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My Family Origins and Perspectives

Jashanjot Singh Dhaliwal

COUNSELING 5310: Ethical & Legal Issues in Counseling
Prof. Steven Brooks
Date: August 21st, 2022
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What perspectives of family, culture, and gender were constructed in your upbringing?
I was born in India, but mostly raised in Canada. This allowed me to develop a good balance
of interdependent and independent cultural and familial values. Typically, in Eastern cultures,
concepts of collectivism, interdependence, family embeddedness, connectedness and hierarchy
are much more familiar compared to Western cultures (Corey et al., 2019). It was no different for
me as I was raised with these general values. There was no absence of social comparisons for me
along with other kids in my family. Generally, in the Indian culture, the higher your social status,
the higher your level of respect and social networks. This is built into humanity; however, it is
exemplified by Indian culture. In most Indian families, the elders have the highest authority, and
every important decision went through them, and it was no different in my family. My
grandfather and grandmother were always consulted before making important decisions. We
were also raised with traditional gender roles in mind where men had to showcase their
competence and women had to be examples of tenderness and beauty to be respected by society.
For me there was always continuous encouragement to perform well in school and maintain good
physical health.

How many kinds of families and cultural perspectives have you been exposed to in your
lifetime?
Having mainly been exposed to the cultures of India and Canada, I’m very familiar with the
cultural perspectives of these two countries. Canada is a Western country with values such as
individualism, autonomy, and independence (Corey et al., 2019). These two countries are
extremely opposite in their values and lifestyles. Belonging to both has allowed me to have a
mixture of perspectives and thus I am able to choose which perspective to adopt in certain
situations based on their pros and cons. Being close to many Indian families as well as Canadian
families in my life across both countries has allowed me to experience diverse families and
cultures.

What experiences if any, did your family of origin have of discrimination of oppression based on
cultural differences?
When my family and I relocated to Canada almost two decades ago, we face plenty of
challenges as a result of adjusting to a new country and a new culture. Although Canada, in my
experience has been very accepting in welcoming diversity and multiculturalism, there has been
instances of discrimination by a few individuals. My father was a taxi driver for some years after
coming to Canada and there was no shortage of racist and stereotypical thrown at him. When I
attended middle and high school, there were usually certain groups of kids that would say racist
things to me. Although I didn’t always understand their cultural references, I could tell that their
intentions were not very noble. This phase in our lives came to pass as my family and I became
more accustomed to Canadian culture and progressed upwards in status.
 References:

Corey, G., Corey, M. S., Corey, C. (2019). Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions, 10th
Edition. [[VitalSource Bookshelf version]]. Retrieved from vbk://9781337671378