A Personal Reflection Of My Social Work Experience

This was the first time I have been the minority race/ethnicity for an extended period of time.When I first walked into the event, I was extremely uncomfortable because all of the other students awkwardly stared at me as if to say, “What is she doing here?! She is white and therefore cannot possibly be a follower of the Hindu faith!”. Once I introduced myself and got to know the other participants a bit, it became less awkward, and I felt more comfortable being the only student of my race. However, the element of discomfort was still present throughout the course of the event because I was unfamiliar with how the Aarti service worked and what I was expected to do during it. There are several concepts from our class readings that would apply …show more content…
As someone who wants to practice in the city of Chicago, it is very likely that I will have some experiences where I will be the racial minority. The more experience I have now with immersion, the more comfortable I will feel when it actually comes time for me to work with clients and/or families of a race that is different than mine. Immersion experiences will also help me in my social work career by allowing me to familiarize myself with the fact that symptoms of mental health issues that we think of as abnormal in the United States are in fact seen as ordinary in other cultures. For example, if an Asian child is extremely quiet and reserved in a United States classroom, the teacher might be concerned that he or she is having trouble making friends or is abnormally shy, when in fact that is a sign of respect in the Asian cultures. Understanding cultural norms of my clients will allow me to more accurately determine when I should genuinely be concerned about their symptoms versus when I should say, “Oh, that’s normal given their culture”. I will be able to better focus on those clients who genuinely do need services because I will have a smaller load of clients with true psychopathology