First Personal Cultural Narrative

Stacey Tonette Jennings

September 9, 2013
C&T 823
My experience with diversity was incredibly limited during childhood
because I grew up in a small Kansas farm community with a population of
approximately 3,500 people. I believe there may have been one, possibly
two African American families and perhaps one Asian family who owned the
local Chinese restaurant. The majority of the population was Caucasian as
was my entire family. Even though I had six much older siblings ranging in
ages from 9-16 years older than me, none of them successfully finished
college. All finished High School, but only one brother and one sister
attended universities for less than a year and were not able to complete their
courses due to finances, low self-esteem, and lack of proper
family/community support. Our father completed high school however our
mother did not finish her senior year. Both of them worked their way out of
poverty so when I was born in 1967 they had built their wealth and were able
not only provide a better life for me financially than for my siblings but were
also aware of how important higher education was to creating a better life.
For this reason, they encouraged me to attend college which was not
something I necessarily cared about at the time. However now I am
profoundly aware of how important my education has been and still is in my
life and the development of my perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and
experiences concerning cultural diversity. The undergraduate college I chose
was Ottawa University (OU) in Ottawa, Kansas. It is still one of the, if not, the

smallest universities in the state of Kansas with a campus student population

of around 500 people. Fortunately for me, OU has an incredible foreign
student program and recruits students from all 50 states. After starting
college in 1986 as a traditional student, I was exposed to a wide variety of
individuals from all over the country as well as the world. Because I lived in
the dorm the entire five years I attended OU, there were daily interactions
with other students from cultures within my own country as well as others.
Since I had limited experiences growing up even when my family traveled for
vacations which were limited to the state of Kansas and the four surrounding
states, the daily experience of meeting new people from all over the world
was fascinating. It never occurred to me that I would travel to, live in, or
work in another country during this time because my family of origin and the
mid-western attitude toward this type of situation tends to be very closedminded in this way of thinking. While it was thrilling to meet new people
with such different backgrounds and learn about their cultures, I was still
trapped in the mindset to which I had become accustomed and was
constantly surrounded by people and groups which did not encourage or
provide opportunities to deepen multi-cultural connections.
Because of my natural talents and interest in the realm of fine arts,
one of my desires was to visit the Louvre in Paris, France at some point. It
may sound silly to admit this at this point in my middle-aged life, but I
figured whomever I married would take me wherever I wanted to go for our
honeymoon. Needless to say, my narrow view of my future as far as travel

and exposure to other cultures was somewhat skewed! Thankfully, a

Japanese couple who had graduated from OU had created a scholarship for
one student each summer to visit Japan during my junior year. One of my
friends was the first recipient and had told me about this opportunity. I
figured I hadnt met my potential husband who would fulfill my dream to see
the Louvre so I decided to apply for the Fujiwara Cross-Cultural Scholarship.
Knowing a returning student was one of the goals for selecting the second
recipient for this award, I was not hopeful that I would be chosen. However
to my surprise I was chosen by the committee and spent a month long
homestay living with a non-English speaking family while teaching English in
the evenings and on weekends at the Fujiwara English studio. My friend had
stayed with the same family and taught at the school too. She had grown up
in a military family and had lived all over the world however her reaction to
being immersed in this strange culture was severely negative while mine was
so overwhelmingly positive I visited my host family and friends several times
since 1991 having landed a job with the Japan Exchange and Teaching
program from 1997-1999. My only thought about why she had an adverse
reaction this new culture having been well traveled was that her family lived
on army bases which are like little Americas or so Ive been told as I have
never visited one. Perhaps I was better prepared for the culture shock
because of my lack of travel and there were no preconceived notions on my
part since I had never visited or lived in another country. None-the-less, I
immersed myself in the culture and hungered to learn more about Japan and

other cultures, to travel to other countries, and share my experiences with

my family, community, and in schools whether I was teaching or not.
Upon returning to the States after this amazing adventure, I gave
presentations at churches and civic groups about my experience, created
displays in libraries using the many treasures and gifts I brought back with
me, and began designing a presentation to offer at area schools. Over the
course of the past 20 years, this Japanese presentation has now evolved to
include other Asian countries to which I have traveled and is now called The
Asian Experience. Hundreds of students and their teachers in at least six
Kansas public elementary and middle schools have been exposed to Asian
culture through this hands-on, whole language, participatory event. This has
been an effort on my part toward internationalization and to continually
improve upon and increase the scope of the content involved in Asian
multicultural awareness.
Other multi-cultural experiences Ive had involve a wide variety of
situations from being involved in planning a quinceanera for one of my
Spanish speaking students in Southeast Kansas and working with members
of that family outside of the classroom to substitute teaching in the inner city
schools with enormously diverse populations of mostly Hispanic and African
American students. Having been involved in several Kansas public school
districts in a period of over 20 years, the term multicultural education has
been widely open to translation and subject to what each district decides is

adequate to meet expectations which this term entails. In my opinion, the

efforts are sadly lacking in content, intent, and inclusion of culturally diverse
students. It is no secret that the American public education has become
focused mainly with results of assessments with little regard to balancing
other important areas within the curriculum. In addition, the lack of funding
and recent cuts to educational budgets due to the far reaching effects of the
latest recession have only weakened any indication of positive change in the
direction of creating an all-inclusive atmosphere in public classrooms which
embraces and celebrates multiculturalism. I find this obviously ridiculous for
the mere reason that the United States of America is the only country which
prides itself on being the melting pot and the greatest country in the world.
However with greatness comes significant challenges and it is up to those of
us who call ourselves American to become part of the solution through our
understanding, acceptance, vision, and passion for multiculturalism.