In a recent keynote address, Pete Cooper, CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga stated why diversity and change are inevitable. Cooper listed nine reasons for inevitable change and linked those reasons to specific diversity issues.  Every county within 400 miles of our Southern border will become majority nonwhite in the near future. The same can be said for many of our major cities. The ethnicity of our population is changing dramatically and the diversity of cultures will continue to change the face of America.

Ethnic and Racial Disparity in education is a persistent societal problem. 

In light of changing demographics and an increasingly diverse society,  we must find ways to address education disparities and close the gap.  Three key factors contribute to differences in education for ethnic and racial minority children: Expectations, Exposure and Environment.

A requirement for my medical school is to participate in health teaching. I recently chose to provide an informal session on alcohol, sex and drugs for a small group of freshman girls.  I find this subject so important, because the issues confronting teenagers are numerous and can create a significant generational gap between them and their parents. It’s not as simple as just staying clean and not having sex to avoid pregnancy.  The reality is that most teenagers at some point will drink alcohol and take drugs and/or become sexually active.

The Asian Americans comprises about 4.5% of the United States.  Among them, the Chinese Americans, with a little over three million--constitute the largest Asian ethnic group in the U.S. Most of them arrived at this country in three separate immigration waves, each characterized by its own set of reasons for migration. The first wave took place during the Goldrush in California as part of the 1800s immigration wave.  The Chinese immigrants were primarily laborers from Southeast China. Some came voluntarily with the intention of returning to their home village with wealth and prestige; others were kidnapped and bought as Asian slaves. This article will follow the story of Chinese Americans and the challenges they still face.

My recent and astonishingly disturbing encounter with what I believe was an over-zealous police officer prompted a lengthy self-debate.  I decided two things: First, that Montage should strongly recommend that you get clear about your civil rights. Second, to persuade you to learn where the boundaries are when exerting – or attempting to exert – those human rights. Being informed will stretch a great distance in the heat of the moment.  Plus you’ll sleep better.

I was enjoying a pleasant conversation with a small group of friends when one woman mentioned that she was going to hire some Mexican  to do yard work. She followed up the comment that you could no longer say 'blacks', so now it was the politically correct thing to say 'Mexicans'. Everyone looked at me- I told her I would get the work done “pronto!”.  It took her several moments to realize that I am a 'Mexican'.  I would not describe myself that way, but that I am. I let the comment go, but the words we use count.  

How much do grades matter in the real world? A letter doesn’t say much about what a person can do. A percentage doesn’t tell you how to do it better. In the real life, we are not graded. Life is too complicated to sum it up with a single letter. That’s why colleges and universities all over the world have revamped their grading policies for the next generation of students.

 Which view of Standard American English (SAE) is the correct one? Many Black Americans refer to it as 'talkin' proper' while supposedly mainstream America refers to it as 'using correct grammar.' For many linguists, the answer to this question has nothing to do with allegedly misplaced apostrophes because both characterizations are incorrect. Tthere is actually nothing about SAE more proper or correct than any other dialect of English. I write about this issue because I, along with many others, am concerned that there is a bit of grammatical bullying going on in many American schools.

Prevalent wisdom presumes that we reevaluate then revamp our points of view, plans and intentions come each year’s end. We wind up with New Year’s resolves that seldom hold up beyond January. The more nontraditional of us review our perspectives seasonally – maybe daily. I drop someplace in the nontraditional range ... plus I vacillate. For me, summertime is usually when I seem to revisit leftover, unattained goals.

The latest tallies on teenage pregnancy indicate a three percent increase between 2005 – 2006. This counts girls ages 15 through 19. Since teenage pregnancy rates include births, abortions and miscarriages, it is likely that teen pregnancies also rose from 2006 to 2007. FYI, no increase was seen among younger girls. Birth rates for 10-to-14-year-olds declined from 0.7 to 0.6 per 1,000 girls.

  

A battle is underway among U.S. Army ranks, though a bottom line seems to have already been drawn. At odds are Army military officers who’ve said, ‘emotional resiliency’ intensive training will be required of all 1.1 million soldiers. Opposing are thousands of soldiers who say it’s bunk and unnecessary. They say it risks promoting the perception of a weak, even mentally unstable, military culture. Which is not, they assert, a desirable look for the armed forces.  

 

Standardized tests play a significant role in American education. Educators use government-sanctioned tests to gauge the aptitude of their diverse students and to prove to the higher-ups the're doing their job.  Although no way of testing is perfect, standardized tests take away creativity from the learning process, are punitive to our creative minds and flatten American diversity.   Teachers find it difficult to implement into their natural style procedures which best prepare their test takers.  As such a rudimentary part of our educational system with heinous flaws, standardized testing ought to be put under harsh scrutiny. 

 Beginning in colonial America, the myth of the drunken Indian persisted throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The current, more “enlightened,” explanation for the high incidence of alcoholism among Native Americans, concludes that since they were exposed to alcohol for only the past few hundred years, they were genetically unprepared and, therefore, have little genetic “immunity.” American Native people, therefore, have little tolerance for alcohol, become intoxicated on small amounts, and, consequently, experience high rates of alcoholism. This belief, like many others concerning Native American culture, adds to the stereotype of genetic inferiority that continues to influence white American thinking.

