Engage Her: Activating Women and MultiCultural Communities

Calling all women who want to be leaders of the future. The landscape of our country is changing dramatically and in states like California the combined populations of multicultural communities (formerly known as “minorities”) have now become the dominant majority. When you add in the fact that there are more women than men in our country, then multicultural women have now become the majority of our population. The burning question we must ask ourselves: Where are the multicultural women leaders in our country? In the three major institutions that run our country, the Media, Government and Corporations there are very few women executives and decision makers that control key decisions in our country. The Census Bureau has been projecting that across our nation by 2052 or sooner, the rest of the country will look like California. That means 1 out of 3 people will be Latinos, 1 out of 6 Asian and 1 out of 6 will be of African American descent. That doesn’t include all the citizens who are “blended” or of multi-racial cultures and ethnicities. When you add these people together, the numbers are far larger and will change the landscape much more rapidly.

With the change in our population, the impact and social needs of our communities and nation will change dramatically. The impact on our educational system, jobs, healthcare system, social justice issues, immigration will need to reflect the needs of these communities. We will need new and improved services to address this changing population. Critical issues such as obesity, language, cultural challenges, higher education, immigration all represent issues that significantly impact our entire nation. We need leaders who come from these communities, understand their needs and will be able to advocate and put programs and build products and services to address their needs. We cannot sit back and wait for this dramatic change to happen. We have to encourage our communities to step up and become the leaders that they need to develop into to help lead the charge for change in our country. We need to widen the “pipeline” of leadership candidates and educate, motivate and help show young people different ways that they can become our next generation of leaders.

There are role models out there today in many different industries. Unfortunately mainstream media, corporations and government do not highlight, profile and promote these leaders. Multicultural people need to see people who look like ourselves, understand our issues and learn how to speak up, assert ourselves and become the new leaders. At Engage Her we’re dedicated to developing leadership programs, profiling leaders and identifying and supporting the next generation of multicultural leaders. We hope you will join our community, contribute to our content, attend leadership conferences, workshops and help become the change we all seek for our country. Stay tuned for more leadership articles and programs.

Elena Kagan has become our new Supreme Court Justice. Women justices now comprise one third of our nation’s highest court. She is also the first justice in 40 years to be sworn in who has never been a judge. She is a great example of how people and women in particular can aspire and reach the highest echelons of their careers based on their merits, work production and strong leadership. She joins the court as they face critical social justice issues such as Immigration, Health Care reform and Same sex marriages. It is a great accomplishment and will provide another great role model for multicultural women and communities.

Today the U.S. Government announced that our country has more than 70 million or 26.7% of population’s adults are obese. It is considered to be a major public health threat by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control. Over 400,000 people were surveyed and the results and numbers are huge. In 9 states, over 30% of their population is considered obese. There is increasing concern and effort to address this situation as obesity is directly related to increased heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancers.

The survey also reported that multicultural communities were especially hard hit. African Americans were most likely to be obese with 36.8% of African American men and 41% of African American women were considered to be obese. Hispanics were reporting 30% obesity in their populations. With women providing most of the health care support, food preparation and education to our families, it is important that we begin to educate and change the way we eat and exercise within our families. Many multicultural families continue to prepare traditional cultural foods that use high fats, sodium, carbohydrates that can lead to increased obesity and related diseases. We need to explore utilizing substitute ingredients that are healthier and begin to address this obesity situation.

This further supports the work that First Lady Michelle Obama is undertaking with her national “Let’s Move” campaign aimed at seriously reducing Childhood Obesity in a generation. Let’s take a look at what our children, parents and families are eating and determine how we can begin to modify our eating and exercise habits in order to increase our families’ longevity and health.

Listening and Speaking in a Second Language—what is it like?

In 1987, working as a receptionist at an International Conference Center in New York, I had the following experience:  A loud, large, and fast-speaking woman asked me a long and convoluted question.  Since I did not understand her, I asked her to repeat it.  She went ahead and repeated the question in the same pace and with identical terms.  Thus, I requested another iteration of her question, to which she replies in an angry tone: “Am I speaking in another language?!” Fortunately, a colleague from South Africa standing right beside me and of a similar size, replied to her: “No, it is she who is speaking in a second language, what can I do for you, ma’am?”

