Culture and Relationships -- Emma Shreve

When I stop and really think about the different lives that Dayana and I lead, it kind of blows my mind. I have lived in the same house my entire life, with the same parents and siblings. I went to Catholic school, where I never struggled with reading or writing, and was always understood by my teachers and peers (although I did go to speech class once). I grew up and moved on to high school, where I met a diverse group of girls, but could still voice my opinion and know that all would understand me. Dayana's life is much different. She grew up in an orphanage in Peru. She has a speech impediment, a remnant from a cleft lip, which makes it hard to understand her sometimes. Her parents adopted her a year or so ago and moved here, to Cincinnati. From what I have gathered, Dayana doesn't have any siblings, here in the States, but she still mentions her siblings in the orphanage. One of her teachers explained to me that back in Peru, the older kids were in charge of looking after the younger ones, in a sort of buddy program. When Dayana first mentioned that she had several sisters, I am guessing that she considers these other kids that she might have looked after her sisters. I may call my high school class my Ursuline sisters, but I know that I will never be as close to them as I am to my younger sister. I can't begin to imagine how hard it was for Dayana to transition from the orphanage in Peru to her home in Cincinnati but I'm sure it was really difficult. Luckily Dayana has her parents and AMIS to help her through the transition.



My sister and I at a Cartel concert for her birthday!



From what I can tell, Dayana is thriving at AMIS. It seems like she has lots of friends. One day we were going to a different room to read and she almost insisted that her friend come with us when he was waiting for his UC mentor to arrive. I felt bad telling the cute little boy to wait! AMIS really is a unique school, and the students all seem really close. All of the younger students that we interact with every week talk to each other and are friendly with everyone. This was obvious when we went outside to play. I told Dayana that we had to read a story before we could go play and that was a struggle. All of the laughter and screaming coming from the playground was distracting and I think we were both happy when we finally went to join everyone. It didn't seem like there was any division between students of different ethnicities or grade levels. Everyone was playing together and running from the multiple people that were always 'it' during a fierce game of tag. Like the reading suggests, the AMIS kids cope with immigration and the transition by making friends at school and socializing on a regular basis. At a school where all the other students are in the same boat, integrating your primary culture into a new one doesn't seem like such a daunting task..



A picture Dayana drew of her family and their house



Intercultural Relations

I have said it before, perhaps on this blog, and I will say it again: I live a sheltered life. I grew up going to Catholic school -- grade school and high school, and for the most part was always in school with people who were similar to me -- middle and upper middle class, Christian, Caucasians. When I got to high school, my classmates grew in diversity, but generally I was still with the same crowd. It wasn't until I began working that I started to meet people of other cultures. My first job was at Kings Island. I started in 2007, during the spring of my sophomore year. That first summer was awesome. I met so many different people who grew up in totally different worlds. No longer was I hanging out with the same sort of people every day. Each time I went into work, I feel like my outlook on life kind of expanded. My co-workers were very diverse. Usually when I heard the word diversity, I think about a mix of ethnicities. While it is true that I was meeting people of different races, I was, more importantly, meeting people of all different cultures. Some kids came from wealthy families, others not so much. Some were only children while others had lots of siblings who worked in the park as well. One of the most beneficial parts of my job at Kings Island is learning to be open to people of different cultures. I don't know who someone is just by looking at them and as such, I have to be open and respectful right off the bat. This is true for coworkers and guests of the park. Over the past four seasons (such a long time!) I've really grown as a person and became a much more open and definitely more culturally competent.

In line for Maverick at Cedar Point!



At AMIS, Dayana gets to meet people from all different cultures. At Kings Island, all of us have common goals in mind related to our jobs. At AMIS, the kids are united in the fact that they are immigrants and don't necessarily speak English as their first language. In fact, most of the kids don't. They are able to see each other as classmates, whereas if they were in a regular school, other students might primarily see them as immigrants. Attending AMIS will definitely help Dayana to be more culturally competent because she interacts with people of different cultures everyday. If the rest of us were forced to work together and with people of other cultures everyday, we would definitely be more culturally competent. Having common goals unites people in ways that we could never imagine..

