Month: September 2021

Having grown up in a rather ethnically homogenous bubble in Dongguan, China, I never thought about what my historically positioned racial identity would entail – until I was pitted against a white background during my exchange year in Finland (2017-2018). Confronted with racialized exclusions and violence, I was disillusioned about the imagined ideal of the West, the torchlight of democracy freedom and equality, that my so-called international (read: deeply colonial) high school education had implanted in my mind. I found solace in writing reflectively and reflexively on my gendered and racialized experiences in Europe. With writing, I seek to create personal and shared spaces where colonial legacies and racialized marginalization are no longer camouflaged in rhetoric of “cultural” differences, where pains and anger are valid and transform into grounds for healing and for solidarity.

However, my rich cross-cultural experiences and my own identity as an international student do not exempt me from perpetuating some problematic assumptions. When encountering people who speak what is stereotypically defined as “broken” English, I was surprised to find myself making assumptions about their personality and capabilities. In fall 2020, enrolling half-time at Duke Kunshan University, I reflected on my own assumptions as a somewhat “global” elite with the cultural capital that allows me to become an agent for English hegemony. These critical reflections on the hidden hierarchies within so-called international education have piqued my passions for deconstructing such power, as I interact with people from diverse backgrounds.

As an international student, I joined Global Fellows to help facilitate programs at IHouse and beyond. I am hoping to learn and grow among a diverse group of peers passionate about diversity, inclusion, and justice. With the Programming and Leadership track, I hope to develop the necessary inter-cultural skillsets to foster a more inclusive, close-knit community that celebrates the spectrum of experiences and interrogates hidden power dynamics.

Even though we have only had two training sessions, I already gained a lot of insights into cultural exchange and event planning. I am partnered with a PhD student in the Art history department, who would offer Korean and I would offer Chinese in return. We also share similar interests in feminism and social justice, and I can’t wait to get to know them more!

Reflecting on my experiences with cultural communities in the past has shown me how closely this journey has mirrored developing film. A process that starts off in the dark, but begins to evolve sheets of film into captured moments. Moments that with hindsight offer clarity to my understanding and the necessary modifications to my perspective. Moments of my childhood could be found in an Ethiopian household, during a time where my cultural identity was reinforced by my parents and Ethiopian community. Soon after leaving home for boarding school, my lens dilated, offering exposure to cultures stretching throughout North Carolina and beyond. Now at Duke, it’s truly been exciting engaging in conversations that flow between languages of academics, culture, and more.

As I continue to develop my intercultural competence I hope to focus on two overarching themes- Self Improvement alongside Community Impact. My steps towards improving myself align with advice based of my IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory) report. Through an intercultural journal, I hope to continue to reflect on past experiences along with future means of engagement with an adaptive mindset. I am also aiming for a high community impact which can be measured through the significance and scale of the project. The successful implementation of community events hosted on campus for both domestic and international students would be a sign of achieving this. I also look forward to being paired with a language partner and finding a new perspective through our encounters.

Applying to the Duke Global Fellows Program, I was looking for an opportunity to meet more international students and learn about their respective cultures. As an international student from India, I felt suddenly too absorbed in the American Cultural at Duke and wanted to learn more about diverse cultures. Through, the Global Fellows Program, I have gotten the opportunity to interact with people of different backgrounds have gotten to learn so much about global perspectives.

We began by reflecting upon our group intercultural development inventory(IDI) and realized that more work was required to break into the final category as a group. We also covered things like the Iceberg theory of culture that made me think more critically about cultural diversity. Furthermore, I got a chance to meet with two language partners through the program which offered me a chance to learn more about different cultures. Through my meetings with Eunhee and Yue anchored by the strong awareness workshops with the International House, I got a chance to be more culturally aware. With this being merely the beginning of my journey with the program, I am eager to learn more both about myself and the complex yet magnificently diverse world around me.

Though it has only been one week since our first meeting, I have greatly enjoyed the program thus far! Upon completion of the IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory), I realized that there exists a great deal of work to do so as to attain the level of cultural competency that I ultimately hope to have. Being from a small, homogenous town in Soldotna, Alaska, my primary and most extensive exposure to various cultural communities has come through my involvement with Duke’s undergraduate international orientation as Co-Leader of the IHOP (International House Orientation Peers) program, which I have participated in for the last two years. Frankly, assisting with IHouse events and orientation has been among my most insightful – and meaningful, more generally – experiences since coming to Duke, and it has been fantastic to have been given the opportunity to interact with so many other students with such unique perspectives and backgrounds.

As a Global Fellow, I hope to further develop my intercultural competency so that I can more effectively engage with, and support, those identifying with cultures different from my own. I have also come to realize that one of the greatest resources directly available to us, as humans, is the unique and idiosyncratic experiences of one another, and these can certainly be more fully recognized and embraced by fostering the skills necessary to do so, which represents the purpose of this program. I hope to further develop my leadership abilities within the context of more culturally diverse organizations. For me, success would mean that I have surpassed my current developmental orientation, minimization, to that of either acceptance or adaptation, simply meaning that I have become more cognizant of cultural differences as a source of immense opportunity, and I will know that I have made considerable progress towards attaining these goals when I am better able to articulate my cultural views and values, as well as how these may be similar or different from those of others. One component of serving as a Global Fellow is collaborating with a language partner; I was matched to a Mandarin Chinese and English language and cultural exchange! My partner and I have met twice so far, and we will continue to meet weekly until the end of the program, and I believe that we will stay in contact after that, as well. It has been an exceptional experience, and I am very excited for the rest of this program!