"Aliens at Home: How your Race Dictates how we are treated U.S. vs. Abroad"
Destiny, Star, and I titled our CEE aliens at home: how race dictates how we are treated US versus abroad. It consisted of a presentation while taking short breaks for audience interaction. The first discussion topic was awareness. We all took turns talking about the culture, religion, language, race and politics of our respective countries and explained why we decided to study or intern there. For Ecuador we discussed the high percentage of people who practice Roman Catholocism and discussed how the language barrier of Spanish and English hindered us and helped us. We discussed the differences in politics since around the time we arrived we had just missed the election. We also explained The differences in culture from America. When Star spoke about Kenya she mentioned the most common language being Swahili, currency; which is shillings, and the most practice religion being Christianity and Muslim and the culture she discussed was Masai. The next topic of discussion moved into toleration and exceptance, where we discussed how sometimes people will not always be comfortable with you being different from what they are used to. Especially the difference is we cannot control such as race. This discussion then moved into each of us speaking on personal scenarios that we experienced while interacting with the communities we visited abroad; whether it be in markets stores or exploring in the streets. Star spoke on how being in Kenya she felt more at home and excepted by the locals around her and in contrast to when she would shop in America she was given more special privileges than her white counterparts. In contrast to Star's experience Destinee and I had a hard time feeling comfortable while shopping in department stores with being in constant scrutinization. Much like shopping in the United States we noticed we were often followed by security or workers of a store or market and even the banks. This type of treatment really affected how we decided to spend most of our time abroad. After the compare and contrast of our individual experiences in Kenya and Ecuador we then open the floor up for the audience feedback and an open discussion began about how what happened to us global he is also a local experience. To close out our presentation we then explained the benefits of researching the countries you may want to visit study abroad in or intern at to get a feel of its language, culture, religion, race, and politics; to use that as a guide for what you want your international experience to look like. At the end we all spoke on how the Vira I. Heinz leadership program affected us and our time abroad and us returning to the United States.