Discussion, and assignment

What Does it Mean to be Culturally Humble?

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What Does it Mean to be Culturally Humble? Program Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Welcome to the Cultural Humility Podcast. I'm your host, Miguel Gallardo, and today I am joined by Dr. Vivian Chavez. Vivian, thank you so much for joining me today and taking time to speak with me about cultural humility, which is so important today. So thank you.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Thank you for having me.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Sure, sure.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Happy to be on the show.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Thank you so much. Well, let me give folks just a little bit of insight into who you are and just the work that you do just give them some context. Vivian Chavez is an associate professor at San Francisco State University in the Department of Health education. She has an eclectic background in violence prevention, expressive arts, and community organizing.

Her courses infuse a global dimension to health education and focus on solutions, resiliency, and common values. A storyteller by nature, she has developed a teaching approach to heal the mind-body divide, characteristic of higher education, and collaborated with community-based organizations to disseminate their work. She co- edited Primary Prevention, Strategies in Community Being, co-authored Drop that Knowledge, Youth Radio Stories, and translated Media's Advocacy into Spanish for culturally-appropriate and community-accessible terminology.

Her latest project, Cultural Humility-- People, Principles, and Practices is a film that mixes poetry with music, interviews, archival footage, and images of nature to describe what cultural humility is and why it's needed to create a broader, more inclusive view of the world. And based on all that, I'm excited to hear about how you see cultural humility in action today and what's happening the world, so I'm looking forward to our conversation.

So Vivian, I've asked almost all my-- the folks that I've interviewed on my podcast to really just-- as we think about this notion of cultural humility-- and this is really the first podcast that I'm doing that's addressing this notion of cultural humility specifically-- I've asked all my interviewees to give me their understanding analysis, just how they make sense of what's happening in the current state of affairs in the United States today.

As you think about where we are, how did we find ourselves here? How do we get out of it? How do you make sense of it-- just any thoughts you have about it. We're in a tough time right now, and people are being dehumanized. And certainly, when I think

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about this notion of culture humility, I think about quite the opposite of that, and so-- just wondering, what's your view and take on all this that's happening right now?

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: I really like that question, because just like it's a very tough time, it's also a opportunity. We have been called to wake up, and so right away, some of us would say that we were awake already--

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: We knew how much problems there are in society. We know our history of this country, the roots of violence and oppression. But at least I'm going to speak for myself. I was beginning to become comfortable in an environment where the president of the United States was being a community organizer.

So, I've been teaching community organizing at San Francisco State, now going on almost 20 years. And halfway through, when I was teaching, one of the textbooks that I used is about community organizing and community building for public health and social work. And in this textbook, it opens up the third edition with an essay by Barack Obama.

And so you can imagine that here, I'm teaching that subject, but it's backed up by the president itself. And reading that essay-- I have a very diverse student body that I teach, and I've never had anybody criticize it, or tear it apart, or say, this is BS or anything. But instead, they use that essay to inspire themselves.

And I think, in that way, back in the day, when that book first came out, I was really on fire. I went to the Denver Democratic Convention just to see that happen, where-- when Obama was addressing the crowd. And you look around, and that was-- I belong to this country. And it's truly the Rainbow Coalition, like back in the '80s with Jesse Jackson, where we were in that vision of Rainbow.

And I felt surrounded by an ethos of not cultural humility, but diversity and possibility. And look what America is. And it made me so excited that, for the first time, I was waving a little flag. Of course, they give this to you. At the Democratic Convention, they give you a little flag.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: I was 45 years old when I went to that, and I had never ever waved an American flag. And so it was a feeling like, oh my God-- this is why people celebrate the Fourth of July. And they were just very patriotic. And my background-- my father was actually born on the Fourth of July. And he was in the Air Force in the US.

But we never felt like America-- we belong to America, and it's part of our story. There was always being on this threshold of insider/outsider. So, I think that's why, at least for me, I can say I was getting comfortable and happy. You just get familiar with; this is how we're going to do things now.

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It was, all of a sudden, different when year 2015, 2016 and this language that was very polarizing, and hateful, and-- in Spanish, we would say "malcriado," like bad manners. People are not supposed to talk like that. And here we have somebody who's a candidate for president just talking in a way that's vulgar and like a kid, a bully in a playground.

So, the fact that he won the elections is a wakeup call, and it's like when you take a cold shower. It's good for you. Cold and waking up is not something that we should be afraid of. In fact, I think that becoming too comfortable could lead into a delusion of things are well.

