Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

My international contact is a primary teacher, Ail Yu, from Hong Kong, China. Ms. Yu brought up a very interesting issue currently happens in Hong Kong, racism among Chinese group. Hong Kong is a urban city located China, their primary language is Cantonese. Recently thousands of immigrants from mainland China from the rural city send their children to study in Hong Kong or immigrant to Hong Kong. However, because Hong Kong is a small city, the education system did not have sufficient space to take extra students.  In additionally, those immigrants came from variety of county, which speak different dialects than the primary language spoken in Hong Kong. Thus, teachers do not understand the languages the student speaks and there were no support/ resources to support these immigrant groups. Racism between students exists as most of the media and parents were not supporting new immigrant enter to this city.

                I was little surprise that there were racism between people from the same roots, however, as I reflect more, racism exists between class, society status, sexual orientation etc. Ms. Yu expressed that she tries to understand the immigrants families by meeting with the parents and do home visits even it was not required by the school. She learned that immigrant families were living in poverty and parents expressed that they always face unfair treatment in daily bases. Ms. Yu also learned that because the cultural difference, Hong Kong people do not understand or agreed of the behavior/ habits of the immigrant. When the parents do not agree the immigrant’s behavior, they may stereotype immigrants into a category and unconsciously educate their child this stereotype. Therefore, children may hold these thoughts to school, which easily proceed to racism/ bully at school.  

It reminds me of the English Learners in the United States that the education system do not have sufficient resources or system set up to support teachers to support English Learners. In additionally, some parents may stereotype people who came from other countries and consciously or unconsciously educate the negatives to their children, which affect the child’s impression to those cultures or people. I do not blame on those parents who stereotype other cultures, because sometimes it is the media and our experiences influence our impression. As an educator, we do not have the power to change someone’s mind, we can at least have a positive mindset toward diverse cultures.