ABSTRACT
When training for multi-cultural competence, I often ask participants to develop a one-page cultural biography about their early experiences with diverse individuals and how those experiences shaped their attitudes today. Recently, when working with early childhood educators, they asked to see my cultural biography. I was taken aback at first, then I rose to the challenge and constructed my own narrative. I wrote about how my parents had migrated from the South to upstate New York and bought a brownstone house. In this home, we temporarily housed a host of relatives on both my father’s and mother’s side, as our extended family also migrated from Alabama and Mississippi. During my early childhood years, as the youngest and only girl in my immediate family, I roamed our brownstone—three stories and a basement—and interacted with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and even non-blood “kin.” The experience of constructing my own cultural biography was insightful for me; it made me realize that I had acquired my community competencies at an early age.