And then I feel like now we have to question, well, who are they well for? What are the multiplicity of experiences in the United States? What is really oppression looking like? And when people are really wanting to go back to make America back to something which-- at least for my father, when he was in the Air Force, he said that he couldn't go into a restaurant because it said, no Mexicans, no dogs.

So I know that I myself and many people listening to this podcast would not want to go back. We want to evolve and go forward to a different time. I can go on and on and on, as you can hear me.

But I just was thinking that, even though it's awful in the reality, at the same time, it was being awful before. And maybe I was not looking. Because I was not in jail. I was not in a detention center. I was not being violently abused.

So yeah, it sounded really good to be with a president that was a community organizer, like me, and who believed in diversity, and inclusion, and listening to the voices. At least that's what it sounded like. So, I felt backed up by him.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And now I feel backed up by other people, like you, having this podcast.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, good, good.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: It was really cool.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Good, good, good-- yeah, very cool. I think you said it so well, actually, in so many different ways. When I think about what's happening now, I think that we're being sort of prodded a little bit, and people are-- people who weren't-- didn't see the relevance of these issues before all of a sudden are being impacted by them in some ways.

And I think, even what you talked about too-- and I've talked about this before-- I think those of us who are from communities who have historically been disenfranchised and

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continue to be in so many different ways-- I think we also can-- we also walk that fine line of having privilege as well in many ways, because like you, at times, I don't have to think about some of the things that some of the folks in our communities have to think about.

And if I'm not intentional about it and I'm not staying vigilant about it, then it's easy to become complacent and comfortable in whatever space we may be located at that time. It's interesting, because when you were talking about your story, I was thinking about my own story, because my father was a-- in the armed forces as well-- in the Army, actually.

And I grew up in Texas, and I have a sign in my office here at the university that says, no dogs, no Negroes-- no dogs, no Negroes, and no Mexicans. I grew up hearing about these signs, but what's interesting-- I'm wondering if this was the case for your father-- what was so interesting to me, though, is that my father told me these stories and I grew up hearing about the oppression, and the racism, et cetera, and yet, at the same time, there was this sense of being a proud Mexican-American-- very proud to be an American.

And I thought to myself-- it's not that I'm like I want to distance myself or say that-- because I was born here, and I know what that means, and the with that comes so many privileges. But it was interesting to me. I think today, when people start to question what it means to be American, there's a backlash around that in some ways.

And yet, at the same time, I can understand that questioning and even Kaepernick and kneeling for the American flag, and the anthem and all. So, I don't know if there was this sort of contradiction too, in some ways, with your father. But it was always interesting.

Because my father was so proud to be American. And yet, at the same time, he was simultaneously telling me stories about all the oppression and racism he experienced, in not only the Army, but just in life growing up in general. So yeah, interesting.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Well, I want to say that Mario-- that's my dad's name-- he's from Guatemala, and he made it very clear that, being from the Bay Area-- he moved to San Francisco when he was a teenager, and we lived-- we grew up in Berkeley-- went to Berkeley High School, Berkeley San Francisco Bay Area.

We have a completely different life experience. He never really felt as patriotic, because he said that, when he was in the Air Force, he wanted to live an American dream and become a dentist, but they made him peel potatoes. He never got to really benefit from this education.

It really took him a long time to find his way and become a photographer. He was very critical of the United States, and he fired as many things. It's not one monolithic thing, so-- just like, in the same way, he would talk about Guatemala. Being a photographer,

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of course, he was moved to indigenous people, and the arts in Guatemala, and the historic truth of discrimination and racism in Guatemala.

Back in the day, his pictures of indigenous people-- they were not as interesting to people as they are now. Now there's more consciousness about being Maya, about 500 years of oppression, and Maya 2012. There's a lot more consciousness now, but the racism, discrimination is always living side by side by the national identity.

And maybe also because of how I grew up, it's always like, yes and-- you can be born here, but still, you could be excluded in question-- being asked, where are you from?

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Totally, totally, absolutely. And the year 2019-- we're still dealing with those same issues and trying to figure out what we need to do to push through this, and then to continue to fight against some of these things. Yeah.

