POSITIVE CULTURAL IDENTITY
Young people feel comfortable with and proud of their identity, including but not limited to disabilities, ethnicity, faith/religion, family status, gender, language, and sexual orientation.
This document is designed to help adults throughout Silicon Valley develop materials and activities to promote the asset of adult role models.
Newsletter Content
The following text may be used in organizational newsletters. Please include the attribution at the end of the article.
Photograph by Reverend Steve Waites
The Importance of Positive Cultural Identity
It is important for youth to feel that they belong. Positive identity
brings self-assurance, a sense of belonging, a positive view of personal future, and better success in school.
Developing a positive cultural identity—a critical element of
personal identity—can be difficult for young people, especially when they may be bridging more than one culture.
The way that youth are treated in regard to their ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender directly affects their ability to develop a positive personal identity.
As adults, it’s critical that we model recognition, understanding, and celebrating all cultural identities, including the cultures to which we and/or our children do not belong.
Sharing and celebrating different cultural identities increases self-esteem and promotes cultural competence among all young people. The diversity of Silicon Valley is a benefit to our youth as they are exposed to many different cultures.
The following discussion topics* can help families talk about their
cultural identity:
• What is our cultural background?
• What are some things that you value about our culture?
• What are some things about our culture that you would like
other people to know?
• Do you know anyone who’s from a different culture? In what ways are your cultures similar and different? Do your cultural differences make it difficult to be friends? How can you share your cultural differences in a positive,
nonjudgmental way?
*Adapted from the Canadian Child Care Federation’s
“Supporting Our Children’s Social Well-Being…
It’s a Team Effort!” workshop
This article was provided courtesy of Project Cornerstone’s Asset-a-Month program. For more information, visit www.projectcornerstone.org.
Activities
The activities below provide ways to build
positive cultural identity in youth.
For families
• Make sure that your children learn the story of where they come
from—including both family history and the history of their heritage
from an early age.
• Even very young children are aware of racial and cultural differences
among people.
Address the issues of stereotypes, myths, and cultural differences in a
positive, age appropriate manner.
• It’s normal for young people to explore different aspects of personal
identity, including cultural identity. Children, whose parents promote a
positive cultural identity, while allowing them the freedom to explore,
tend to develop a healthy personal identity.
• Some elements of a child’s identity—such as sexual orientation—might not be shared in common with the rest of the family.
Parents should make special efforts to ensure that everyone feels understood,
respected, valued, safe, and loved within the family.
For all adults
• Serve as a mentor for youth from your culture. They will benefit from learning how to successfully maintain a positive cultural identity from someone outside their family.
• Help your children maintain a positive attitude about school, and make sure they know that you will be their advocate to resolve any problems or challenges that they encounter.
• Adults should be careful to strike a balance between celebrating the youth’s difference and including the youth as part of the group as a whole. Sometimes, focusing too much on a youth’s differences—no matter
how good the intention—can further isolate youth from their peers.
In schools and youth programs
• Support home languages as much as possible. Children who are bilingual in their home language and English tend to maintain a positive connection with their families and cultural communities.
• All students need to be valued and appreciated for their unique characteristics regularly. Be aware of the cultural diversity in your classroom or program, and try to understand its dimensions.
• Make a personal effort to learn about the culture of the youth in your classroom or program. For example, students from cultures where children are not expected to ask questions of adults may have difficulty letting you know when they don’t understand the lesson. Help students understand the culture of your class or program without devaluing their cultures of origin.
• Young people can discover and share their cultural identity through lessons and projects that highlight their cultures and experiences while engaging them in active learning. For example, develop lessons and activities around the gifts that different cultures have given the world, and discuss how “cultural borrowing” allows everyone to thrive.
• Sometimes even the most innocent activities can be exclusionary. For example, celebration of “Crazy Hair Day” may exclude youth whose religion requires that they cover their heads. Be sure that your planned programs and activities take everyone’s culture into account.
Resources
• Project Cornerstone’s Los Dichos program provides a literature-based parent engagement curriculum and comprehensive asset-building training in schools throughout Silicon Valley. This program provides opportunities for parents from different cultures to build positive cultural identity in their own children and others from the same culture while building greater cultural competence for the entire class.
For more information, contact Project Cornerstone at (408) 351-6482.
• Families with multiracial children can face unique challenges in helping their child develop a positive cultural identity. Many resources are available online for families to support multiracial children:
· American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
· Parenting by Strengths web site
• Families who have adopted children from other cultures may
face unique challenges in promoting positive cultural identity.
Several resources exist to support multicultural families, including:
About the Asset-a-Month Program
The goals of the Silicon Valley Asset-a-Month program are to help align adults throughout our diverse community in their efforts to promote positive youth development by fostering developmental assets. For more information about the Asset-a-Month program, contact
Reverend Felecia Mulvany, D.D.
President, Sacred Foundations, Inc.
revmulvany@sacredfoundations.net
www.sacredfoundations.net
877-877-4275
