The Global Citizenship competency is focused on becoming aware of the cultures around you and how they impact you. In a way, I have been moving towards this competency my whole life. The son of a Costa Rican immigrant, I grew up hearing Spanish and English in my house. This was brought to a whole new level when we moved abroad. During a five-year span, I lived in Mexico, Venezuela, and Kazakhstan. This gave me a more in-depth Spanish tutelage that I could ever have had in the US. For not only did I learn the language, but I came to understand some of the intricacies of the language. While living in Mexico and Venezuela I was exposed to different styles of Spanish from what I was accustomed to hearing from my father, and I could see how these styles were reflective of the cultures they came from. However, aspects of this didn’t become clear to me until years later when I could reflect upon these experiences.
That time began during my first semester at MNSU when I took the FYEX course. FYEX is meant to open our eyes to the competencies that are at the core of the Honors program and help us to begin meeting them. It was during this class that I realized that though I had lived in several different countries with vastly different languages and cultures I had never before reflected on this. As a child growing up in a new place I learned to adapt. I couldn’t focus on what made me different. I need to construct bridges, to do that I needed to focus on what I had in common with those around me.
However, as an adult, differences are much more prevalent in the mind, and reflecting on this is much easier. I learned this while studying abroad in Norway during my Junior year. While living in Norway I was able to compare their lifestyle and culture to those I had experienced before, and I came away amazed by the differences and similarities. Their industrialization and architecture reminded me of Minnesota, and their relaxed nature reminded me of Costa Rica, and their reservedness of Kazakhstan, but their outdoor lifestyle was like nothing I had experienced before. While it is an easy assumption that nation living in mountains would hike and ski a lot, there is much more to it. Being outdoors in the fresh air is so Norwegian that they have a word for it, friluftsliv, and a law protecting their right hike or walk nearly anywhere.
Despite, or perhaps due to, my many experiences, it wasn’t until this year that I really reflected on the cultural contexts that shaped my life. In my humanities class, Human Diversity and Humanities Traditions, we read a multitude of stories of immigrants as they either came to America, lived in America, or returned to their home nations. Reading these stories made me reflect on my story. And I realized that not only was I a second-generation immigrant in America, I had also lived as an immigrant for a third of my childhood. The effects of this is manifested in all aspects of my life, from my favourite sport of soccer and favourite dessert of arroz con leche to odd ways I occasionally structure my sentences.
That time began during my first semester at MNSU when I took the FYEX course. FYEX is meant to open our eyes to the competencies that are at the core of the Honors program and help us to begin meeting them. It was during this class that I realized that though I had lived in several different countries with vastly different languages and cultures I had never before reflected on this. As a child growing up in a new place I learned to adapt. I couldn’t focus on what made me different. I need to construct bridges, to do that I needed to focus on what I had in common with those around me.
However, as an adult, differences are much more prevalent in the mind, and reflecting on this is much easier. I learned this while studying abroad in Norway during my Junior year. While living in Norway I was able to compare their lifestyle and culture to those I had experienced before, and I came away amazed by the differences and similarities. Their industrialization and architecture reminded me of Minnesota, and their relaxed nature reminded me of Costa Rica, and their reservedness of Kazakhstan, but their outdoor lifestyle was like nothing I had experienced before. While it is an easy assumption that nation living in mountains would hike and ski a lot, there is much more to it. Being outdoors in the fresh air is so Norwegian that they have a word for it, friluftsliv, and a law protecting their right hike or walk nearly anywhere.
Despite, or perhaps due to, my many experiences, it wasn’t until this year that I really reflected on the cultural contexts that shaped my life. In my humanities class, Human Diversity and Humanities Traditions, we read a multitude of stories of immigrants as they either came to America, lived in America, or returned to their home nations. Reading these stories made me reflect on my story. And I realized that not only was I a second-generation immigrant in America, I had also lived as an immigrant for a third of my childhood. The effects of this is manifested in all aspects of my life, from my favourite sport of soccer and favourite dessert of arroz con leche to odd ways I occasionally structure my sentences.