So, when we think about this notion of cultural humility, maybe you could talk a little bit about-- I'm just singing about the things that we're talking about here, and I'm thinking, where does cultural humility as you have come to understand it intersect with all of these different aspects that are-- and processes, and discrimination, oppression-- all these different things-- where does it come in, and how have you come to understand it? Maybe talk about how you make sense of it, how you define it, in some ways. That might be helpful.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: OK. So, I'll try to stay focused, because it's a little bit of a long story.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: OK. That's OK.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: When I first was introduced to the term, it was from the peer-reviewed article that Dr. Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-Garcia wrote in 1998. And so I was getting my doctorate in the School of Public Health in Berkeley, and so that seemed like, oh, that's right. That's interesting. Because I didn't like the fact that some people who are in medical school or who are health professionals of any sort would think that they're done, that they have become culturally competent.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And I like how, in the article, they both said, take a step back, and be humble, and do some self-reflection. Also, examine your power that you have as a doctor with your patients, and look at your own institutions and hold them accountable. So, it was like a three-level prong.

Go inward. Look at yourself, your own values. Then be cognizant of the power and privilege that you have with the people you come in contact with. And then upstream, structural-- what are your institutions, your organizations? How are they being culturally competent? I love that.

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MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And so, what I did was, there was a book on primary prevention that we were bringing together as a textbook with all these different subjects that an introduction to public health and prevention would have. And I wrote one of the chapters that was on community organizing. And so, I added to the vision of community organizing cultural humility.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Nice.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And I went ahead and I made a graph to view. I had graduated from the university a few years. And I wanted to show off a little bit.

And so I made this graph, where I built on the work of cultural competency. Because they have this trajectory where you are going towards competency, from destructiveness, to cultural blindness, to being more knowledgeable. And eventually, you become culturally competent and proficient.

So, I even went to the extent to put cultural humility on this line, this diagram going up, and-- almost like, that's where we want to go to, cultural humility. And at that point in my life, I thought I had a right because that's where I was at. And then something happened, and it-- I'm going to share this story, but I think it's a little bit my story, and then I think of so many other people that get to a point where you realize that you don't know anything--

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: --where you're like, oh, wow. I had taken a trip where I was teaching public health and comparing three different countries. I was part of a traveling faculty team, where we were responsible to teach students about health and health care system in India, China, South Africa, and the United States.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Wow.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: So it's this beautiful global health comparative from a cultural perspective class. It was wonderful.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: It sounds cool.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: An opportunity to travel with students to these countries and be able to teach them. So right at the point where I thought that I knew so much about not only health, but global health, I was called home because a family member was having a psychotic break and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

So coming back home to face that and to realize I knew nothing about mental illness, it's like, how can somebody have a doctorate in health-- public health-- and know nothing

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about mental illness, especially when you look at the statistics, which I knew? We have so many people who have depression, who have anxiety, who have so many symptoms. And so we know these things as statistics or as case studies. Or maybe we're not even cognizant of that, even though we have students in our classrooms having a panic attack maybe.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And so that was when I thought, oh, now I know what cultural humility is. This is the moment that you're in a bipolar support group and you realize, I don't want to be in this community. I love community. I'm all Ms. Community Organizing. I love all people.

And then I'm sitting around a circle where I don't want to be a member of this community. And that's real. And that's related to stigma.

And it brought out all my unconscious bias and my prejudice. And I thought, oh, let me go back to read this essay. Because that's critical self-reflection.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, absolutely.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: It's not on the graph. It's not even related to this trajectory where you can get really good at things, and then you get really good, and you become culturally humble. Because this feeling of humility was not as-- it was really about being shaken up and being awakened to my lens, my blindness.

Because I thought, wow, right when you think you know stuff, life can show you what there is to learn. And that's why I feel like, whoa, we have this moment in our history as the United States to wake up. We were blind.

We have been individually blind at many times. And now we are nationally blind and waking up. Yeah.

So that's when I started bringing in cultural humility teaching into my classes very differently. I tried to write about this. I sat down in front of a computer and I just felt like anything that I wrote, when I read other people's work, I thought, they already said that.

What else could I add? And then it came to my mind. It's like, oh, I know what I can do. I can use music, image, and text to show people about cultural humility. And so, the idea of making a video was a way to be able to share with people my epiphany about cultural humility without having to focus on myself and my story, or without having to repeat what other people have already written about.

So that's when I made the film about cultural humility. And then, when I finished making it, it was so great that just posted on YouTube and have it freely available to anybody

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who wants to use it for teaching or whatever they want to do with it. But it's a contribution.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, first of all, I appreciate you sharing the personal nature of how you have come to how cultural humility has come to resonate with you in many ways. It's such a great, I think, model for what cultural humility actually means, because it's really about our own-- in many ways, it's about our own blind spots, our own limitations at times.

