A few years ago I was with a group of women socializing after work, and we were talking about experiences of going camping growing up. Each shared her memories, and then turned to me for ‘my turn.’ All I could think of was “We’re Jewish. We don’t camp.” Such was the reaction today during a workshop…
DetailsI shared with my husband the article in yesterday’s New York Times, about President Obama’s decision to give a meeting with Prime Minister Putin a backseat to some time with his family. From an intercultural communications perspective, it struck me as 100% against the grain–the entire idea is to understand your counterpart’s orientation and frame…
DetailsIf you’ve ever thrown up your hands in frustration trying to communicate in another language, in another country, you may also have stayed calm by reassuring yourself that at the core, we all have the same basic needs for food and shelter. As long as you’re not trying to discuss existentialism, you’ll probably be okay. In multicultural communications…
DetailsI like the clear distinction hip hopper Jay Smooth makes in this video blog “How to Tell People They Sound Racist” between “what you did” and “who you are.” It offers, at least in my mind, a good entre to acknowledge unconscious bias as well. The hard part about calling one’s own unconscious bias…
Details“Getting to know you” is a lyrical description of the premier event that took place in Chicago this past weekend. Partners of the Americas (POA), one of the largest volunteer organizations in the Western Hemisphere, hosted the first Midwest Regional Conference on volunteerism that featured the power of citizen diplomacy, the primary force in bringing…
DetailsMy first reaction? Totally inappropriate. My second reaction? If it meant not raising taxes due to new revenue streams, why not? Although, “why not” might be answered by Conan O’Brien’s experience with international advertising (below). The Wall Street “China Journal admittedly hasn’t verified this with Robert Gibbs, but we’ll go out on a limb and…
DetailsThat’s Grace and Nicole. Two teenagers enjoying an outing together. Except that Grace is from Nicaragua, and Nicole is from Wisconsin. The two met through the Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas Youth Ambassadors Program. “The Youth Ambassadors program, begun in 2002, brings outstanding public high school students from across Latin America to the United States…
DetailsPhoto by Miguel Yuste, El Pais Yesterday I don’t know that I would have even clicked to open the article on NPR about the kidnapping of Honduran President Manuel Zalaya and essentially the coup that is taking place there as we speak. Today, I am desperate to find cell phone numbers for my three friends…
DetailsI took Dillon and his friend Zachary on a road trip to Peoria, IL last week. As we conversed over ice cream sundaes in Lacon, Zachary shared that another classmate, who is from Poland, told him that “he hated Mexicans.” Well, Zachary is Mexican. When I asked him how it made him feel, he answered,…
DetailsI still remember an article I read several years ago about an informal ‘competition’ among Korean Culture Schools about who was teaching the ‘right’ traditions. As immigrant parents strove to teach their US born children about their cultural heritage, there was concern about consistency and capturing the ‘real culture’ of their…culture. Indeed, when I was…
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