we can find acceptance, adaptations and integration into other cultures. In this way, the interrelationships of different cultures and identities become the conduit for border crossings, negotiation and dialogue. This will help produce the borderland pedagogy that will enable us to develop self-definitions, and other relationships that foster unity in a community.
Claremont is far removed from the sun-baked fields of the Coachella Valley, and the socioeconomic reality of a working class farm working community. However, the feelings of alienation, inequality, not belonging, being different and disempowerment are common issues among many Chicano/Latino students at the Claremont Colleges, regardless of their socioeconomic status or educational background. The student incidents from this spring are an indication of some of the issues that need resolution.
My expectation is that we will all work together in the classroom and in training workshops to develop that borderland pedagogy to bring about change. This will allow for various groups to dialogue and to begin understanding the richness of their differences and the value of what they share in common.
Reflections
Irvine Diversity Grant |
Diversity Seminars |
2003-2004 Participant Reflections
Junior Scholar Program |
Summer Diversity Program
|
