Developmental Asset #34: Cultural Competence — Young person has knowledge of and comfort with people of different cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds
Published in the April 15-28, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Kelechi Ndionyenma
Kelechi Ndionyenma
Growing up I learned that culture is a people’s way of life: their dressing, language and food, and that a person without culture is without identity.
To a fourth grader living in Nigeria, a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country, the former part of the equation made perfect sense.
I mean, look at the Hausa and Igbo people of Nigeria. Though they live in the same country and share the same national history, their styles of dressing, and religions were completely different, with the Hausa’s identifying with Islam, and the Igbo’s traditional worshipers who believe in ancestral spirits.
Not until I came to the United States, a multi-national country, did I finally understand the later definition of culture.
In the United States, particularly in Morgan Hill, I discovered that culture was more than a style of dressing, a type of food, or a language.
It wasn’t until I lived in a city like Morgan Hill where the citizens are from different national backgrounds did I understand that culture is about sameness, individuality and uniqueness, and this is what makes Morgan Hill unique.
Here the community communicates with a oneness that is so difficult to find among people with so many different national identity, ideas, religions, and experience.
Kelechi Ndionyenma is a 17-year-old senior at Ann Sobrato High School. She enjoys reading in her spare time.
