Running head: PERSONAL- CULTURAL ANALYSIS 1

Personal-Cultural Analysis and Identity Development Paper

Alexandra Reeves

Wake Forest University

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Abstract

Cultural and racial heritage is something that should be celebrated as these differences are what

make us all unique. Finding out what culture you came from is important in developing your

identity as a person. My family life seemed simple, but as I grew older I realized that my parents

behaved in a way that I did not want to duplicate. Unfortunately, I learned about racism and

discrimination at a young age. This made me fear ever insulting or offending anyone, so I did not

acknowledge the cultural differences of people. There are many RCID models out there but I

seemed to resonate with Helms model as well as Mason, Benjamin, and Lewiss model. It was

hard to classify myself as one particular status since at times I feel different ways about my

attitude towards different cultures. Ultimately, acknowledging racial and cultural differences will

better a counseling career.

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Personal-Cultural Analysis and Identity Development Paper

Figuring out ones cultural heritage in the world that we live in now proves to be a

difficult endeavor. I had never given much thought to where I came from until now. Since the

United States is an emigrant country, I assumed that I was mixed with many different cultures.

Upon asking my relatives, I learned that I have a very special and unique cultural heritage that I

wish I had explored sooner. It turns out that I am a good percentage Eskimo Indian. My distant

relative was a British Christian missionary that traveled to Alaska (now known as) and married

an Eskimo woman. This is how the Saxman family came to be.

I always knew that I had European decent in my heritage but was unaware of the Eskimo

Indian. I did not grow up around diverse groups. My life thus far has been that of a privileged

Caucasian. I attended high school at a military prep school. The number of people that were not

Caucasian was very limited and the social status of the families seemed to be pretty equal. The

first time I encountered diverse people was when I traveled with the high school tennis team.

My family is a pretty accepting and understanding group of people, but even sometimes I

do catch them saying inappropriate things that I wish would not come out of their mouths.

Unfortunately, part of being accepting of people is being accepting of their beliefs even if you do

not agree with them. Now that I am older and moved to California, I am around many diverse

groups that I interact with on a daily basis. In the city I currently live in, Monterey, there is a

large Hispanic population as well as pretty substantial Asian population. On top of that there are
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three different military bases within a few miles of each other that house many foreign military

as well. Most of my interaction with these diverse groups happen at a professional level.

Currently, my job is on the Navy base and my office handles the foreign military member

and their families. I have to interact with many different types of people including people from

Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Working with people of diverse groups can

sometimes become frustrating due to the language barrier and different cultural customs.

Personally, I am able to handle it well because I am intrigued by this but others from my

workplace are not the same way.

Often Middle Eastern men will not speak to the women in my office and will not allow

the women to speak to them. While I must admit that this did make me upset at first, I stepped

back and realized that this was their customs and just because my culture does not behave the

same way does not make their way wrong. Being a manager, I had to make sure the other

employees realize this and act appropriately.

On a social level, I interact with multiple cultures including but not limited to, Pilipino,

African American, and Hispanic. My brother is current dating a Pilipino/African American. She

has opened my parents up to the idea of mixed races. Before my brother started dating her, they

were very against it. Also, one of my closest friends is Caucasian but her husband is Pilipino and

they have a child together. I have always kept an open mind when it comes to people and would

like to think I am very excepting of everyone no matter what your cultural heritage is.

I first learned about racism at a young age. When I was around the age of 7 years old the

house next door to mine went up for sale. The community I lived in was very small and

exclusive but all the neighbors were socially close to each other. The community did not have a

single African American person in it. When the house went up for sale there was an open house.
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At this open house a nice African American couple decided they wanted to put in an offer. Upon

hearing this, the entire block went a little crazy and ended up making the couple withdraw their

offer. This did not make sense to me at the time but my mother attempted to explain it to me. She

told me that because the people that put the offer in one the house did not look like the people

that already live in the neighborhood, the current neighbors felt uncomfortable. I asked many

questions as to why this was and I will never forget the answer. She told me, Because people are

scared of people that do not look like them. Now that I am older and can actually think deeply

about this, it makes sense that my mother would think that. Often times people are scared of

what they dont know.

