Sharing Your Culture

Value in Diversity

Believe it or not, there are people and organizations out there that could benefit from your heritage, your background, from your experiences, from your values, in a word from your culture, Mi Gente. Sometimes we just have to dare to let other people know about it. No matter how different it might be from them.

In fact, good organizations look for the best way to obtain new ideas, they know that they need to look at issues from a different perspective. If they want to find solutions, they need people with different perspectives and different backgrounds (hello diversity????).

Let me tell you about my own experience and how telling people about my own background helped the community in general.

Telling my story

It was 2012 and I was working with the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, right before lunch. My boss entered my office and asked me if I wanted to take his place at a meeting downtown. The meeting was going to be with the leadership of the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera . Now you need to know something about me. I come from a musical family and even studied 12 years of music theory in Venezuela. Music has always been kind of my jam. So, when my boss asked me, I was like, um, let me see... FREAKING YESSSSS!!!! I was beyond elated with doing this assignment.

On the way to the meeting offices, the excitement started to turn into anxiety and the fear of failure started to kick in right before I entered the room, after all I was representing my organization (and as it turned out my culture). I really didn't want to fail at this.

Well, I went to one of the tallest buildings downtown. Took the elevator with adrenaline still pumping. I was finally led into a huge conference room whose windows looked over the Salt Lake City valley in what seemed a range of 180 degrees. At the table were sitting down several figures of leadership, both in the private and the nonprofit sector in the state of Utah.

I sat down realizing that they'd been waiting for me to start the meeting (yeah, it was awkward). At the center of the table (and directly across from me) was the commanding presence of a tall lady with short hair who was looking at me like she meant business. At that point, I realized that:

First, I wasn't my boss who had confirmed his attendance to the meeting; second, I was notoriously late; and third, I was the only Latino present and it really looked like I didn't belong in that room.

She asked everyone at the table to introduce themselves, each of them with a position of relevance to their organizations. I think the phrase, what the heck am I doing here? crossed my mind a couple of times.

And then it was my turn. The performer in me of all those years singing in choirs, on stage or at church started to kick in, and I let the adrenaline give me enough jolt to engage in my "performance".

I decided to establish an immediate connection by telling them about my music background and how passionate I was about the subject. At that point, I could notice that their demeanor relaxed. They didn't have to worry any longer about convincing me of the relevance of the arts and the importance of live music performances. I was already a convert to their cause.

The last one to introduce herself at the table was the tall lady herself. Her name was Melia Tourangeau , then president and CEO of the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera (USUO). She proceeded to let me know that they were bringing a series of concerts with Hispanic themes, and even an opera in Spanish (Florencia En El Amazonas , by late Mexican composer, Daniel Catán). They wanted to invite my people to their events and concerts.

It was the first time they were going to do that, and they were genuinely intentional in having the Latino people to get involved in the preparation towards the events (bravo, USUO!). So, they had a lot of questions about our people and culture, and instead of assuming they knew our culture better than ourselves. They reached out to the community, represented by me at that point.

I started describing the local Latino community with our challenges, our values our motivations, the media we consume, our values, our customs, the community organizations they needed to work with etc. I was pretty much giving them suggestions about how to sell an opera to people who had never listened to one. The people in the meeting were taking notes from my unprepared (and yet passionate) remarks. They were asking questions about what I was telling them, turning me into an impromptu ambassador for the arts to my people. They implemented what they learned from my remarks.

We worked together with our community and that music season was a great success for everyone, including Latinos. I was so happy to see many of my people going to professional performances of classical music for the first time in their lives and being fascinated by it. They were touched, as was I. It was the beginning of a long relationship with the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera.

Of course, I didn't do this by myself. Different sectors of our community were involved, but I can't help wondering what would've happened, if I had let my anxiety take over, and not go to the meeting, or not to share my ideas and my diverse background with them.

One thing is for sure, I would've missed out on the privilege of representing my people, my community. So, my first invitation to you is to step up to the plate and apply the following lesson.

Believe in Your Own Culture, Find Your Own Stories

Now, whether you are Latino, white, black, brown, yellow, European, Australian African, poor, rich, educated, illiterate, etc., the invitation is to rely on your background, your roots, your heritage. Believe that your culture has something of value, something that can help others.

Furthermore, make sure you identify the stories that make you who you are, whether personal, or of those who came before you. Help others identify those elements from your culture that can be shared, express them, enhance them, learn a way to share them effectively. Others will thank you for it and you will enrich your community.

Want to know more about telling your story? You can listen to my first interview with Jeff Gomez , a legend in storytelling. Enjoy.