Between a Bat Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony, Bat for girl, Bar for boy) on Saturday and a conversation at lunch yesterday that exposed multiple unconsicous assumptions of mine, I seem to have race, bias, and interculturalism on the brain, and in particular the idea of how culture is passed-on from one generation to the next.

One of the traditions in the Bat Mizvah ceremony is the “Passing of the Torah.   The generations line up, from the 12 or 13 year old bat mitzvah to the parents to the grandparents, and they literally pass the torah–the sacred teachings of Judaism–down from generation to generation until it lands with the youngest generation symbolically ready to takeover as an adult.  I cry every time, looking so profoundly at how we love and raise our children to lead the future. 

As far as the lunch conversation, I got stumped twice–not really stumped, but finding myself having to check my preconceived ideas about “the way things are.” 

My girlfriend, who is Chinese-American, is married to a man who is Korean-American.  Thinking I am so hip and cool unlike my fellow Americans who lump everyone together under “Asian,” I asked if she noticed differences between their Chinese and Korean cultural traditions, thinking I could expound on my deep knowledge and intercultural hyper-sensitivity. 

Well, she noticed differences, but mostly because he was, the best that she could describe, “so Indiana.”  Her husband was adopted as a baby by a couple in small-town Indiana, and their heritage traced back to Germany.  There was really nothing dominant that was culturally Korean about him.

Both instances reflect the passing and learning of culture.  The Bat Mitzvah is in the more traditional sense, Jews teaching Jewish tradition from generation to generation. 

My friend’s husband is in the more global sense, and challenges or guards us against assumptions–as culture is learned, his cultural identity and even values and communication style are most likely normed around a northern European tradition–the one in which he grew up.

But even my friend finds it interesting that a conservative, small town family did something so “exotic” (her word) like adopting a child from Asia.  In fact, when the two of them were taking a road trip (they now live in the Big City…Chicago) to see his family they stopped at McDonald’s, and she said the entire place stopped eating and stared at this Asian couple who had entered their midst. 

So he is culturally one of “them” but not immediately recognized as such. 

And, on top of that he is a stay-at-home dad.  Well, I don’t know what to say now, except that he sounds brilliant and fantastic and defies any categorization you (ouch–was that me trying to do that?) might try to place on him.

Remind you of anyone you know (yourself included?)

Photo credit MHZmaster on flickr

I found out from my Chinese-American friend (my designation-not sure how he self-identifies) on his Facebook update today that he felt misled by what he thought was a traditional Mexican holiday.  However, he discovered and shared that:

Cinco de Mayo is only a big deal in America. It’s not even a holiday in Mexico…It’s actually a Hallmark Holiday!!!

Is Cinco de Mayo a Mexican Tradition?

A quick Internet search reveals there is an original tie to Mexico.  The holiday commemorates the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at The Battle of Puebla in 1862.  The holiday is celebrated regionally throughout the state of Puebla in Mexico. 

It seems that many (USAmericans) mistake Cinco de Mayo for Mexican Independence Day.  It’s not.  That holiday is celebrated September 16.  And for any art history buffs who also thought of Cinco de Mayo by Francisco Goya, that was made in 1808 in Spain, so no connection there either.

Or is it a US “Hispanic” Celebration?

And that, my friends, is the end of the history lesson, and the move into a sterotypically USAmerican “Hispanic” Holiday that brings together a melange of seemingly “hispanic” customs and traditions to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the US.  (Suddenly I’m reminded of reports, albeit false, of former Vice President Dan Quayle’s lament that he hadn’t studied Latin to be able to communicate with ‘those people’ in Latin America.)

For my Facebook friend, he ads that “I’ll still be drinking, of course!” And he won’t be alone.

How it’s celebrated in the US

There’s everything from the celebration in Holyoke Colorado that begins with a Salsa Contest (which I just found out from a Panamanian salsa dance instructor has it’s roots in Cuba and Puerto Rico.) to the Cinco de Mayo Pub Crawl in Chicago that visits Moe’s Cantina, a Spanish Tapas Restaurant.  To note, the National Museum of Mexican Art, sort of the keeper of Mexican culture in Chicago, does not feature a Cinco de Mayo event.