To this day there is not a single African American living in my childhood community

which is pretty sad for everyone who lives there. I feel that being introduced to different cultures

can teach a person a lot and also teach them to be more excepting of everyone. Growing up

without this might have hindered my development if it had not been for the traveling I did with

the tennis team. Racism and discrimination could potentially be rid of if we teach the children

that it is wrong and instill positive images about different races and cultures into their heads.

Luckily, school have begun to do this as they become more diverse.

I learned that people discriminate against all different types of people for every little

thing imaginable. I learned this when my best friend, Robby, came out of the closet. He was 15

years old and finally able to be okay with being himself. He had an amazing mother that was

very excepting and helped him through this time. I of course had no problem with it but pretty

much everyone else I knew did. I lost many friends due to my friendship with Robby but that did

not bother me. I knew that the people that were no longer my friends were people that I did not

need in my life. Robbie went on to become a successful photographer in Miami and is around
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very excepting people now. The road was long to get to this place but as times changed and

people became more excepting, he was able to be more and more of himself.

Sexism is something that I dealt with personally. This didnt happen till I went off to

college though. I attended college at the United States Naval Academy for my first two years.

Upon being admitted I had multiple older men comment and say, Well you wont do well

thereyou are a woman. The Naval Academy ratio of men and women is about 2000 men to

250 women. This automatically causes the men to treat the women like pieces of meat.

Unfortunately, it does not stop here. There are different regulations for women when it comes to

physical tests as well as different standards for them during plebe summer. This makes the men

from your class automatically treat you differently. On top of this, women are not allowed to do

certain jobs within the Navy. I understand that most of this is due to the risks we would

encounter if becoming a prisoner of war, but it should be the womans choice not the

governments.

From the class reading, I find myself more able to relate to the Helms (1995) WRID

Model. Within this model, I think I am currently under the Contact status (Helms, p.160). I truly

do feel that differences are not important and that anyone no matter what their racial or cultural

heritage is, can do anything they set their mind to. That being said I do also slightly fit under

Disintegration (Helms, p.160). As much as I hate it, I do catch myself getting nervous passing by

an African American or Hispanic man when I am walking alone. While I know this is wrong, it is

something that feels instinctive. This could be due to the fact that I was not around diverse

people growing up or because of TV and other media outlets. I still feel that I am not racist but

more along the lines of stereotyping, which is also wrong.

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After researching different RCID models on the internet, I came across another model

that also seemed to fit me. This model was created by Mason, Benjamin, and Lewis (Stith-

Williams & Haynes, p.10). While it is focused around the clinical mental health of children, it

could potentially explain reasons why I am the way I am today. This also seemed relevant to my

counseling track since I want to be a Marriage and Family Counselor which will often times deal

with children. The five different statuses or stages are:

Cultural destructiveness

Cultural incapacity

Cultural blindness

Cultural pre-competence

Cultural competence (Stith-Williams & Haynes, p.10)

At this point in my life I fall under cultural pre- competence. In this status, the individual

recognizes and responds to cultural differences in a positive way (Stith-Williams & Haynes,

p.10). I feel that this is my current status due to how I act at work. When I was younger, I fell

under the cultural incapacity status since I neither punished nor acknowledged cultural

differences (Stith-Williams & Haynes, p.10). I feel that I did this because I was afraid to offend

anyone and chose to not acknowledge any differences. I find myself resorting to this sometimes

when I feel like I might offend a person. I find that many people are afraid of offending people

and tend to resort to this status as well.

Growing up, I always felt that I had very excepting parents. They seemed like they were

nice to everyone and everyone got along with them. After September 11th, I saw my father

change. He is an airline pilot that was up in the air on that day on approach to New York City. He
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said he could see the smoke from miles away and was forced to emergency land. After this all

settled down and things went somewhat back to normal, I noticed that my father did not trust

Muslim people any longer. I understand where he could be afraid but grouping the culture into

one group and labeling them terrorist does not seem right to me. Often when he speaks poorly of

different cultures, I leave the room.

