cultural competence & History shock!!

   With Dr. Aguilar's visit, Lum's chapter 1 and 2, the race culture theory article and Zinn's book I had a big culture and history shock!
   First of all with Lum's chapter about cultural competence and social context as well as the race culture theory article that was about cultural competence, my beliefs about the importance of cultural competence were strengthen. I feel like it is commonly known that cultural competence is very important especially for a social worker. A social worker must be able to understand their clients culture and background in order to properly help them. But when I really think about it, its not that easy. Since I am bilingual, I was raised in a Mexican home but grew up in an American community. I consider myself really blessed to be table to share both cultures equally. This will be very beneficial to me as a social worker. However, not everyone is as lucky. It can become difficult for a Caucasian social worker who knows nothing about the Mexican culture to try and help a client who is having cultural issues. Also, I believe culture is a very big and often confusing thing. I at times even have trouble understanding somethings. I can't imagine how hard it would be for someone who knows nothing of the Mexican culture. I am not really sure how much and how specific cultural courses are. So far, all of my social workers have talked about culture but have not gone into specifics about it. Since the minority population in the United States is growing at a fast pace, this only shows how important cultural competence is. I believe that in order for social workers to be completely successful, there must me specific courses for each culture and they must practice with minority clients in order to help each individual. Yet again this seems very difficult as well. However, something must be done.
    Now Zinn's book, that was something else. When the professor said that Zinn's book was going to be one of the most interesting books we were going to read, I did not think I was going to like it this much! First of all, I love history! I was immediately hooked! As a Mexican, I was always taught that the Spaniards were greedy, that they took all the gold from us. However in this book, things were a lot more intense. I did not realize all of those "Indians" were killed. Not only in South American, Central America, and Mexico, but in the United States as well. This book shows how even back then there was cultural oppression. That just because the natives spoke a different language and used different weapons, they were still human beings like the Europeans. Just because they were different they should not have been treated that way. It angered me so much but it also made me realize that there is still oppression today. Some are still racist and oppressive over others of a different culture. I extremely enjoyed this book and I am really looking forward to reading the rest!