So, is it all in good fun, or is it cultural appropriation?  Or perhaps it is, as my facebook friend discovered, simply a platform for marketing.

100% Commercial Value:  That’s USAmerican!

Companies such as Halloweenmart seem to perpetuate stereotypes, offering Cinco de Mayo ‘costumes’ that range from silly to bordering (or crossing the border) to offensive or racist, a la the Native American or Japanese Geisha costumes seen in October.  Target offers a selection of Cinco de Mayo books.  And, of course, you can order an online Cinco de Mayo card at Hallmark.

I’ll be curious to hear from my son tonight to see if the holiday was discussed at school (he did–in French class).  What do you think?  Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?  For the margaritas, or do you feel a cultural significance? 

Photo credit:  Metromix Chicago, round up of Chicago Cinco de Mayo Events.

Can you be a chicken and still be a good intercultural communicator?*

The short answer is “no.”

I was having an amazing conversation today (or as I said, let’s talk about something really interesting, let’s talk about me!”) with Marti Barletta of Trendsight today. 

Marti is the premier provider of ‘marketing to women’ insights and ideas, a dynamic keynote speaker, author of two books, Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women and a frequent commentator on marketing to women on NBC, the Economist and the like.

For Women vs. Men, there’s an 80/20 rule.  80% may follow common characteristics, and 20% may not, but that doesn’t preclude you from talking about trends that will help you market to the 80%. 

Our natural instinct is to group and categorize like with like, and to be an ‘expert’ in a paticular area, you need to be able to do that in a way that’s actionable, as in “here’s how women generally behave, and here’s how you can use that to best market your product.” 

As Marti pointed out, it’s nice to be nice, but at some point you need to interpret the data and insert/assert your own position.

It reminds me of an episode of Murphy Brown, basically making fun of political correctness.  The TV station had convened a Town Hall meeting (remember, this was circa the late 80’s–probably different tone for Town Hall Meetings today!).  No matter what was said, someone took offense.  “Well, I’m African American and I take offense at that…”  Well, I’m xyz and I take offense at that…”  Finally Murphy screams “Oh, you’re all acting like children!” At which point a child stands up and says “well, I”m a child, and I take offense at that …”

The point is that I probably will offend someone, sometime.  But, I also know who I am.  If I offend, it will be unintentional.

With intercultural communications, while individual characteristics ultimately trump cultural generalizations, you can’t teach or write a book called “6 billion people and here’s how you reach them individually.”  At some point you need to identify common traits, customs or behaviors by culture (or even…gasp…race) to be able to start a dialogue.

The good intercultural communicator will not be afraid to do that.  The trick is to also have the confidence in your own identity to be able to take an unintended offense, and turn it into a doorway for communication and growth.

Who have you offended lately?  How did it turn out?

* Speaking of intercultural communications and marketing to women, I”m using the US connotation of Chicken, as in being afraid, as opposed to the Brazilian connotation of Chicken, meaning a promiscuous woman. 

Photo credit:  Forbes Nutritional Services

US business culture norms today are all about action and the bottom line.  “Show me the money!”

Think about it.   If Socrates were working at a corporation in the US today, with all of his thinking and pontificating, his boss might say “he’s full of baloney…what has he actually DONE?” (or more likely, “Socrates, stop blowing hot air and get back to work!”)

What started me thinking about how time period and culture change our view of things, was the NY Times article on Sunday, “A Charlie Chan Film Stirs an Old Controversy,” about sreenings of a 1968 long lost documentary “The Great Charlie Chan,” in New York in February, and scheduled again for March 16.

My first reaction?  “I loved Charlie Chan detective movies when I was a kid.”

So I was a little uneasy when I read the author’s, Pradnya Joshi, thoughts:

“For many activists, Charlie Chan remains a symbol of Hollywood’s failure to accurately portray Asians and Asian-Americans. The character was usually played by white actors who were made up to seem Asian and who spoke English with an exaggerated accent.”

On the flipside, an earlier article from a 2006 release of a Charlie Chan collection, author Dave Kehr proffers that the films were not racist, “by the standards of their time.” 

