Perspectives on Diversity and Culture: Asking around

This week I asked three different people: What are you definitions of culture and diversity? This must be a daunting question, because four people that I contacted via text AND email, have yet to respond. So, for the moment, we'll address the first (only) response I have and I'll amend this as they come rolling in. The following is the first response:

• "Culture is what is passed down to us through our heritage, like where our forefathers came from. Its the food, clothes, celebrations, and language that we're taught and grow up with." "Diversity is difference. It's the ways that we're different from the other people around us. You know, like race, gender, religion... differences in those make a group diverse." -14 year old Latino boy.

Interestingly, the young man who provided these definitions stuck primarily to the surface aspects of culture; namely food, clothing, celebrations. Language was the one departure from this, being an example of deep culture. Also interesting in his response was that culture is associated with heritage only, and not the aspects of his identity that he has grown into or developed on his own. It will be interesting to see if this is mirrored in the responses from others as well. 

Diversity was also limited to the more visible aspects of culture/identity. Missing were other elements that contribute to diversity such as ability/disability, language and dialect, SES, political affiliation, sexual identity, age, education, etc. 

What I found most interesting from this exercise is, potentially, people's reluctance to talk about culture and diversity. It may be something else entirely, that I have received so few responses, or it could potentially be that we have, through avoiding the topics, created a taboo or even a lack of ability to dialog about the topics of diversity and culture. We 'shush' our children when they make observations of difference and the message persists: "We don't talk about that", and then becomes, "We don't know how to talk about this". Which also means that people are likely paying little to no attention to their own cultural and diverse identities. 

As I continue to hound people, I will update this post, but as of nearly midnight Saturday morning, this is where we stand: with only the voice of a 14 year old Latino. Thank you, for your openness, honesty and courage to take a strike at these complex topics!

UPDATE: 3/26/17 9am EST:

• "Diversity is inclusion of a variety of different types of things, people, animals, etc. Culture is what shapes us, our surroundings, beliefs, traditions, religion." --67 yr old Caucasian female

What I thought was interesting about this one was that "inclusion" was used as part of the definition of diversity. Her definition of culture included more of the deep culture aspects than the first definition, but still excluded a number of deep culture aspects like ability/disability, gender identity, roles, etc. 

My first thought upon receiving these quotes was, "So diversity is what makes us different, and culture is what makes us similar", but the inclusive element in the diversity definition changed my understanding of her definition. It's almost like viewing concentric circles with self at the center, culture in the first circle around it, and diversity in the circle around that.