peer critique

Box 2

Crawford Box

Prof. Tamez

SPAN-1411-56402

7/25/20

Cross-Cultural Awareness

We are living in a country that has the largest number of mixed cultures, especially those of the Latino community, and because we live in Texas. This I believe is one of our country’s greatest strengths. If you look at other powerful empires, they either took other's culture and modified them (like Greece and Rome) or allowed all cultures and religions to be practiced by its people, (like the Mongol empire, the largest land empire the world ever saw.)

“Cross-cultural awareness means understanding, respecting, and successfully interacting with those whose world views, values, behaviors, communication styles, customs, and practices are different than one's own.” (CAL learning, 2011) but to me, it has more personal applications. My wife is a black woman whose parents are from The D.R.C. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was born in Montreal, Canada then grew up in San Diego, before finally ending up here in Texas with me. When we first started dating her mother and family didn’t want to know anything about me, much less meet me. Because of their Jehovah's Witness and African culture, when she told them that we were getting married, then and only then was I even allowed to be brought up in conversation and finally meet her mother.

In southern culture, it’s considered good manners for a suitor to ask a parent (usually the father) for their hand in marriage. For the wedding, it’s self I had to purchase a machete as a sign that I can take care of her. Then there is her Canadian side, I remember how she said that she used to marvel at how milk in the US comes in cardboard cartons and not plastic bags. Her cultural differences struck me just as different as mine did hers milk in a bag is something I’ve never heard of but as Brenna Houck at Eater.com said, “The concept might seem odd to those who didn’t grow up drinking bagged milk, but to roughly half of the Canadian milk consumers, the milk bladder is a way of life. It’s estimated that 75 to 85 percent of Ontario residents purchase their milk in a pouch,” (Houck, 2019)

The benefits of cross-cultural are self-evident, some places like Japan have what is known as Galapagos syndrome meaning that they have been a monoculture for so long that technology, human rights, political, and culture have evolved separately from the rest of the world. Now Japan has made some amazing things in their day, but they would have created even more magnificent things if they were more inclined to work on a global level. There are many historical reasons that they did things the way they did, and it worked out better for them than one would have expected, but it’s been stagnating since after the economic bubble of the 1980s.

When I think culture, I think in American culture we take cultures from around the world and celebrate them and add it to our own. Sometimes in food sometimes in song, look at all the beautiful and bizarre works of American art, all of that was built on the works of other cultures, for instance, Picasso or Goya. Music is another great example of one culture impacting another, the British rock invasion of the ’60-’70s was when rock and roll first started to get its legs. For Hispanics, reggaeton and flamenco have been impactful even here in the states. The world has so much to offer from other cultures. That’s why I think that this is part of what makes our country go wonderful. I know that there is a lot of hate and anger we see on the news today and it just breaks my heart to see it. But I believe that deep down we are still the good guys and that we are more inclusive than many other places and I’m glad to call it home.

References

*Learning, CAL. “Stages of Cross-Cultural Awareness.” CAL Learning, 16 Mar. 2011, www.callearning.com/blog/2011/03/stages-of-cross-cultural-awareness/#:~:text=It%20means%20understanding%2C%20respecting%20and,are%20different%20than%20one's%20own.

Houck, Brenna. “Milk in Bags, Explained.” Eater, Eater, 21 Oct. 2019, www.eater.com/2019/10/21/20919693/milk-carton-bag-pouch-history.