That phrase, “standards of their time” rings to me of majority privilege, as in nobody got mad because it was okay in that time.  But okay to whom?  Or, was it actually offensive then too, but there was no power or place to voice that offense?

Beyond Chan’s character (and his son who talks like a typical American teenager of the time, for some fun generational contrast), more uncomfortable to me, from this clip from “Shadows Over Chinatown” (below) is the exaggerated personification of the African American butler, played by Mantan Moreland. (Indeed after years of success as a comedic actor Moreland was ostracized for demeaning representations as the civil rights movement grew in the 1950’s.)

What do Socrates, Charlie Chan and intercultural communications have in common?  

We are who we are, where we are, when we are.  Feeling guilty about how we reacted to things in the past is useless. Knew knowledge and exposure to multiple perspectives allows us to integrate new insights, reconceptualize our ideas, and apply them to future interactions.

For Socrates, I’m sticking to the “great man” theory.  For Charlie Chan, I think I’ll take a deeper look, particularly at how the representations reflect the society at the time, and changes that have evolved since then.

Anything unsettling popping up from your childhood?  How do you reconcile incongruities between your former and current self?

photo credit, Raphael’s Socrates, via University of Florida Philosophy Department .  Thanks to @prpc on Twitter for link to original article.

 The anthropological approach gives each group ‘hegemony,’ the power to exist in its own right. It recognizes the inherent value that multiple perspectives bring to probelm solving and innovation.

 The idea is to know thyself first, then observe, participate, interact, to know ‘the other.’ It’s like being an ethnographer studying yourself–being keenly aware of how you communicate (as an individual or business), revealing your unconscios bias, being sensitive to how others react to you, and fine tuning your messages accordingly, with the ultimate goal to create multicultural marketing that doesn’t perpetuate stereotypes. 

Do you know your own communication style?  How do you define your own cultural identity?  If you are white, do you identify culturally that way?

Have you heard the old joke that plays on the philosophical question about a tree falling in the forest?  You know the one… “If you’re in the forest and you say something wrong and your spouse (of course I’m going with the gender neutral version!) doesn’t hear you, are you still wrong?”

While seemingly innocuous, it does reveal a critical distinction that permeates all of intercultural communications:  What you do/who you are versus how you are perceived or judged against the norms of society. 

In intercultural communications and anthropology, the idea is to give individuals and cultures hegemony, the power to exist in and of our own right, from our own point of first-person expression.

The story of 7-year-old Julia Lira, selected by her father Marco Lira to be the Samba Queen for the Viradouro School in the Carnaval parade in Rio is a case in point.

One the one hand, kids know how to samba in Brazil by the age of two…it’s part of the culture (I learned at 26 from my 3 and 4 year old nieces.)  Plus, it’s not crazy for a parent to think that their child is the best in everything.  And, as Lira says, “Any man who looks at a 7-year-old child and feels any sort of excitement should go see a doctor.”

On the flip side, Carnaval costumes are elaborate yet teeny, and samba moves in and of themselves can be seen as suggestive–I’ve tried teaching it in some of my aerobic classes in the US—our hips just don’t move that way!  (although for background, anyone can come in costume or join a Samba School and participate in Carnaval.)

While she did perform, it was nearly impossible for Julia just to simply be a little girl essentially putting on a dance recital.  Her actions cannot be interpreted separate from the history of the event which focuses on women as objects of desire.  (Or maybe it’s just that the women are gorgeous and therefore desireable—like the Neutrogena commercial… “don’t hate me because I am beautiful!”)  

While serving as food for thought, writing this piece confirms why I am not wont to form a strong position about current news stories without having the facts behind the story.  While Julia may be a cute little girl, the Viadouro school apparently drew controversy in 2008 by featuring a Hitler and Holocaust survivors.  That float was ruled illegal and denied entry, but it frames the current decision as exploitative of his daughter, to gain media coverage.    

In the final competition, Julia and the Viadouro school came in last.  The Samba Queen from the winning school was four months pregnant…a soon to be mom.

Maybe for next year we’ll just work on changing the norms through which women are viewed.

