Personal Exploration Worksheet Essay

1) Describe your assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about members of this group. The men are allowed to have more than one wife. The women are to be submissive and obey the men without question. Their wardrobe consist of lots of fabric and the women are fully covered and never show skin or they will be thought as fast, promiscuous they still believe in arranged marriage. 2) When you think about working professionally with members of this group, are there traits, characteristics, or other issues about the group that you would be curious about, concerned about, or intimidated by? Why would understanding diversity issues be important to you as a human services worker? The thing I would most be curious about would be if they marry out of their race. I would be concerned to know if they feel threatened to live  in the united states do they feel as if they are discriminated against as much as in the time of fall of the 911 towers. I would be intimidated if a group spoke loudly in their language after I asked a question. I have to understand diversity issues to help, understand and communicate on a deeper level if not I will be of no help. 3) How could advanced knowledge of the group address concerns and assumptions? Advanced knowledge of this group addresses the assumptions and concerns that not all Arab/Muslim Americans thought or felt that the attacks on American were right or justified and many may feel they receive a bad reputation because of a small few, but they all receive the back lash of those events. 4) What kind of information, learning experiences, contact, and so forth would you need to increase your knowledge about this group? Reading their bibles would be one way of increasing my knowledge about Arab/Muslim Americans history beliefs and customs, sometimes getting to know who you are going to try to help and knowing their way of doing certain things will help me to better understand what makes a culture tick. Group 2: Latino(a) 1) Describe your assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about members of this group. The members of this group of people are colorful, family oriented big partiers and heavy drinkers of tequila, always hosting a huge party always speaking loud, fast Spanish. Will work any job to provide for their family and loved ones. They dress their little girls in big frilly dresses and tennis shoes. 2) When you think about working professionally with members of this group, are there traits, characteristics, or other issues about the group that you would be curious about, concerned about, or intimidated by? Why would understanding diversity issues be important to you as a human services worker? I would be concerned about understanding what was being said due to  the fact that I do not speak any Spanish I would be worried that I would not be understood and I would not understand them and most of our time would be spent or wasted on the language barrier we would both have to learn first. 3) How could advanced knowledge of the group address concerns and assumptions? Addressing the concerns would be for me to learn to speak Spanish first of all I have to be able to communicate with my clients and be able to understand what is being said to me and for me to not only understand them but for me to be able to speak back and they understand me. My assumption would be that the do not already know English and everything would be just fine. 4) What kind of information, learning experiences, contact, and so forth would you need to increase your knowledge about this group? I would first have to learn the language I will be of no good giving ideas of help in my language if no one that I am speaking to can understand a word I am saying. I may have to hier a translator until I get more fluent in speaking Spanish Group 3: Native Americans 1) Describe your assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about members of this group. They can make it rain with a rain dance. I remember being a little girl and playing with wooden nickels and watching a commercial about keeping America clean and at the end of the commercial there was an Indian that was shedding a tear because we had so much trash and pollution in America, the land that once was their own clean beautiful home. So in my mind they were only concerned with the land they once owned and nothing else. 2) When you think about working professionally with members of this group, are there traits, characteristics, or other issues about the group that you would be curious about, concerned about, or intimidated by? Why would understanding diversity issues be important to you as a human services worker? My only issue would be that I did not think it was any more Indians alive, so I would never feel as if I needed to learn anything about a population that no longer existed. Just getting to know them and starting to  take their traditions and culture as .a serious fact and not just the funny parts that I once joked about 3) How could advanced knowledge of the group address concerns and assumptions? Just because I do not see long black hair that is braided in two braids with two red strings at the bottom, does not mean I am not dealing with a Indian. I must get over my stereotype of Native Americans. I am sure the pure race has been mixed and it is less pure but any part of native American is just that. 4) What kind of information, learning experiences, contact, and so forth would you need to increase your knowledge about this group? Getting over my stereotype thinking, I will not know they are Native Amerian because I do not see them doing a rain dance in the woods as they walk around crying at the looks of once their land and shedding tears of sadness due to the condition our land is in. Group 4: Immigrants Describe your assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about members of this group. They are people that have come to live permanently in a foreign country, they come to this country and are not made to pay taxes and they get a tax break to open stores for seven years, after their years are up another member of their family comes and the seven years starts over. 1) When you think about working professionally with members of this group, are there traits, characteristics, or other issues about the group that you would be curious about, concerned about, or intimidated by? Why would understanding diversity issues be important to you as a human services worker? I would be curious to see what makes the US cater to someone coming into this country, a country I have lived in all my life and as I work everyday and pay my taxes but I cant as easily get a lone or skip out on paying my taxes as they let immigrants do. It would be important to me to 2) How could advanced knowledge of the group address concerns and assumptions? I would not be so angry or maybe even jealous of the facts that I may have misconstrued. Things that we as a people do not understand many times make us angry until we dig in and understand that they are not as different from  us as what we once believed. 3) What kind of information, learning experiences, contact, and so forth would you need to increase your knowledge about this group? To increase my knowledge I would first have to set aside my bias feelings of feeling as if people that come to this country get a better treatment than I do being a legal born member of society. I will have to go in with a open mind and wipe out all the things I think I know and start as if I never even heard of immigrants in any negative way.