And the more we think we might know the-- that really, if we're really being culturally humble about it, the more we realize how much we don't know. And sometimes life just kind of has a way of teaching us and reminding us of some of these things. I always tell my students that every encounter is an encounter with knowledge, so it doesn't matter who it is, where it's taking place, and whatever, and that, if we're truly open to being impacted, to recognizing that what we know and what we see of the world isn't where it starts and ends, then we can learn from so much so often and so frequently in our lives in many ways.

And so I think you're really talking about this notion of, we have to recognize that, just because we can talk about these issues, and write about these issues, and teach about these issues, that that somehow doesn't necessarily position us in any different of a place sometimes than most people, because we still have to work at our own challenges, our own internal maybe biases, or assumptions. I always tell my students every time I start a class, I'm always amazed at how, at some point in the semester, I'm taken aback by hearing some of my students' stories and then recognizing and realizing that I had an assumption or made an assumption about what I thought their story might be or who they are in some ways.

And I've been teaching for a long time at this point, and I still have those moments where I'm like-- so you talked about your teaching, and so how I started doing it was I started using myself as a model for how to think about these issues, and I think it changed how students heard you know about what it means to be culturally culture have cultural humility, et cetera.

It's interesting. The project that you're working on around Cultural Humility-- People's Principles and Practices and this idea of, what does it mean to create a broader, more inclusive view of the world? It sounds like it's connected to this multi-disciplinary, multimedia, if you will, process. And I'd love to hear about that-- I think listeners would also-- and how that can help us create a more inclusive, broader view of the world.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: One of the places that I brought back to the teaching was to the body. Going out from media-- media is a fantastic way to wake us up to and to bring many sources together. The body is the container of all the stories. You said yourself. You're using your own experience of your own. Yeah, so your cultivation of your body-- making it even more explicit of, what does it mean to have critical awareness?

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MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Many of us are trained in the work of Paulo Freire. And we understand humility as the dialogue that he-- in all the liberation education teaching, he says that, in order to be able to teach from that standpoint, you have to be humble to have a dialogue. Because otherwise, if you already know stuff, you stop learning. You can't do lifelong learning.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: I wanted to think about, how do I add the body into education? And how do I use the things that are not from the part of the brain that is very rational, cognitive, just very logical, outcome-oriented? Because being in school, and also the subjects that I teach, it's not even psychology, where we would be talking about emotions.

It's a place where people are very outcome-oriented and they want to know, what are the action steps? And so to take a step back and to say, where are you? Where is your body? Do you see the person next to you? What do they look like? And how to care for other people than just for yourself and your grades while in the classroom.

That's something that has to be developed and created. It's not only teaching about community but creating a community. And so that's when I also connected with more of the healing arts, the expressive arts. I know that in the work of Paulo Freire.

We also have Theater of the Oppressed. So that's Augusto Boal, using Teatro. But I used to think that was making plays, like role plays. Now, after more research, I've realized that it's so much more. Using theater means being able to witness yourself.

So that's a way to grow in self-awareness, to see yourself as you are speaking, as you are behaving, as you are interacting with power, with levels of power. I was not trained initially in theater of the oppressed, and I am kind of a shy person to just make people do-- I wouldn't be able to make people do something that I myself would be shy to do.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: So, what I enlisted was more of art. So, with art, you can use music a lot more in your classroom purposefully, have playlists that help you to guide people in a certain way. You can also have assignments that require students to work with collage. Collage is an art form that-- you can use your hands and you can make a story out of different images and put them together.

If you want to, for example, say examine violence, the roots of violence in society and how much violence there is now, and how are you going to be a peaceful person in a violent society, maybe you don't want to write an essay about it only, but use the collage medium to present-- bring forth that vision and show it to your classmates.

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MIGUEL GALLARDO: I love that.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Yeah. Using the art also requires us, as educators, or therapists, or social workers, from wherever you are, it requires you also to spend time with art and to spend time with your own self-healing practices.

One of the things that I leaned on heavily for the recovery process of also understanding, living with bipolar disorder-- also questioning, what are some of these labels that people are given-- bipolar, or schizophrenia, or depressive, or all these different labels-- the healing arts, yoga, movement, sports, all that stuff-- martial arts-- they help us to break down on some of these preconceived notions in an outcome- oriented, cognitive, very rational-dominating world. I feel like that's the project of cultural humility for me now is thinking, how can I get my students to feel, from the inside out, what is cultural humility?

MIGUEL GALLARDO: I love it. Sorry, Vivian. Go ahead. Go ahead, Vivian. I interrupted.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: No, no, you. You. I can go on forever if nobody tells me they want me.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: No, no. No, no. I was going to say, I absolutely love that. And I think that's so powerful. And it really makes a lot of sense too. It's interesting, because I also think it really resonates with me, because I always think about, the more intellectual we become, and we think about things, and how we talk about things, the further away from it we get, actually, in some ways.