What do you think?

photo credit Times Online UK

(If you’re my client reading this please skip to the second paragraph)

When Carolyn and I first arrived at Chamber Music America’s 32nd annual conference in New York City this past weekend, as “Jazz People” people there representing the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, we thought “what are we doing here?”

At the outset people self-identified as either “classical” or “jazz.” Racial, ethnic or other superficial characteristics of difference were clearly insignificant in contrast to one’s musical orientation.  By the end of the weekend, however, all realized at a visceral level the deep value of cross-cultural communication in the form of collaboration between jazz and classical traditions.

Musicians played jazz with string instruments (Quartet San Francisco, and Harlem Quartet-above).  Saxophonists played Chopin (Capitol Quartet).  A violist and percussionist (duoJalal, featuring durbakeh--goblet drum, djembe and riq–a tambourine, but you’ve never seen one played like this before) commissioned original work to play together. 

And genius never goes wrong.  Keynote speakers included Steven Reich, called “our greatest living composer” by The New York Times and “the most original thinker of our time” by The New Yorker.  He humbly and personably laid bare before us his inspiration and creative process, including drawing upon classical, non-Western and Jazz traditions, spoken word, pigeons flapping wings, and spoken word, even interviews with Holocaust Survivors.

We stood in the back at the beginning of the session with Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, agreeing to slip out as soon as we started to nod off during his speech on “Performance in the Age of Recording.”  I sat down when he opened by warning that he would offend most if not all of us, and laughed openly with his reference to going to church as an analogy to distinguishing between composers and performers in classical music:  “If you don’t like sermon you don’t say “I don’t like Jesus…you just don’t like the way that particular preacher is talking about Jesus.” 

He won Carolyn’s heart when saying how live performance will always trump a recording.  “You want to see the musicians have fun and engaging with each other on stage…that will engage your audience.”

The constant theme was about creating new music based on thinking out of the box… by stepping out of narrowly defined possibilities for creation into a world of possibility.

This idea was embodied by CMA’s recipient of the 2010 Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chick Corea.  According to CMA, “A jazz luminary for more than 40 years, Corea has been a transformative voice in virtually every style of chamber music.”  In addition to 55 Grammy nominations and 14 Grammy’s, at least 10 presenters talked about meeting Corea and experiencing his music as a “life changing event.”

And now back to the performance by the Harlem Quartet:  It’s a single, visual image in less than three minutes that sums up the power of drawing from diverse traditions to create something new and exciting.

In adapting this concept to my own work, I win from an audience development perspective by appealing to a broader base (classical, jazz, and Latin music aficionados, plus a wider age demographic.) 

But then it looks like I already won, when I walked out of my own knowledge-base and into the “Chamber” room and said “let me listen and see what I can learn.”

What are “opposite” traditions, theories or approaches in your field?  How have you or might you integrate them into your own practice.  What were the results?

Hey you racist, why did you mention only Serena Williams race in last week’s post about the Mother Nature/Tampax ad?

Luckily that comment didn’t come in, but as I was riding the train (or the “L” as we call it in Chicago) downtown yesterday, I realized I did mention Serena’s race, but not “Mother Nature’s”.  Why?

As for Serena, the point was that supposed to be that while she happened to be African-American, it was her star power that shined.  Her celebrity drove her selection for the ad, over racial identity.

But for Mother Nature, who is white, there is a hint (or a clobber on the head) of unconscious bias.  Isn’t it just understood that Mother Nature is white, just like Jesus, and Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?

Save the extreme racial ignorance that accompanied Harry Reid’s recently revealed words during the 2008 election campaign, there is a parallel here:   the underlying assumption/bias that White is the norm.  In Reid’s case, he then gauges Obama’s appeal against that norm.

The white majority has the option of not perceiving themselves in a racial manner.  But only in embracing one’s identity as white, as distinct from other possible identities can you remove yourself from the center of the circle and look out as one of many identities on equal par, with equal value to offer.

How do you describe your racial identity? 

Photo credits, Jesus by mike52ad, Santa Claus by Hollywood Roadster, Tooth Fairy at Buy Costumes