Celebrating ALL Cultures

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

02 Jun 2008 06:20 PM

I just returned from a Culture Day celebrated by local college exchange students and au pairs, together with their host families. We had absolutely amazing food-Thai and Chinese and Korean, Indian, South African, Costa Rican, Chilean, Swedish, German, and a cheesecake with the Canadian Maple Leaf on top.

The Thai au pairs and the children they care for demonstrated children's games from Thailand. Several South African students showed visual aids they had made with pictures of their countries' wildlife and beaches, and its many official languages! One host family-including the parents-- joined their Indian au pair in a "Bollywood" dance-in the style of modern Indian cinemas.

I learned something new too. I had known there were people of Indian ancestry in South Africa, but I hadn't known they made up twenty-five percent of the population. This young lady told us that she was sixth-generation South African, but lived in an Indian community.

Several of the young adults were in gorgeous outfits from their native lands. Our Korean friend spoke about Korean traditional dress. Our two girls wore their Korean dresses too! They didn't seem self-conscious that they were the only children with different clothing on. It has really been good for them to have a young Korean woman in their lives. They are at the age when older girls are fascinating anyway-they drive, wear makeup, dress trendier than mom. They are more likely to want to eat Korean foods, wear their hanboks, and talk about being Korean when they are around our student friend.

The importance of this day to adoption is that it is important not to stress only the adopted child's culture. Acknowledge the other heritages represented in your family, and appreciate other cultures as well. Kids may feel that you just try to do Korean (or whatever country) things with them. When kids see you valuing their culture for its own sake, they will value it. When your children see you making friends with people of other races and ethnicities, they will truly believe that it's fine to look different.

Seek out celebrations of all different cultures. Better yet, make the effort to make friends with people of different races and from different cultures.

Please see these related blogs:

Developing Relationships with Cultural Communities, Part Two

Resources for Responding to Racism

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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