The Record

Cultural awareness, appreciation not always found beyond U.S. borders

By: Jordan Weir

For as long as I have been at CSB/SJU I have been told that diversity here is a sort of punch-line and I never really questioned that opinion.

Throughout my four years, I have met many people from various countries. I even took advantage of the opportunity to study abroad to further my education of other cultures. Just recently, I was looking over the new CSB/SJU Web site trying to figure it out when I came across the statistic illustrating there are students from over 40 countries that attend this school.

Now that I think about it, I wonder whether this is a fair statistic to show diversity on a college campus, and I have come to the conclusion that it is not — I don’t think any of you would guess why.

I feel that diversity is not well-embodied here on campus because of the lack of representation from different regions of the United States, rather than a deficit of students from nations around the world.

I think that the general population of the U.S. today suffers from a lack of appreciation for the wonders of its own country. Citizens would be better served to learn of diversity just as they would from studying abroad in South Africa or Australia. To that end, let’s focus on gaining an appreciation for the many cultures that exist within our own borders rather than just looking abroad for enlightenment.

I know what some of you are thinking and I am here to refute the idea that because I have an interest in my own country, I am an ethnocentric jerk with no interest in other cultures. This is not true.

Like I said, I studied abroad and I understand that cultural education is necessary to be better able to interact with the many nations of the world. But I argue that just as important as it is to learn of other nations’ cultures, students should learn about the many cultures the United States itself has to offer.

In this regard, this country is unlike any other in the world. All you have to do is drive from one end to the other and you will come across dozens of different peoples with different ideas, celebrations, traditions and political views.

This, I feel, should be a much more oft-celebrated aspect of the greatness of our country. Yet I feel as if our nation (as well as the student body here at CSB/SJU) fails to recognize how important it is.

One need only look at the student body here to recognize that it would be almost impossible to learn of many other cultures than middle class, white Minnesotans firsthand. I think that this should be the next great push: to have a truly national CSB/SJU.

We should make it a goal to have every state and background fairly and well-represented here on campus. Students from all ethnic and economic backgrounds and yes, even a person or two from North Dakota, would be just fine.

This is the opinion of Jordan Weir, an SJU senior.

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