And you're talking about really bringing it back to from the inside out. And so in some ways, it's almost like it's harder to intellectualize that entirely. It's hard to distance yourself from that. Because it's a part of who you are.

Really, it's like you're helping your students access those parts of themselves in a way that maybe the education system hasn't always done so well at and taught them how to do in some ways. How have you seen it impacting students?

And do you feel like it does help them create this broader and more inclusive view of the world in some ways? What does that mean exactly? When you say broader, inclusive view of the world, what are you hoping that looks like, potentially, when it's all said and done?

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Well, first of all, I love how we're having a dialogue. Number one, I love that, because we are demonstrating a cultural humility in the works.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Hopefully--

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VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Yes-- that we are in conversation with one another and we are creating the definition of what cultural humility means for us together in this conversation.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, I love it. Yes

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: That's an inclusive view, so it's not just, oh, here you have this person, and she's going to give you the definition, and then you have a book called Cultural Humility, and you're going to give the listeners your definition. But it's nothing like that. It's something that we are co-creating, and that makes every encounter very fresh-- also a little scary, because it's unpredictable.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: I love it. I love talking in hindsight, because in hindsight, things work out. Then you get to tell the story about them. But when they're happening, it's a little harder.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right, right, right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: So in hindsight, about two years ago, I had a student who was blind from birth. And he was in the class, and his-- it was two students that I had to admit. Sometimes my classes-- they're over-enrolled, and so it was already closed. But if I was going to admit the student with a disability of blindness, then he had to have a note taker, so I had to add another person to the class.

And they both had worked together, and they had already-- a rhythm of how they worked together. This is a student who has been through his entire school, and he has been integrated into the system, but in a certain way. And this certain way is a way where he doesn't really participate. He is in the class, but not of the class.

And so I was telling him how both him and the note taker were going to be wholeheartedly involved so that, when I added one more student, then it's-- the class is already 45 people. Then it became 46. And then they were both saying no, no, but we're just going to sit in the back, and then we-- it's just writing notes.

And he's typing it up in a special machine. And I said, no, in my class, we have to do things, and I don't really know all the things that we're going to do because we're going to have to change them, because even from day one, the very first activity that we do-- and maybe many people have done this, where you take one minute to be in front of another person, and you just look at them.

And then they look at you. And then you have a big discussion in your classroom about communication, and the expectation of eye contact, and what is transmitted in eye contact. And also, what does it feel like when somebody is looking at you for one whole

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minute? So this is a very rich discussion. Having a person that is blind in the class is going to change everything, right?

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And that's what we want. And so, in hindsight, the class, of course, was richer, more productive, and more-- it challenged all the notions that we had because, even this idea of a more inclusive view-- well, view should be beyond the eyeball, beyond looking at something, because otherwise, it excludes the student that I had in my class.

His name is Daniel. He was completely a member of the class, but in order for him to be a full member of the class, the class had to look at him. And this is something that was fascinating to me, because he could not look at the class because he's blind, but we-- but I had to have him, in some way, understand now we're in a circle. Now we're in theater style sitting.

Now we're going to do dyads and partners. And I want you to partner with other people, not only the person who takes notes with you. Not only me, but the whole class had to adjust, adapt, accommodate.

And we were all improved by him. But people had to witness his enthusiasm. Because he wasn't just smiling happy. He would just burst, just lift his hands up and go, woo!

He wasn't so used to being as included. And when we made a circle, I thought he could feel what a circle is like, but he's like, I don't feel anything. So I had to walk with him in the class with the cane. You see how there's nothing in front of us, and everybody is facing in a direction. And then it makes it possible that we have activities inside the circle.

But then people had to look at him. They had to wait. They had to see. Many of people-- I could see they were sometimes uncomfortable. And so, one of the best moments of this class was when Daniel spoke about-- I think, for some reason, we-- I think maybe we were talking of our resiliency, and social support, and community organizing, and he shared how much support he needs because, if he had anxiety, he has to get some type of support, because he might feel like he needs to exit the classroom or he might feel like he needs to talk about it with somebody.

He was just so authentic and real that it made all of us-- students who maybe wouldn't have spoken about anxiety, they went up to him and they shook his hand because he liked to touch people's hands. He always touched my hand before class. And students had to see a student holding teacher's hand. So, it's a little bit awkward, but it really enriched all of us.

