Minority+Diversity+Immigrants=?
Scrounging around the web, looking for scraps of info on diversity and its role in career development? This very informative site, DiversityWorking.com, can help you. It can be useful for a lot of people, particularly job seekers belonging to minority groups. For example, those with non-Caucasian ethnic/racial backgrounds like Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans; 'minor' gender groups like women, gas and lesbians, transgenders and transsexuals; and physically handicapped, military related, or age oriented groups like veterans, disabled and mature workers.
What is a minority group?
The word 'minority' being used here does not refer to a number or percentage in the populace, but a status in the social hierarchy. Anyone who feels disadvantaged and underrepresented in the ruling majority is part of a minority group. The division of ethnicity, age or gender is to facilitate categorization. It's not to perpetrate the norm of labeling people as this and that, and then boxing them in with a stereotype of that group.
A minority group is any group of individuals who belong to the same race, age group or gender class. That they may appear to have the same physical characteristics is coincidental. A minority person can only feel part of a minority group when they identify with the ideals and subculture of such group. Thus we have Asians, gays and lesbians, disabled persons and war veterans as examples.
What is Diversity then?
Diversity as a concept is not new. It's been used to refer the variety of species found in the biosphere. But with the onset of globalization comes the gradual blurring of geographical and cultural boundaries. Businesses today have workforces composed of people from different cultures and nationalities. The rise and fall of world economies have brought migrants from as far as Asia to the West. To survive this economic phenomenon called globalizatin, companies have to change and adapt their workplaces to a more diversified workforce.
Some have shown resistance at first. Why change what is not broken in the first place, right? Later, however, many of the companies who first resisted change relented from the onslaught of migrant workers from the eightioes to the early nineties and even until today. Companies always seek lower labor costs to lessen expenses without sacrificing quality of service, so they seek workers who are willing to work for low pay and still deliver the same level of work performance.
U.S. Immigration
The ongoing controversy regarding US immigration policies and security issues arising from lax border patrols down South is just the tip of the iceberg. There is, I suspect, beneath that an underlying drama at play with prejudices and biases playing primary roles. Maybe the majority of Americans think they are open-minded when it comes to diversity, but it seems we haven't explored yet how far we have accepted the different people of color and nations coming and staying to work and build new lives in the Land of Opportunity.
What is a minority group?
The word 'minority' being used here does not refer to a number or percentage in the populace, but a status in the social hierarchy. Anyone who feels disadvantaged and underrepresented in the ruling majority is part of a minority group. The division of ethnicity, age or gender is to facilitate categorization. It's not to perpetrate the norm of labeling people as this and that, and then boxing them in with a stereotype of that group.
A minority group is any group of individuals who belong to the same race, age group or gender class. That they may appear to have the same physical characteristics is coincidental. A minority person can only feel part of a minority group when they identify with the ideals and subculture of such group. Thus we have Asians, gays and lesbians, disabled persons and war veterans as examples.
What is Diversity then?
Diversity as a concept is not new. It's been used to refer the variety of species found in the biosphere. But with the onset of globalization comes the gradual blurring of geographical and cultural boundaries. Businesses today have workforces composed of people from different cultures and nationalities. The rise and fall of world economies have brought migrants from as far as Asia to the West. To survive this economic phenomenon called globalizatin, companies have to change and adapt their workplaces to a more diversified workforce.
Some have shown resistance at first. Why change what is not broken in the first place, right? Later, however, many of the companies who first resisted change relented from the onslaught of migrant workers from the eightioes to the early nineties and even until today. Companies always seek lower labor costs to lessen expenses without sacrificing quality of service, so they seek workers who are willing to work for low pay and still deliver the same level of work performance.
U.S. Immigration
The ongoing controversy regarding US immigration policies and security issues arising from lax border patrols down South is just the tip of the iceberg. There is, I suspect, beneath that an underlying drama at play with prejudices and biases playing primary roles. Maybe the majority of Americans think they are open-minded when it comes to diversity, but it seems we haven't explored yet how far we have accepted the different people of color and nations coming and staying to work and build new lives in the Land of Opportunity.
posted by diversityworking @ 3:32 PM
Comments: 0
