Posted on: Sunday, May 27, 2001
How to raise a child: Developing tolerance
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Deloris Guttman, a volunteer who takes multicultural literature to classrooms here, reads to a kindergarten class at Kalihi-Waena Elementary School.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Previous "How to raise your child" stories: |
Mikki Uyehara of Village Park in Waipahu grew up dividing her time between New York and the Mississippi River basin, the heart of creole country, so she likes to pull together a regular Creole Night now that she has a family of her own.
"We'll put up posters of New Orleans, have gumbo and play the music of the bayou," she says.
But it's just as common for the family to flick on the TV and gather to watch their favorite Japanese soap opera, "Oshin," since the kids all speak fluent Japanese, learned from their Japanese-speaking father and at school. "We're all hooked on it," she said.
The Uyeharas live their diversity and don't think a thing about it.
"We never think of 'I'm black and he's Japanese,'" says Mikki. "That adds to the spice, but our basic foundation and our belief system are the same. We have this thing in our family: We all came to this country in different boats, but we're all in the same boat. And with godly intent, we go forward."
The Uyeharas are not unlike so many of Hawai'i's families who have embraced cultural and racial diversity for themselves and are raising their children to embrace it as well. And not just embrace it, but consider it the natural order of life.
But if your family doesn't already naturally value diversity, then child-development professionals say it's important to encourage it. Not just because it's a politically correct thing to do but because it prepares them for a culturally integrated world.
"There is a correlation with the attitude and behavior in the household and what children carry into the world," said Scott Marshall, vice president of programming strategies for the National Conference for Community and Justice in New York, which is dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry and racism. "Kids are going to be more impacted by the role modeling of their parents than what they say.
"If they grow up in an environment where their parents' social circle is diverse and inclusive, where difference is something looked at with curiosity and interest rather than disgust and disdain, where the parents don't engage in homophobic comments or racial slurs or sexist remarks, that's what they will carry."
There are many ways parents can encourage their children to embrace diversity of all types. Part of that includes being open to it themselves, and setting into motion experiences that make it an inherent part of a child's life. Research on how children learn has already shown they get as much watching a multi-racial, multi-gender team of adults working together as from a multicultural lesson.
Marshall said parents can also look for "significant teachable moments" to model qualities they want in their children. "For instance, if the child is totally oblivious to anti-Semitism, and hears someone ridiculed for being Jewish and comes home and asks why, how the parent responds is crucial. It also provides the opportunity to let them know how anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust."
Beyond the doorstep
Even though Hawai'i nurtures diversity of many kinds, multi-ethnic families say it's still important to broaden children further with a wide range of experiences, friendships and books that enhance their understanding of a rainbow world.
"I always taught my kids that in a social situation, look for the kid who is shy, and befriend that person," said University of Hawai'i sociology professor Pat Steinhoff. "So they're oriented to who's getting left out, and discovering they're perfectly nice."
But Deloris Guttman recommends starting even sooner, with books dealing with diversity. "Everything is exciting when you relate it through books, and this is what makes them great adults," said Guttman, an early childhood educator whose Hawai'i Multicultural Resource Center provides information to schools and parents on diverse books from hard-to-find publishers.
In a half-hour reading session last week, she introduced Sharon Masuyama's kindergarten class at Kalihi-Waena Elementary School to the story of "Abadeha," a Philippine Cinderella, the honest Chinese boy in "The Empty Pot," and "Tar Beach," a tale about African American families in summer in big Eastern cities.
"That's how I grew up," she told the 5-year-olds, who stared intently at the pictures of beach towels spread on black tar roofs. "In the summer time we have picnics on the roof ... in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York. Funny-kine, isn't it?"
From the earliest years, books can become a valued part of life with their messages of multiculturalism, said Guttman. Not only do they validate children of diverse ancestry, they build acceptance of those who differ from themselves.
And yet she said it may be difficult for schools to find the books that are such jewels. Often they're products of small publishing houses susceptible to economic downturns, or simply don't come to the attention of large bookstores.
To counteract those influences Guttman seeks out books that offer a diverse worldview and makes them available to teachers and families. (See box for contact information.)
Travel broadens
But books are only one segment of the learning curve that brings acceptance and delight in diversity.