Native alcoholism is, indeed, a serious issue. According the Indian Health Services, alcoholism is the most urgent health problem faced by Native Americans. The rate of alcoholism is six times the United States average. Indeed, 75% of all Native American deaths are linked to alcoholism! The most common causes of death include motor vehicle accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, complications of diabetes, and suicide. Alcoholism among Native women results in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome rates two times the national average.

Research conducted by the Indiana Research Center and the University of California indicates that some Native Americans do carry a genetic risk factor for alcoholism. They tend to be “low responders” rather than “high responders.” Rather than handling alcohol poorly, they handle it too well, requiring more alcohol, not less, in order to feel its effects. This low response is a risk factor for the development of alcoholism in all populations.

However, genetic risk factors alone do not account for the enormous differences between the rates of Native American alcoholism and that of the general population. The litany of offenses perpetuated on Native peoples by the white culture is well documented. The resulting poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and family dysfunction are highly correlated with increased alcoholism. In addition, a fractured cultural identity, isolation from the larger culture as well as their own as they leave their communities to obtain education or find employment, racist attitudes and stereotypes held the general population, and inconsistent and often abusive governmental policies, make the mood altering effects of alcohol attractive. The hopeless and despair of reservation life and the feelings of cultural estrangement fade for awhile under the influence of alcohol. Indeed, the incidence of alcoholism is affected by the cultural and economic situation of the community. Less deprived Native communities do have lower rates of alcoholism than those who suffer from extreme poverty and the attendant problems.

Recovery from the effects of alcohol use among American Native people dates backed to the early 19^th century. Unique Native abstinence-based cultural re-vitalization movements emphasized not only abstinence from alcohol, but a return to ancestral traditions. In the 1960s, the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were adapted to Native American culture.

According to Don Cohylis and William White, (Counselor, 2002) those who would seek to assist Native Americans in their recovery from addiction realize that most effective recovery program is often created by recovering Native men and women. The tradition of the wounded healer comes from the Native tradition that recovery from a serious illness is a potential sign of a calling to be a healer.

Healing is framed not in only the context of personal healing, but healing of the family and community as well. Since alcohol is viewed as a weapon of conquest and oppression, sobriety becomes a strategy of cultural resistance.

Native recovery and healing includes a number of unique elements:

• Commitment not only to sobriety, but also to community
• Purification of the body and spirit
• Affirmation of personal and cultural identity
• Reconciliation with family and friends
• Substitution with other sacred substances
• Reconstruction of values
• Reconnection with the community
• Participation in pro-recovery rituals
• Transmission of stories through oral traditions
• Finding meaning within the context of Native history, culture, and, religion.

While the problem is serious, complex, and long-standing, solutions that focus on Native healing beliefs and address social problems within Native populations offer the best chance of effectively decreasing the suffering and devastation of addiction among Native Americans.

By Gay More, RN

To honor the success of Asian Americans in this country, I would like to highlight the professional lives of five prominent Asian female executives.  They have demonstrated a sense of pride in their own heritage and that this has not diminished their professional success in the western world.   They are among the most powerful women in the U.S.

I just returned from a major multicultural teaching experience— the annual Regional Academy for Instructional Excellence with other ESL instructors.  We are front-line diversity practitioners in that we teach English as a second language and are also known as ESOL teachers—English for speakers of other languages.

One of the richest adventures I’ve had in my adult life is working as a resident chaplain in an urban setting.  I worked for two years for a major hospital system in Houston, Texas.  This hospital system had a mission statement of serving its diverse community and offering appropriate pastoral care.  What I came to understand from this work experience was the incredible ethnic diversity as well as the religious diversity represented by patients in the hospital.  I learned this as I made my rounds through the ER, ICU, Ambulatory Care, and other surgical units. 

California was the first state to pass a law requiring health, dental and specialty insurance companies to provide translators “at least by phone,” ALTA.com reported in January. The bill gave insurance companies until January 1^st to make these adjustments. Although this new policy will provide services to  fill the diversity needs of  people with Low English Proficiency (LEP), some object that insurance companies have found a new justification for outrageous billing prices. Could these cultural brokers be another example of additional costs in the age of diversity?  

Two summers ago, Texas made history--it became a majority minority state. In other words, non-white minorities together make up more than 50% of the population. Here in Texas, diversity has become a buzzword. Not only does it attract attention, it gets people excited, who now want to jump on the bandwagon to organize diversity initiatives such as sensitivity training or setting up a diversity council. But in California or Hawaii, diversity permeates every corner. People in those states breath and live American diversity.

The nation is crying out for universal health care reform to provide adequate health insurance for the diverse citizens in the nation.  Yet, American diversity includes a group of individuals who remain silent as they continue to face limited access to health care because of their limited English proficiency (LEP). 

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty sponsored a presentation entitled Lynching Then Lynching Now: the Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America. The event was held at UT, and Alan Bean (founder of www.friendsofjustice.org) partnered with Lily Hughes (national board member of the CEDP, and local representative in Austin.  As the title of the workshop affirms, there is a direct link between those executed on Death Row and racism. Racism still permeates many levels of all our institutions, but there is no more glaring injustice to all people, especially to persons of color, than our criminal justice system. Just as lynching was an integral part of southern culture during slavery and the Jim Crow law, so has the incarceration of persons of color (and at every phase) become our new lynching - the history of the Death Penalty as it manifests today.