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PREJUDICE-REDUCING
EXPERIENCE BACKGROUND I could not think of a time in my childhood that a prejudice I had was destroyed or broken down. There was an experience that I encountered in a college multicultural education course that I attended. I set out to take part in a "culture plunge". That is, I worded with other students to find out more about cultures and experience unique to that culture. We decided to learn more about Asians and Buddhist religious practices. We spent a Sunday morning at a Buddhist worship gathering. We observed the way the leader of the congregation spoke to the people that came that day and also took notice of the ambiance of inside this temple. As part of this project, I brainstormed with my colleagues and formulated interview questions that we would ask people in our identified cultural group. I had a chance to interview a Buddhist monk and ask him about his cultural ways, I later made an appointment with him to visit his temple. This monk was very nice and patiently answered all of my questions. An interesting aspect about the monk that I noticed was that he was Caucasian. He told me that he was born in Seattle, Washington and that he converted to Buddhism later in life and was trained about Buddhist ways in Tibet. I remember this experience clearly because it was fun, I enjoyed working with my colleagues and it caused me to leave my comfort zone in relation to groups of people and religious practices different than mine.The course instructors' role in this experience was that of a facilitator. He presented the idea of stereotypes an led a class discussion about how many of us jump to conclusions about persons or people quickly. He informed us that we would need to take part in a "Culture Plunge" experience in order to receive full credit for passing the course. Our instructor was very open to which group of people we would explores about and which aspect of the people we would learn more about. Our instructor also provided ample class time to "brainstorm" which direction our group would decide to take our project. BACK
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I
was born
into a U.S. traveling navy family in Yokoska, Japan. I have
lived in Pearl City, Hawaii for five years and I attended
elementary school there for four years. Since I was born a
navy brat, I have lived in many cities for different amounts
of time in Southern California for a total of 22 years. I
believe that since I was in a childhood situation that
caused me to move around a lot that I developed a flexible
personality.