Culture, Culture, Culture

As a native Detroiter who is now working with other native Detroiters through Focus:HOPE, it’s not easy to find observe culture cues as they are seen as standard cues in my community.  However, unlike working with my previous research mentor and partners during the fall and winter semester, I am now working with much older adults as opposed to graduate and undergraduate students.  The change is not incredibly stark; but rather, my interactions and thoughts about the project are more or less the same.  However, I view those around me, even those who are also interns, as more of an authority than of a colleague due to their age and experience working with Focus:HOPE.  This differs from my interactions with my first research project where my colleagues were also undergraduates and also were doing research for the first time.

I would not necessarily refer to my interactions with my supervisor and others as necessarily difficult, but I do feel the urge to act more professional and more reserved than with my research mentor during the school year.  Most people around me are very brief when it comes to personal casual talk, so the atmosphere feels rather work heavy and serious most of the time. I also feel that I should act more cordial and polite because that’s how I was raised in regards to speaking to my elders: Be polite, don’t ask too many personal questions, and do what I am told without question. Although this work environment feels very serious, I have slowly become more comfortable to speaking with others casually.  However, I realize that in order to reach these more casual interactions that it will take time to get there, and I may have to get out of my comfort zone a little.