And the fortune of being a teacher is that you have so many weeks-- 15 if you're doing a regular semester-- that it takes time to build this type of environment, and patience, and

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a lot of, OK, let's try again. Try this. We'll try that. Sometimes I would make mistakes, even saying, see you later. And then it's like, oh, god. Things like that.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah. That's powerful. That's a powerful example. And I don't know that faculty are always doing that to that extent when students are in their spaces and need accommodations, actually. I think sometimes the-- and I worry sometimes that our education system is very formal, and structured, and rigid.

And I think, in doing all that, it really removes the flexibility, the creativity, the spontaneity of naturally creating organic environments that are really truly inclusive of the students who are represented at that moment in time. So, I think, if there was a good definition of cultural humility, I think you just said it, in many ways, in your description and example, and how you modeled that.

And even through just talking about your own missteps and vulnerabilities, and-- that, to me, really is what cultural humility-- in addition to some of the things that we talked about, really what it represents. It's about our-- really witnessing ourselves, and also sometimes being OK exposing ourselves to others.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Exposing--

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Mm-hmm.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: And I think that's not always easy for folks to do, particularly folks who are in positions where it's not required or it's not a necessity from their perspective, et cetera. And I've always found it interesting. For those of us who teach, even, I think, in practice-- whether it's working with communities, whether it's doing therapy with people, whether it's teaching in the classroom-- we want people to be vulnerable in some ways, to trust us in many ways, to allow us to enter into their lives in whatever capacity that may be.

And yet, we are not always willing to allow them to enter into our lives in different ways that are meaningful. And I think that that's part of why I think this-- who we are as people really matters in the service of others, first and foremost, and even in our professional work. And I think what you just described is so-- I think, such a great representation of that, and so powerful in so many ways. I wish I'd have been witness to that, to be honest. I think that sounds like it was a powerful experience. A lot to learn in that experience too.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Yeah, a lot to learn. Mm-hmm.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned the video that you did, and I saw the video. I love the video. I think it's great, and I've used parts of it in my classes before. And so number one, thank you for doing that. I think it was a great tool for folks

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to use as well. But I saw a blog post actually off of that video, and I want to read it, because I think it really captures the-- what I think happens when we start to talk about-- whether it's cultural responsiveness, cultural competence, cultural humility, multicultural, diversity, et cetera.

And I think this is sort of representative of what we're seeing in some ways, at least some perspectives today in the United States. So, one gentleman said, in response to your cultural humility, "I'm a Caucasian male. What about my cultural humility? Seems like you forgot this in your video. I'm a gun-toting, Bible-carrying white boy from the South. Does that fit your definition of cultural competence and cultural humility?"

Number one, I hear that from people. And I think, as we think about this broader inclusive view of the world, where does someone who represents these particular worldviews, perspectives, demographics-- however we want to call it and talk about it-- fit into this notion of cultural humility, and inclusiveness, and broader perspective of the world? How do we make sense of that? What do we do with that, in some ways, as we talk about culture humility?

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Well, when you read that, the first thing that is, he's right. What about his cultural humility? You can't get it like, oh, I'm hungry. Give me food. And then you give somebody food, like a food bank.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: It's not something like that that you can give. In your hunger for cultural humility, you have to find it. So, when he says, what about my cultural humility? I want some of that.

And I'm like, yes. Just the word "we--" I think another thing is the pronouns. Right now, we're speaking a lot about they pronouns, and he, and she. And I always think about the we.

It's like, who are we talking about, and who are we talking to? Each person has to find how they can relate to this material, and if it's something that they want to relate to. I try to use a lot of images in my class, because similar to what's happening with us in our conversation, we like to talk. We enjoy talking to one another. We're professors. We're used to talking a lot.

And so images may be helpful to, in silence, how to communicate differently. There is an image. And people can google this image. It's one of my favorites.

It's called The Chi-- C-H-I-- The Chi of Community Organizing. And it's a painting by Juana Alicia. Juana Alicia is a muralist. And she's kind of famous in the Bay Area. She painted that Women's Building and many other big walls.

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But she also has a painting called The Chi of Community Organizing. And in that painting is a woman doing yoga. It's also the symbol of yin and yang.

It's also a hand in a fist. It's also many faces, many symbols. It's a mess, and at the same time, it's so clean, and clear, and peaceful.

And it has a lot of beautiful colors. So, for me, I love showing that image in my classes. And sometimes, when I make a flyer for an event, if I'm speaking, I will ask Juana Alicia if I can use the image once again. Because I really like the way it shows community organizing, that it's so complex.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And my new thing that I've been doing lately is I show it in my class and I talk about what's included in this image. What do we see? And then I say, and now, what's not in it? Hopefully somebody will say, men. I don't see a man in it. And then I say, can a man relate to this image?