I've used it before, but it really shows the diversity at AMIS

Week 5 : Cultural Practices - Emma Shreve

The Group at the Big Pig

Immigrant children almost always have a different educational experience than a typical American student does. Often an immigrant’s education is focused on learning to read, write, and speak English. For my mentee, Dayana, this is no different. Even after these past few weeks that we’ve spent together, language is still something we struggle with. It is hard for Dayana and I to understand each other even when we are talking about something simple like her homework. I can’t imagine how challenging it is for her to understand her teachers when she has to learn something, and be tested on it, in a language that is not her primary one. Dayana’s educational experience is twice as intensive as an English-speaking student’s. This past week, Dayana brought a book with her. We read a short piece, around five sentences long, about parrots. It was cool to see how well Dayana can read English. She may not recognize words right away, but she can sound it out and figure out what the words are. As we moved through the paragraph, Dayana would recognize words she had just read and would shout it out when she realized what it was. She looked so excited when she stumbled across the repetition and even though it took a while to get through those few sentences, I have to admit I was pretty proud of her. This weekend at the Little Piglet kid’s marathon, I learned more about Dayana’s past. When I asked her about her family and where she came from, I often got very different stories. After talking to her teacher though, I learned that she grew up in an orphanage in Peru. Dayana was born with a cleft palate and that was corrected and has left her with a scar and a slight speech impediment. She was adopted and moved to Cincinnati about a year ago. Her mother is Peruvian and her father is American. Since Dayana is the same ethnicity as her adoptive father, I hope that she will be able to celebrate some of the same traditions that they may have celebrated in the orphanage. I definitely think that going to AMIS gives Dayana an advantage and allows her to connect to other people who may have similar heritages.



One of the walkers with her medal!



Week 4 : Psychosocial Experience of Immigration - Emma Shreve

Mentor Post:

Immigration is everywhere. Each and every place that we go, we are bound to meet someone who was born in another country or may be a second- or third-generation citizen. I am a fourth generation citizen, so my family's immigration is pretty distant from me. I do, however, come into contact with Hispanic immigrants a lot. At the restaurant where I used work, there were lots of Hispanic workers with whom I interacted with on a daily basis. Almost all of them were men who worked in the kitchen, prepping food or doing dishes. There were two servers from Peru, who were brother and sister. All of my Latino co-workers spoke Spanish and very broken English, but the two servers spoke fluent English. I had so much fun talking and working with the kitchen guys. They would teach me Spanish and I would help them with the English terms, sometimes employing a version of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" to teach them the terms for body parts. I still remember a few years ago when I had attended Ash Wednesday mass at school and still had an ashy cross on my forehead. Hugo kept asking me if I was catolico, but I had no idea what he was talking about until he finally pointed at my forehead and did the Sign of the Cross. Despite the barriers that it sometimes poses, immigration presents us with an opportunity to learn about other cultures and ways of life. It is up to us to decide whether we are going to embrace that opportunity or let it pass us by...

Mentee Post:

Immigrating to the United States is probably one of biggest changes Dayana will ever experience. She moved from a place where everyone spoke the same language and, probably, looked somewhat alike to a place where different languages can be heard everyday and looks are much more diverse. Our country has been referred to as the 'great melting pot' where different cultures blend together to create a big pot of American-ness. I like to think that each person brings a little something to the pot and that all the flavors complement each other, while staying distinct. Dayana and her family bring their own heritage and culture to Cincinnati and that will only the melting pot richer. Even though she has lived here for only a year, Dayana has already been influenced by American culture. I am glad that she is able to go to school at AMIS, where she can learn English and learn about our culture without being thrown into a typical public school where she will be lost in a sea of people who do not understand her. She gets to experience American life but keep in touch with her Hispanic roots at a place where people will understand her, regardless of the language she is speaking. The school you attend will shape who you are and all the students at AMIS are lucky that they go to a school that fosters acceptance and openness in such a normal way...