Cross-Cultural Thanksgiving

My family is Cuban and my boyfriend's family is Peruvian, yet both families did their best to conform to the American meal plan for Thanksgiving dinner. It was interesting to see how well different cultures can adapt to the traditions of another culture.

Today I've had two turkeys, natural mashed potatoes, and the best stuffing ever from the Cuban side. From the Peruvian side I had sweet ham and several other options including sour pear wrapped in bacon and topped with goat cheese.

Thoughts on Class pt. 4

I wish we had gotten to see more interesting examples of media going deep into reporting on an ethnic community. I felt being showed the snippets of 'Barbershop' was effective and should have taken more importance than talking about it. We spent the whole class talking about seeing it, then saw it, then adjourned. There was a mismanagement of class time that day for sure.

In general, I feel the class has progressed too slowly. I am not complaining because having this easy class has been the one saving grace for my hectic 18 credit semester. I am not wishing we had more assignments, but I am wishing the class had more involvement. To be effective and have a lasting effect on our future careers, we should have gone on class trips to difficult places and then held reflections afterward.

The actual class meetings have simply reflections for our individual listening post experiences and I feel it had to go further. We had to get a chance to watch each other in a different setting to help each other grow. I know for a fact that there are people in this course who never broke through the fears of their listening post and it's because they didn't have enough hands on training to do it.

Belated Thought on a Cross-Cultural Halloween

The internet-phenomenon Antoine Dodson got his start by being interviewed by NBC affiliate WAFF-48 News in a news clip about the local police searching for a man who tried to rape his sister in Huntsville, AL.

Mr. Dodson's gifted speech delivery skills and sassy inflection got him noted by a group who "auto tunes the news." The group used his interview to create a song that was actually incredibly catchy.

His success and uniqueness made him a popular Halloween costume. The official costume was sold on Mr. Dodson's site. It was based on the outfit that he wore in the news package that made him famous. The pieces included a raggedy afro wig with a red bandana around it, a black tank top, and red cargo shorts.

I was surprised that one of my anglo acquaintances chose to dress up as Mr. Dodson. My acquaintance is snow white, but decided to dress like Mr. Dodson and the costume actually worked. I saw a photo of him and I instantly knew what it was. I was dismayed to see he had added fairy wings as a response to Dodson's sexual orientation, but in general the costume left a positive impression on me. It was nice to see that a cross-cultural success Mr. Dodson has become through the coverage he was given by a reporter.

Who would have thought...

Today I interviewed for an internship with Scripps network. My first choice of which channel to work for was Travel channel. The interviewer asked me if I had an understanding of other cultures and if I had developed any sensitivity to them. I was actually able to use this class as an example!

I told her I have been in a lecture/discussion class about multi-ethnic reporting. I explained to her how this class has taught me to be more sensitive to how the media portrays minority groups in a socio-politic-economical view point. She was really impressed by how well I was able to articulate the ideas of cross-cultural journalism.

It made me realize that I am actually learning from this class!

And even if I had known all of this before, at least now I have a credible background in it =)