Culture is not Just a Color: On Culturally Diverse Populations and Cultural Intelligence by Tony Astro

I've written and published this topic about culture back in October 31, 2008 and have updated as I have encountered and learn more about cultural intelligence and how it is more important now than ever before about our perception on Culture and Diversity. Here are my thoughts as a career counselor, business consultant and as entrepreneur.

The United States has diversity that is rich and trans-cultural and results in different attitudes from different aspect and labels: A closet gay Jewish in his 80s, a family woman African American Islam in her 90s, an Indonesian lesbian with dementia on her early 70s and other categories that should be in consideration on how we communicate specifically in counseling or in commerce - but limiting it into those labels may also be detrimental to making adequate analysis of issues and conclusion / solution to how we communicate our message.  Overall human issues must be dealt with including the significant demographic transformation taking place every day not just in the US but around the globe.

The West is beginning to experience significant demographic changes, with substantial cultural consequences. Historically, the aged have made up only a small portion of society, and the rearing of children has been the chief concern. Now children will become a small minority, and society’s central problem will be caring for the elderly. Yet even this assumes that societies consisting of elderly citizens at levels of 20, 30, even 40 or more percent can sustain themselves at all (Kurtz, 2005)

With this new perspective, we will see the children as the new minority; hence a new breed of “younger counselors” will exist. Many ethnically diverse Americans are immersing in so-called “Hollywood culture”. This makes dealing with the younger generation in understanding the older generation’s ethnic diverse culture more challenging.

Hispanics are not culturally heterogeneous; they have a separate culture within their culture (Council, 2001). Generalizing that they rely heavily on their families for long-term and other care may not be right but keeping it in mind that most Hispanics do, it helps. Elderly Mexican Americans have the highest rate of poverty among Hispanic subgroups, while elderly Puerto Ricans report the worst health status (Butler, Lewis, Sunderland, 1998) will help counselors capture the need when counseling an elderly Hispanic.

If in the case of a homosexual 63-year-old Hispanic male, we as a culturally intelligence and effective communicator, counselor or consultant must know his family and how he was treated during the course of his life being a homosexual. Discrimination abuse is most common to many particularly to the Catholic community because of biblical teachings and Hispanics are in general Catholics (Liu, 2014). Counselors and cultural intelligence advocate must be cautious but candid in bringing the issue of religious and family implications of the person or client’s homosexuality.

Another culturally diverse group would be the Japanese. Old age ideally represents a time of relaxation of social obligations, assisting with the family farm or business without carrying the main responsibility, socializing, and receiving respectful care from family and esteem from the community (Dolan, 1994).

Many Americans make generalizations with Asians and do not consider that Asian may consist of Japanese, Filipino, Singaporean and even some Indian (People of India). It is dangerous to limit diverse group into Asian American when this group has different geographical and cultural upbringing and being among them.  As to my experience as a Filipino-Asian-Pacific Islander-Spanish-Ilokano-Manileno American-Christian-Generation X –Straight-Military-Family man, the difference is vast when a cultural intelligent advocate and as a counselor or consultant could dissect further.

Vision loss is among the most frequently reported disabilities affecting older people (Butler, Lewis & Sunderland, 1998). For an 81-year-old blind woman, she is expected to be cared for by the society including sponsored child or government. Due to this slowness in visions, counselors must give importance to lighting and other ways to improve visual difficulty. The common restrictions, stigmatize and the stereotype of blindness is more severe than hearing hence extra caution must be practiced.

It is assumed that older people do not have sexual desires, could not make love even if they want to, too fragile physically and it might hurt them (Sex & Aging, 2018). These suppositions among the elderly make a 71-year-old impotent man comes to counseling with fewer expectations. But according to study, older man does not lose his facility for erection as he ages unless physical illness or emotional anxiety interferes (Butler, Lewis and Sunderland, 1998)

Afterthoughts and Advice

As a consultant and cultural intelligence advocate I recommend that we energize forthright, deferential exchanges about individuals' disparities (cultural differences) with the goal that our client, customers, stakeholders, workers build up a characteristic interest about one another's points of view and thoughts.


On his book Driven by Difference, David Livermore points out that on the off chance that you shun political accuracy, everybody will understand that numerous measurements – parentage (married or single or divorced), race, ethnic beginnings, training, religion, nationality, age associate, et cetera – add to every individual's character.   He offers this following perspective:  “Ideas are the holy grail of innovation. When used with cultural intelligence, a diversity of perspectives almost always trumps individual perspectives when coming up with better ideas.” (Livermore, 2018).

References:

Council, N. R. (2001). America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Volume I. doi: 10.17226/9599

Lewis & Sunderland, 1998) and so counselors must not make the general assumptions as mentioned. Counselors must advise clients to a healthy lifestyle in order to get the goal or proper treatment if necessary for the patients.

Butler, R.N., Lewis, M. and Sunderland, T. (1998). Aging and Mental Health Positive Psychosocial and Biomedical Approaches 4th Edition Macmillan Publishing Company

Dolan, R. E. Dolan, and Worden, R. L., (1994) Japan: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress

Kurtz, S., (2005) February, Journal of Demographics and the Culture War, Policy Review, Hoover Institution.

Liu, J. (2014). The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States. Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2014/05/07/the-shifting-religious-identity-of-latinos-in-the-united-states

Livermore, D. (2016). Driven by Difference: How Great Companies Fuel Innovation Through Diversity. AMACOM. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Difference-Companies-Innovation-Diversity/dp/0814436536