Conversations Can Bridge Cultural Divide

Editor’s Note: As the country approaches the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Teaching Tolerance bloggers have written about their insights and experiences in the classroom as a result of the attacks. We offer these for your reflection and adoption.

The month of Ramadan comes upon my classroom slowly. The non-Muslim students don’t notice the changes at first, but soon the little things start creeping in. They see that the classes are smaller, because more students are staying home. Or they might notice that the Muslim students are a little more tired than usual, or that when offered food, they politely put up their hand and say, “No food for me, I am fasting.”

This is when the questions start.

About half of my adult students are Muslims, mainly from Somalia, though a few are from Eritrea and Iraq. They come from places where Muslims are either the majority or a large segment of the population. In the United States, explaining their faith and traditions has become a large part of their new life.

When I asked my Muslim students about discrimination in America, their responses were mixed. Some said that they have suffered obvious discrimination. People stop and stare at the Somali women’s robes and hijabs. Others comment about their scarves and try to touch them.

But the biggest area for discrimination, my students told me, was in the workplace. Many had stories about friends being fired for refusing to remove headscarves, for praying outside of designated lunch breaks or for refusing to touch things like pork and alcohol. Some of the students felt that these firings were completely wrong. Others saw a gray area, saying, “We need to find work where this is not a problem.”

Some students refused to view the attention and workplace problems as discrimination. “We are new here,” a student said. “Sometimes people don’t understand us because they don’t know our culture. They don’t understand our religion.” These students tended to be the more recently arrived.

A few of the students were in the United States during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “I was so scared!” one of my students remarked. “I thought I left all that violence behind.” Others had feared a backlash against Muslim people, because the hijackers had been Muslim. “I was scared that people would think I am like that.”

An important goal for me is to help my students understand each other without a veil of prejudice or stereotypes. I put them into working groups where they can get to know people from different cultures and religions. Questions spring up all the time. What do you eat? What is that clothing you are wearing? How do you say ______ in your language?

Gradually, friendships are formed outside of cultural lines. Every day, my students learn new things about each other. And they learn that they have nothing to be afraid of. It is my hope that the conversations started in my classroom can extend outside these four walls and into each student’s “real life” context. Then people can begin to understand each other calmly and build a community in a powerful way.

Brenda Anfinson is an ELL civics teacher in Minnesota.