CULTURALLY SENSITIVE SUPERVISION AND TRAINING by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

PART III

Strategies for Promoting Cultural Sensitivity in Supervision and Training

10

FROM INVISIBILITY TO EMBRACE

Promoting culturally sensitive practices in supervision

Jessica L. ChenFeng, PhD

I am a second-generation Taiwanese American, Christian, non-disabled, heterosexual, educated female therapist, professor, and supervisor of marital and family therapy. These identifiers, though helpful, barely begin to tell of how I know myself and how I hope to be known as a whole person. I believe the same holds true for our clients, students, and supervisees. I hope my experiences thus far serve to build a collective hope and persistence in the difficult work of moving toward cultural sensitivity and humility in a world where difference oftentimes feels overwhelming and exhausting.

My cultural history and context

Taiwanese American upbringing in the suburbs

In the suburbs of Los Angeles and Orange County where I grew up, the vast majority of my friends were second-generation Asian Americans—the children of Chinese, Taiwanese, or Korean American immigrant parents. This community, along with my Taiwanese American conservative Christian church and my own immigrant Taiwanese parents were the context that shaped the core pieces of my identity.

When I was in middle school, I had the customary Chinese American experience of “ching chong” yelled to my face while I was at the mall with my mother, younger sister, and the women of another Taiwanese American family. This was one of the more vivid memories of racial discrimination growing up. For the most part, however, the messages I internalized about being minority and insignificant came through more covert systemic avenues, such as rarely seeing people in the media whose images reflected what I saw in the mirror. Day-to-day life up through my college years was relatively devoid of intentional, consciously fear-inducing, overt racial discrimination. I know this is a privilege that many children of Asian immigrants have not had. But because of this, it was deceptively easy to be disconnected from the racism I had internalized. Because all my friends and their families seemed to share similar Asian American family values, work ethic, respect, and communication style, I also had very little awareness of my own cultural identity. Life at home was fairly congruent with life outside of home—the expectation of academic success, commitment to faith, honoring of your family and others. All of it seemed “normal.”

Difference and invisibility

Though my parents taught that I would have to work harder, write better, and learn more vocabulary as the daughter of immigrants, experiential consciousness about my racial and cultural identity did not surface until I began graduate school in marital and family therapy. Almost all my professors and supervisors, and the majority of my classmates, were white. Suddenly, I had the perpetual feeling of being different and invisible. I never knew that I had grown up in a world where I had grown accustomed to and unknowingly desensitized to microaggressions. However, I had no terminology, vocabulary, or conscious awareness that my internal workings were any different from that of a white or other-minority colleague.

In group conversations, I could not speak up as quickly or as loudly as others, because I did not know how to.

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