And then, invariably, somebody in my class who is male will say, I can relate to it. And then they'll say, how? And then I say, well, that's-- you speak for yourself. Other people, can you relate to it? And then some other people are just kind of shaking their head, but they don't want to talk loud in the class because they're a little shy, or embarrassed, or careful.

They don't want to step on anybody's toes. But they can't relate to it. And I feel like that's part of the inclusiveness. We need to find a lot of different images, and only those people who are in the class can help me to find the images that will include them. So they have to do some work.

Once again, if you are hungry, you have to look for your food. You can't just wait to be fed. You have to contribute. This is what I need, Dr. Chavez. These are the images that you need to-- send me an email. Let's find ways that people can feel included. And don't just rely on the teacher, or the leader, or the doctor, or the boss to make it happen for us, because if we do that, then we'll get another wake up call.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. So, I think that's true. It's safe to say, though, that some people don't want to get it. Is it fair to say that? I don't know if that's--

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Yeah. I think you're right.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah. Because when I read that comment, I think to myself, you're right. Where is this cultural humility in this video? But then I think about that what it represents, and it represents this notion. Maybe it's fear-based. Maybe it's not knowing.

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It's all kinds of things. But I think what makes it hard is that there are certainly people who don't want to get it and aren't hungry. Because they've got plenty of food. And so, they're not necessarily looking for any type other kind of food to eat.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: But then again, returning to the true definition of cultural humility, we are all going to be in a situation that will make us humble, that will make us feel powerless, that will make us feel like we need help, we need support. And so, it's that person communicating in his-- sometimes people leave messages. And they're not in dialogue. So, it's just like a-- [BLOWS RASPBERRY] --you know what I'm saying? Something like that.

[LAUGHTER]

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: But when you get to dialogue with people, you have more opportunity to find a time of vulnerability, a time of meeting alliances in order to belong, in order not to feel alone. That's human. That's humanness.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: When I think about what it means for me to be culturally humble and to think about culture humility, I think how important it is for me to be able to sit and listen to an individual who represents himself in that particular way or in-- whatever the individual might be.

Even when I mean not necessarily understand it entirely or agree with it entirely, I think it might be important for me to sit and listen and to have a dialogue with that individual, as much as it may be hard to do. And I think that's partly what I hope happens as we continue to sort through being woke, if you will, in this process, increasing in our capacity to engage with one another, even when we may not think we come from the same place.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And I would add, I don't even know where this line is in Paulo Freire's work, but I know he talks about by invitation, that you do things by invitation. You can't force people to become culturally humble, to have a dialogue. Like, come here, like, grabbing by the ear lobe and saying, come here. Not even my grandma. When I was growing up, my grandma would say to me [SPEAKING SPANISH]. You have to be humble.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: (LAUGHING) Humble. Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And I love my grandma. I respected my grandma. But just because she told me [SPEAKING SPANISH]-- I was so much more interested in cultural pride than cultural humility. Give me a break. You want me to be humble? That sounded too much like being humiliated.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, yeah.

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VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And especially from a place of resistance, which is-- I don't really consider it a positive trait that I have that I just push back. That's my natural-- you tell me what to do, I just want to push back.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: So, from that space, that's, I think, why I like that Paulo Freire says, you have to be invited.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Cesar Chavez, when he was doing his community organizing work, he wasn't forcing himself on people. People had certain conditions of inequity, injustice, unfairness then, like they do now-- campesinos, farm workers. And to organize, to stand for something, he wasn't going to force people to do that. You can't force people to do anything.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right, right, right, right. No, absolutely.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Or you can, but then what happens inevitably is they rebel.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right, right-- push back, push back. Yeah, absolutely.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Oh yeah.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah. Well, this has been great. I know we're almost out of time. This topic has been powerful. I've loved our conversation today. It's resonated with me in so many different ways, and so I just-- I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know listeners will too.

But Vivian, anything else that-- you want any last thoughts or comments as you think about-- what do you hope for our future? What do you hope you see happen as we continue to unfold in this process of trying to be more inclusive of our perspectives of the world and each other? Any last thoughts that you have around this issue?

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Yes. I really want to congratulate and put a shout-out and say thank you to all the people who send me emails or invite me to things and places. Because their work inspires me. That keeps my hope alive. For example, your podcast-- I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Cultural Humility Podcast-- and how awesome that is.

