8 Cultural assumptions

Culture and ethnicity:

Culture: All types of social norms, behaviors, ways of thinking, values, traditions, clothing, cuisine or music shared by a community of human beings who also speak the same language (Geertz, 1973). E.g. Hispanic, Latinx, Navajo, Ute, Anglo.

Ethnicity: Physical features inherited from your parents as they connect you to certain origins (Cornell & Hartmann, 2007). E.g. Indigenous, Afro, White, or Semitic.

Mainstream culture: It’s the culture of the majority of the people living in a national territory, or the culture of the colonizer (Hall, 1976). In the United States, Anglo-American is the mainstream culture. Many aspects of the mainstream culture are taken for granted, so people from other cultures have to LEARN what an Anglo-American takes for granted.

Minority cultures: The cultural expressions of certain communities when they don’t align with those of the mainstream culture (Berry, 1997).

Bicultural behaviors: An individual may follow practices from different cultures (Grosjean, 2010), usually the native culture and the colonizing culture.

Knowledge and culture

Culture involves an amount of shared knowledge that people in a community take for granted (Hall, 1976, Schein, 2010). Individuals in the culture are not aware that this knowledge is culture specific. Assumed knowledge in the Anglo-American culture are:

• Everybody knows how to play Bingo
• Everybody knows the ingredients of pizza
• Everybody knows tips should be around 15% of the total amount of a bill
• Every body knows that students don’t go to school when snow is heavy

The clash between cultural assumptions may lead to a cross cultural miscommunication (Maude, 2011, Scollon & Scollon, 2001, Tannen, 1984). This is when people from different cultures don’t understand each other because of a different assumption, not for reasons related to the language. Each educational institution may develop their own cultural practices, which should be scaffolded to any newcomer. Balon Bodnar (1992) discusses school-specific cultural assumptions in their Ph.D. dissertation.

I have summarized certain aspects of cultural knowledge in the Anglo-American culture that could be new to any newcomer, divided in:

• Celebrations
• Mass media
• Seasons
• Continental distribution

Celebrations

Many of the celebrations, holidays, and classroom breaks happening in the United States may not be common in Latin American countries or other countries around the world. Some of them are:

Thanksgiving day. Not happening at all in any country other than the United States. Some countries may be aware of the Black Friday. When you do Thanksgiving activities for Hispanic children, they may not know about turkey. In a diverse classroom, it’s convenient scaffold any activity related to Thanksgiving day.

Saint Valentine’s day. Some countries have started celebrating this due to the influence of the United States.

Spring break. There’s a break happening in March or April across all countries in Latin America and Spain at the same time, but as a religious celebration, and it happens the same week across the Catholic world. It may be confusing for Hispanic parents the fact that each district selects their own Spring Break week, so you should inform to families of Spring Break dates.

Easter: Hispanics celebrate Easter, but not with the imaginary of the rabbits hatching eggs. Introducing this activity in the classroom may require some extra scaffolding if your students are diverse.

Cinco de mayo. It’s a celebration created in the United States, but Mexicans from Mexico may not celebrate it at all. If you want to prepare a Cinco de Mayo celebration, it may require long scaffolding for Mexican students too.

Despite the differences, I always appreciate the opportunities to be involved in every cultural celebration at my daughter’s school, religious or not. They are a a valuable learning experience for me as an international mom at the United States, and a way to expand my social ties with other families. The school district makes me feel invited and welcome into the community with every cultural activity they organize.

Mass media

Many elements of the mass media may not be known by newcomers in the United States right after they arrive. Some parents may not have time off from their works to watch TV or be aware of news.

American football and baseball. These are not popular sports in most Latin American countries. People don’t know the rules, teams, championships, colors, or mascots.

Pop culture: Actors, celebrities, singers, or characters that may be widely known in the United States may be unknown for people from other countries.

Nursery rhymes: Newcomer children may not know songs like Baby Shark, Twinkle Twinkle, or the Itsy Bitsy spider.

Politics: Famous politicians such as Ron DiSantis, Alejandra Ocasio-Martinez, or Bernie Sanders may not be known by newcomer families.

Social norms

Students coming from different countries or different cultures may have social norms that differ from those in American classrooms. Parents may usually exhibit more stable cultural roots with the home countries while the children rapidly learn to navigate bicultural realms. Diverse social norms make Mexican parents seem disengaged (Andrews, 2013, Lopez, Scribner, & Mahitivanichcha, 2001, Trumbull et al., 2001). For example, Mexican parents believe that monitoring homework is a sign of involvement (Scribner et al., 1999, Valdes, 1996), which leads to misunderstanding of homework-less approaches in the United States.

I’m going to tell you a set of confessions with things I experienced as a Colombian mom in the United States:

• In my first parent-teacher conference, my daughter didn’t come with me. The teacher asked why she was not with me. I felt much appreciated when the teacher told me my daughter could be present at the conference.
• The first snow-day, I still took my daughter to school being unaware of school cancellations. People at the school guided me through communication with the school district to inform me of future school cancellations.
• I didn’t know I could attend the Halloween party. My daughter came back sad that all parents were around, except for me. I did receive the school invitations, but I just misread it.
• A couple of times I forgot to send my daughter with proper snow-pants. I thought it was too cold for children to go outside. Other times I sent my daughter too dressed up for a Fall season not-so-cold day.
• I usually request extra homework for my daughter to do. It feels so awkward to let my daughter be in the house while not doing homework at all. I tell my daughter to show homework to her teacher even if the teacher doesn’t ask.
• For a classroom Christmas party my daughter asked me not to wear make-up. It was embarrassing for her that I was overdoing my face when everybody was supposed to wear pajamas like they just woke-up.
• On Saint Valentine’s day most parents send their kids with gifts and candies for other kids… except for me.

Seasons

Hispanic views of continents:

Five or six continents? In Spanish, there are five continents: America, Europa, Africa, Asia y Oceanía. Sometimes Antarctica is not mentioned as a continent because it doesn’t have human inhabitants.

Hispanic geography is human-oriented, while Anglo-American geography is resources-oriented.

In fact, the Olympic rings represent the five inhabited continents and not six.

America: The word “America” refers to a whole continent divided into sub-continents: Norteamérica, Centroamérica y Suramérica.

Suramérica: Subcontinent that starts in Colombia and goes all the way down.

América Central: Panamá, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and México are NOT part of Suramérica. They comprise that subdivision called Centroamérica. Mexicans themselves don’t accept being part of Centroamérica. They teach in Mexican schools that Mexico is located in Norteamérica.

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