All About Family: Benefits of Diversity - Articles and News
Sociological, biological and health research and findings about race and ethnicity; and personal reflections, anecdotes, and commentary on family values, traditions of different racial and ethnic groups to explore and communicate larger truths about the importance of family, the changing definition of family, across racial and ethnic groups.
April 13th, 2010
Written by Ann Marina in All About Family with 1 Comment
Shaved heads were in fashion when six members of the Colon family became bald within one week. But they didn’t go bald for fashion’s sake.Escolastico (Esco) Colon, his father, brother, uncle, and brother-in-law went under the razor after Esco’s wife, Iris, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 and began losing her hair due to chemotherapy and radiation.“Iris was losing big clumps of hair from...
March 31st, 2010
Written by Kari Cobham in All About Family with 0 Comments
I’ve always been a floater, a sharp-tongued, curly-haired imp in an extended family where children are seen, not heard, and recriminations were silent, not felt.My father was an ambitious black man from the wrong side of the Port-of-Spain train tracks, prone to education and bouts of the travel bug. My mother’s people, the Indo-Trinidadians, journeyed from India to rural Trinidad more than a...
March 9th, 2010
Written by Lisa Smith-Overton in All About Family with 0 Comments
A couple of years ago, in celebration of Black History Month, my son Gabriel was assigned a project by his social studies teacher. The assignment: Research a historic figure in African-American history, make a presentation dressed as the figure, and write a six-page report.I was more excited than my son. I had never been given assignments like this in middle school; researching people who played...
March 4th, 2010
Written by Rachel Garlinghouse in All About Family with 0 Comments
The decision to adopt was a major step. My husband and I willingly subjected ourselves to mountains of paperwork and questions about everything from our childhood to our finances. They fingerprinted us twice, interviewed three times— both as a couple and individually—, and inspected our home. We attended required educational classes to prove our worthiness as future parents.After all the major...
February 21st, 2010
Written by Sascha Zuger in All About Family with 1 Comment
I disagreed with the director at my son’s preschool. As a progressive and politically correct institution, she used Black History month to teach what she believed to be age appropriate lessons about the injustices of American history in regards to African-Americans.My son is one-quarter Mayan, one-quarter Caribbean, so cultural diversity is high on my list of priorities, but my child is three. He...
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