My mother has always preached equality as well since she considers herself a good

Christian woman, but the day my brother brought home a Pilipino/African American girl, I

thought she was going to have a heart attack. Growing up she always made it clear to my brother

and I that racism is bad and she was not racist, but she did not think races should mix. I grew up

thinking it was wrong to have mix raced couples because that was what I was told. I had a Jewish

boyfriend in high school and she treated him like he was part of a cult that was trying to sacrifice

me to the devil. After that experience, I did not often tell my family if I was dating anyone when

I was in college.

I never let my parents affect how I thought or felt about a person, but I will admit I was

nervous to bring anyone that was not a Caucasian Christian home to them. When my brother did,

my mother and father did not talk to her and would not spend time with her until they had been

dating for a year. My brother called me early on in the relationship to discuss their ill treatment

towards her and I explained that sometimes people are set in their ways. I told him to show them

how much he cares about her and to be willing to deal with their bad behavior because one day

they will come around and see that they were wrong. This has happened and they even

apologized for the behavior.

My brother went through a change as well. Before dating Nikita, he was slightly racist.

He would make comments about different cultures and use inappropriate slang words to describe
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them. This always offended me and in the end taught me not to act this way. I feel that he thought

this was normal since a few of the people he was friends with acted the same way. Upon leaving

home for college, he learned that this was not normal and changed completely. It is important to

surround yourself with culturally accepting people in order to maintain your own views. I know

people could not change how I feel about other cultures and races but I personally wouldnt want

to be around someone that was full of hatred.

Now my husband on the other hand, he is very excepting of all people no matter what

their color or cultural identity is. I think he is this way due to his career. He is an Officer in the

Navy and leads men of all different cultures. He also grew up going to a public high school that

was very diverse and had many racially different friends from his football team. His family also

never speaks a bad word about anyone, which could be from their role in politics but none the

less, they are very excepting people.

When I think of someone that is as racially and culturally excepting as you could be, I

think of him, and I strive to be this way. Case in point, when the Dont ask, dont tell rule was

appealed, every single person that struggled with whether to come out or not went to my husband

to talk to him even if he wasnt their command. People just flock to him because of how he treats

everyone the same way and does not see color or sexual orientation, he just sees people.

The more literature that is written about the subject, the better for everyone. Until I took

this class I was unaware that people from different religions, races, ethnicities, physical abilities,

and sexual orientations could potentially want those differences acknowledged. I always

assumed it was better not to acknowledge these differences even if it was in a positive way. After

taking this class, I have learned that I may have a client one day that wants me to see their

differences. Often, people are so afraid to offend others with their words or actions. If they knew
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how to celebrate differences in the right way, a lot of the racial and cultural problems we have

today could be eliminated.

My goal upon graduation and being licensed is to be a Marriage and Family Counselor

for the US Navy. They have a program called Fleet and Family Support and it is just what it

sounds like. The counselors are there to help the service members as well as their families

through difficult times or whenever needed. Understanding my personal racial/cultural identity

will help me better serve these people. The Navy is full of many races and cultures. Being able to

identify with my clients as well as respect their differences will help me be able to better serve

them. Until this class, I had not considered how much this topic would really impact my career. I

am glad it is something that is presented to use at an early stage in our learning curriculum since

I am now better prepared and wanting to learn more about cultural differences.
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References

Helms, J. E. (1984). Toward a theoretical explanation of the effects of race on counselng: A

Black and White model. The Counseling Psyhologist, 12, 153 - 165.

Stith-Williams, V., & Haynes, P. L. (2007, September 5). A Resource Manual for Developing

Cultural Competence. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/doc/54529359/18/Sue-

Sue%E2%80%99s-Racial-Cultural-Identity-Development-Stages