Personal Narrative: My Staircase To Intercultural Awareness

My Staircase to Intercultural Awareness

Nkechi Adigwe
Communication 305-002
Professor Cox
September 17, 2012

Abstract

Living in this mixed bowl of cultural, you might see an intercultural experience is easy to in occur whether it going to your favorite Thai restaurant or meeting a foreign exchange student in your class. Many embrace the many cultures in society but most do not understand how different cultures operate or the effort needed to communicate effectively. We can look to the staircase model describe in Understanding Intercultural Communication by Stella Ting-Toomey and Leeva Chung. This communication model is a great way to learn how to communicate in an intercultural setting as well as to be
respectful and aware of the other’s cultures. After learning about the staircase model, I realized I have used this model in my everyday personal encounters.

Starting at childhood, I was placed in private school where the majority of students were Caucasian and Asian.
I recalled one out of five black students in my class. Given this setting, I became acculturated in the culture of the white and upper middle class. In addition to dealing with being accepted by my classmate, I had to fit in with my relatives which half of them were Nigerian and the others Bermudian. While trying to juggle these cultures, I attempted to adapt to the appropriate or setting I was involved with at the time. As I got older, I began to be aware of the where I did and did not belong and decided to travel away for awhile to figure my life and who I am. Given this constant struggle of identity and culture, I have had to use the staircase model of communication to be accept and fully be understand by the different cultures I encounter whether American, Nigerian, or
Bermudian. My staircase to intercultural awareness began when I was in kindergarten at a private school where I learned how to act, speak, and participate in activities like the rest of my peers even though, at home, my parent did things completely different at times. During this time, I thought I had the culture of the white and upper middle class mastered but then I would encounter my Bermudian and Nigerian cousins who would crack jokes because I was either acted or spoke too “white” or bourgeois. For example, I visited Bermudian for a summer and went to summer camp which was a nightmare because the kids made fun of me because I did not have an accent and had a foreign name. After being ridicule about my different culture, I adopted a defensive mechanism of being snobbish and look down my nose at people. These defense mechanisms help me to put others down before they could make fun of me. Feeling as I mastered my snobbish way, I became a teenage and entered high school which introduced me to be all over the area and to students who had similar experiences.
These experiences felt like a culture shock and encourage me to let my guard down. Meeting and interacting with more private and public students, I began to move away from the white upper middle class culture and more toward the culture of minority and lower classes. I started to realize that rude the upper class treated the lower class regards of race. During this realization, I became aware that I was not really part of the culture I was brought up in and started to like the “token” black person among my friend that I grow up with in private school. This realization I started to rebel and tried to be as “black” as I could by listening to hardcore rap, dressing more urban, and attempting to use
Ebonics. Finishing my education in private school, I decided to move away from everything and have a new start in North Carolina where no one would know who I was in order to find myself and cultural values. In Maxton, North Carolina, I encountered racism and bigotry between whites, blacks and Native Americans. I was surprised to realized that they had certain places, where if you were black, white would look at the person as if they had two heads. After three years, I decided to come back to home and became immersed in white corporate America. I excelled within the company and became the youngest black person my department. After years of working in the environment, I began to notice that the expectation for me and my white peers were totally different and unequally which became very frustrating. Although I loved my job, the time had come for me to leave and finish my education at George Mason University to validate my skills and knowledge. Entering George Mason University, I was very intimidated because I was older than most of the other students and had to fit in with the demographic of 18-23 year olds. In essence, all of my life experiences were difficult and frustrating at time but the staircase model was a learning tool to gain knowledge of how to communicate in an intercultural setting as well as to be respectful and aware of the other’s cultures. After learning about the staircase model, I realized I have used this model in my everyday personal encounters.

Reference Page
1. Ting-Toomey, S. & Chung, L. C. (2012). Understanding intercultural communication. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
2. Gonzalez, A., Houston, M., & Chen, V. (2012). Our voices: Essays in culture, ethnicity, and communication (5th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.