And so we support one another in-- by sharing our work together. Recently got an email from a librarian in Arizona, and this library-- the department of the library-- they want to use the cultural humility framework for not only individual critical self-reflection and the partnership level work, but in institutional accountability and organizational hiring practices-- so how to bring cultural humility into human resources, into 360-degree

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evaluations, where cultural humility is used in supervision. It was just amazing to read this email. And the person was so humbled to ask me if I had any feedback, when, to me, they're at the cutting edge of work.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: I'm thinking also about my department that we have in our health education program at San Francisco State. Our mission statement is grounded in cultural humility. And it doesn't mean that every single faculty member, staff, and student is culturally humble person, but that we're committed that we want to be like that-- and so that, when we take a step backward and act out in ways that are not culturally humble, that we are already saying, because our mission statement includes cultural humility, that we need to work towards this.

So, I just think my hope is already just all the wonderful examples happening all over-- and that we don't even know what people are doing that-- where they are acting with such cultural humility. Yeah, also to let our listeners-- to let you know about their work so that they could be on your podcast.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Absolutely.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Because it's impossible for you to know the ramifications of cultural humility. We need each other to remind one another to know about each other's work--

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Yeah.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: --to carry it forward.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Absolutely. And supporting each other is critical, absolutely critical. Absolutely.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Oh, one last thing I have in my notes-- I had little notes. I want to tell Miguel this one thing.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: OK, OK. [LAUGHS]

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: When we finished making the video about cultural humility, Melanie Tervalon was a very close partner in making this video. And we were both shocked, surprised. And we had a moment of silence for Rodney King, who died the year that the video came out.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Right.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: And that was really moving for us, because he died and he's not even maybe 50 years old. He was the catalyst for thinking about-- let's be humble. Because here is somebody who was almost killed. It was in the media all over the world. It was

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publicized or viewed of the way that police brutality happens. But even with those images, people still said that the police were not guilty and that they were justified in almost killing him. When we were making this video, for Melanie and Jann Murray- Garcia, as African-Americans, they really wanted to make that point, that we looked at our history-- our contemporary history and the history of the United States-- to what's been done.

And I think that's so important, that inequality of how African-Americans-- the age at which they are dying-- Rodney King. And so, people could say, oh, well, he did drugs, or, oh, well, he stole, or whatever they could say. Immediately, we blame people without looking at the social structure.

And so, I just really wanted to end our conversation that it is true. Our personal stories of vulnerability and pain connect us to cultural humility. But we can't lose sight of the institutional accountability aspect and history.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Absolutely, absolutely. There's absolutely no question about it. And I think you speak to something that I have also talked about in some of the other podcasts around that, that, individually, we can certainly do things. But the isms, the oppressions, the practices, it's like air that we breathe and the systems in which we exist in. And they're institutionalized in many ways. And so that cannot be understated in any way.

In fact, it needs to be at the forefront, oftentimes, of some of what we're talking about. So, I think that that's a good way to wrap it-- wrap up the conversation, in many ways-- that we have to work individually, but we also have to recognize that there are systems in place. And I don't think we've done a good job of remembering our history in the United States, because we continue to repeat it.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Mm-hmm.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: So, I think we need to definitely make sure that we're educated in what that has looked like so that we can try to figure out ways to do it differently going forward. Well, Vivian, I can't thank you enough. I know folks are going to really benefit from our conversation today.

I have no doubt about that. I certainly have taken away a lot today that's going to stay with me. And I appreciate you as an individual, and the work that you're doing, and our conversation today, so thank you so much again for the time. I appreciate it.

VIVIAN CHAVEZ: Thank you, Miguel. Thank you for including me.

MIGUEL GALLARDO: Of course, of course. Yeah. So, folks listening, thanks for listening, again. As always, I appreciate the support, particularly in supporting the folks who've taken the time to-- out of their lives to interview and to be on the podcast. Stay tuned for future podcasts that'll be posted soon.

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And as I'm thinking about our conversation, Vivian, I'm thinking about just trying to end our conversation with let's choose love over hate, let's try to be light in places where there's darkness, and let's continue to find forgiveness as a way to heal and to move forward. So, until next time, thank you for listening and for the support.

What Does it Mean to be Culturally Humble? Content Attribution

Chavez, V. (2019, February 26). What does it mean to be culturally humble? Cultural Humility Podcast. https://drgallardo.com/uncategorized/what-does-it-mean-to-be- culturally-humble? Copyright 2018 Miguel E.Gallardo, Psy.D