In the Wolff family of Manoa, excited planning is already under way for a Civil Rights Heritage Tour for next summer that they're creating, with the help of heritage organizations, to see where civil rights conflicts happened 40 years ago.
Part of Jana and Howard Wolff's eagerness to take son Ari to those places is to both broaden his education and provide deeper understanding of his own African American and Mexican American roots. His adoptive parents are Jewish.
"Last year we traded houses with a family in Oakland to live among families who are African American," said Jana Wolff, a free-lance writer. " And we go exploring different parts of the island. We've had students to our home from different cultures, and we've looked for a 'Big Brother' for our son, and we wanted a person of color."
Jacqueline and Michael Langley's family live with the same consciousness. While she is African American and he Caucasian, their ancestry also includes Native American on each side. They regularly return to Mainland family homesteads; the differences are stark.
"My kids never think about color, and my nephews and nieces do all the time," said Jacqueline Langley, a professor at Hawai'i Pacific University. "They live in a black and white world, and we don't. As a mixed-race family, we're very comfortable here; nobody seems to care. One day my daughter was telling me all about this boy she liked and never once did she mention his race."
Taking it in stride
But diverse families can also face the curious or hostile stares of others. When Jan and Kelvin Taketa travel back to Boston where Jan's family is second generation Irish American, their 15-year-old Thai-born adopted son feels the stares. His mother asks him: "What's wrong with being who you are?"
Jan Taketa, a speech pathologist, faces such issues with total honesty. She also feels it's the best way to handle others who may be ignorant of diverse families. (Their adopted 5-year-old daughter is from Cambodia). "Part of it is being tolerant of less-tolerant people," she says thoughtfully. "And humor is very important."
Mikki Uyehara agrees. "We have a saying: 'If you're going to be a joke, make it a good one. Close down the house.'
"It's not a question of being Japanese or black or whatever," she continues. "It's a question of who we are as human beings. What are we contributing to the planet?"
For 30 years Kiyoshi Ikeda has been teaching a course on race and ethnic relations, first at Oberlin College near Cleveland, and later in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hawai'i, where he served as department chairman until his retirement last year. Ikeda suggests that when families deeply involve themselves in the life of their community, they gain a diverse perspective. Little League, play groups, churches, service organizations, all are ways to draw an eclectic mix of people around you, he said.
Wolff agrees.
"The bigger the circle you create around yourself, the more diversity becomes a natural part of your life," she said. "So you don't have to work so hard on it. When your life is populated with people from many cultures there are so many lessons you don't have to teach because they just happen."
Wolff suggests that families more homogenous than hers "pro-actively find and create friends from different cultures. "You can read a lot and go to cultural festivals and have ethnic art and food in your home," she said, "but it's when you have personal relationships with people across those color lines that provide the strongest bridge, and to me, the greatest hope."
But she also teaches her child that race is only one kind of diversity.
"We try to teach our son is that it's not just about race. There are many kinds of diversity," she said. "There are gay and lesbian families, hearing-impaired families, single-parent families, and so on."
Marshall, of the NCCJ in New York, emphasizes that parents need to continually educate themselves about new and emerging groups if they are to guide their children's behavior. "People can feel they are free of racial prejudice, but perhaps they have social prejudices," he said. "As adults, are we educating ourselves?"
Traditionally, Hawai'i families of Japanese ancestry have sent their children to Japanese language school to retain the culture. But in recent decades, the language schools have become attractive to families interested in expanding their children's options, choices and understanding.
To Ibrahim Aoude, chairman of ethnic studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, a second language is a major component in helping a child understand another culture. "That opens vistas to you."
But Aoude says more needs to be done in the schools, in general, to educate about diversity. For starters he suggests an integrated program of ethnic studies from kindergarten through grade 12. "There's no such thing here and, in a state like Hawai'i, it's a shame. This is crucial to give the child respect for other cultures and prepare them for the global world."
Jana Wolff agrees, saying diversity training in the schools would lead to a more peaceful world. "We need to understand how to deal with difference in a positive way. When you're consciously brought up to recognize bias and to confront your own and get beyond it and love people who aren't like you, it makes for better adults and ultimately a better world."
