Pre-Plunge 

Weeks ago, when I read about doing a ‘cultural plunge’, I immediately knew I wanted to attend the Golden West Swap Meet in Orange County, California. I drive past the event every weekend and see hundreds of tents, thousands of people, a variety of food trucks and a whole lot of items laid out on tables and blankets. I chose to attend this specific event because a large population of the event vendors and attendees are Hispanic. I just recently moved to Southern California where the Hispanic population is much larger than places I’ve lived before. Which is why I’ve been wanting to practice my Spanish and interact with more Hispanic individuals and culture. I have many Hispanic friends, so I know some aspects of their culture- but mainly from people with Mexican- American backgrounds. As I’ve shared in previous blogs, one of my friends explained to me that living with extended family is common in some Mexican American households. I also have the preconceptions that Hispanic people cook amazing food, have a more relaxed sense of time, are hard working and celebrate often. I think most of these views I have are from my Hispanic friends, or from what I see portrayed in movies, books and media.

My results on the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) showed that I lacked confidence in my interactions with people from different cultures. As a cisgender white woman, I acknowledge that I am usually the majority in the room, not the minority. English is also my native language, which is a privilege in a society that regards English as the universal language. So, it doesn’t surprise me that I lack confidence in my interactions with people outside my culture, because I haven’t had to practice this skill nearly as much as other people have. One of my biggest fears interacting with people of different cultures is inconveniencing them by not understanding their language. For example, I am worried about interacting with Hispanic people at the Swap Meet because I don’t speak Spanish. I feel like by me speaking English to someone who is Spanish- speaking it gives off the suggestion that I expect them to accommodate me. Which is not the case. In fact, I feel embarrassed to approach someone at all and not be able to fully speak their language. However, I plan to practice my confidence at the Swap Meet in whatever way I can. This will give me a chance to practice my Spanish (I’ve taken four years of it!) and to practice being okay with imperfect interactions. Obviously many people are bi-lingual, but I don’t like to assume either way.

Post-Plunge 

The Golden West Swap Meet was such a fun experience! I left with plans to return, and with an extremely full stomach. By describing the Hispanic population at the Swap Meet I have a fear of generalizing an entire culture, which is not what I want to do. However, I will explain some knowledge/insight I gained from my observations and experiences while I was there. Like I mentioned before, as an English-speaking white person, I am used to being the majority in social spaces, but at the Swap Meet, I was not! As I milled through the stalls, I heard mostly Spanish, along with a mixture of other languages (I recognized some Vietnamese!). The items being sold were not so different from what I would see at a garage sale, like clothes, trinkets, old toys, furniture, picture frames, books, video games, old tools among many other things. We ended up buying a Christmas blow mold for one of our friends who collects them (I attached a photo), which we paid cash for. Looking back, I realized bartering was probably an option, but the man running the stall quoted me the price and I just gave him the money in cash and said thank you! A component of inclusion I noticed among Hispanic people was seeing families work the stalls together and enjoy the event together. I come from a small family that honestly doesn’t do anything together. It’s not because we are estranged, but simply because it’s the norm for my family only to get together for holidays (we are all so geographically spread out). I loved seeing that sense of belonging on people’s faces because I have trouble feeling that in my own family.

A specific interaction I had that impacted me the most was ordering from a food truck. I was nervous to order because I could overhear everyone in front of me speaking Spanish and enjoying themselves. I felt bad to order in my obviously poor Spanish- but I did it! I tried to ask the lady working how long the food truck had been in business, first in (not very good) Spanish and then in English. I think she was surprised that I asked her a question because we both ended up just waving each other off and exchanging the money. This interaction impacted me in a few ways. First, I was proud that I practiced my Spanish even though I was worried about it not being very good and inconveniencing someone over it. Second, I realized that I still have a lot of anxiety around conversations with people who speak a different language than me. Lastly, I noticed that I wanted to connect with Spanish speaking people, I just couldn’t communicate myself clearly. I consider myself a culturally sensitive person and would categorize myself (using the DMIS) as someone who accepts the differences between cultures. What I would like to work on is interacting with people who speak different languages than me, even if our communication is rocky. I often find myself not trying to interact with others at all because of not being able to speak ‘perfectly’ or being seen as annoying.

Three Questions Remain...

1.  Is it rude that I go to a mainly Hispanic event and not know how to speak Spanish?

2.  Does a full integration of cultures involve learning another person’s language?

3.  I wonder how often people of different cultures don’t interact not because of prejudice, but because they don’t know how to?

References:

DMIS model. IDRInstitute. (2021, April 19). https://www.idrinstitute.org/dmis/