From then on, I have witnessed multiple situations in which people simply did not understand what it is to be listening and speaking in a second language.  Of course, not speaking a second language leaves anyone in a vacuum of experience to use as reference. That is understandable. However, I have also witnessed many people who are monolingual, and yet have managed to develop the required understanding and sensitivity.  Thus, being bilingual is not a prerequisite for cultural competence, as just a notch-up in awareness can make a huge difference in ensuring good communication.

Of course, with experience, I have learned that in similar situations it does help to answer something along the lines of:  “Sorry, could you repeat that in a slower pace for me, please?” Sometimes, I may have added:  “ I am listening in my second language.” Additionally, I learned that being soft spoken does not always work with loud individuals— especially, as I am petite!  Thus, raising up a notch of my voice and expanding my chest a wee bit can do wonders!  I cannot say it has always worked, but I bet I have increased my chances of being heard. Sure enough, humans are fascinating animals, are not we?

In attempting to find a way to explain what the experience is for second-language listeners, I have found the following analogy to be useful.  Imagine yourself listening to the radio.  When the reception is right, you can hear the person speaking or singing quite clearly, right?  However, if there is static, or there are portions of the speech cut off, you will not hear well, or make sense of the entire message. Well, for a second-language listener, the reception is clear while the terms are familiar to us.  When language is unknown, there are moments of static or outright silence in the midst of the cacophony of understood language.  It requires a high tolerance to ambiguity and an ability to make sense of the whole message from the context as understanding every single word is often an impossible mission.

The recurrence of the static or silences varies depending on the level of language proficiency of the listener, their specific knowledge of the topic at hand, and many nuances of the entire context. Even being fully proficient in English since I learned the language from childhood, have lived in the USA for almost 20 years, and hold a doctoral degree obtained at a competitive school in California- there are still moments in which there is static or outright silence when I listen in my second language.  That is absolutely normal.  What I have learned, however, is to say… “please, slow down…” or “what does X or Y mean?” when I encounter those situations. However, not all second-language speakers feel entitled to ask such questions, or have the interpersonal skills to do so.  That is where the attitude and skills of the person on the other side of the interaction truly comes in handy to achieve good communication.

Food for thought:

Imagine what it would be like for you if you were in a similar situation to the second-language listener.  What would it feel like?  What would it be like if the experience would be fairly common?  How would you cope with it?  What if you were in a group in with you had very little rank?

The Engage Her Multicultural Middle School Girls Leadership Conference was an extraordinary success! The way I had envisioned the conference was nothing like the actual experience. I can recall standing in the courtyard during Saturday morning’s registration, captivated by the diversity of young girls. It was a very surreal moment for me – I was overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety at the same time.

Saturday morning we kicked off the conference with our first speaker, Loretta Walker, Vice President of External Affairs for AT&T, who spoke about her journey to leadership. We also had Dawn Valadez, director of the film, Going on 13 www.goingon13.com, which the girls really enjoyed watching. The students had a blast participating in interactive activities with About Face http://www.about-face.org/, focusing on the messaging of main stream media.

Sunday was our Youth for Youth day, where we had young leaders speak about how they’re impacting the world! Chanel Aleta Johnson just completed her internship at the White House, working in the West Wing with President Barack Obama’s  key officials. Amazing! We also had Apoorva Rangan, a 15 year old amazing young lady, who co-founded Eco-Company and is the co-mastermind of Project Jatropha http://projectjatropha.com/, which turns Jatropha seeds into bio-fuel to conserve India’s environment. I’m absolutely proud to say, we provided incredibly inspiring speakers.

It was wonderful to witness the students, so eager to learn and identify their leadership roles. Congratulations to Engage Her for bringing together multicultural women and girls committed to becoming our future leaders!

We did it again Engage Her team!

To help promote participation in the Census, we’re announcing our new Text Message campaign: Text FreeCensus to 53137 and register your name in a drawing to win a FREE iPod Touch! Starting today, we’re announcing it to all our partners and the public.

The Census forms have arrived and millions of people have been sending them in. However, early return rates indicate that there are many areas across the country where the participation rate is 50% or less. So what are you waiting for? You need to mail them back by April 19 to avoid having your home placed on a list to receive visits from Census representatives starting later this month.

Remember: Text FreeCensus to 53137 to register to win a FREE iPod Touch and receive periodic messages.