Chapter 7: Straddling Multiple Culture Worlds and Promoting Cross-Cultural Understanding as a Social Science Educator

At the beginning of my Social Studies Methods or Cultural Diversity class every semester, I would start by telling my students the meaning of my name in Chinese: Beautiful Asia. I would then point to a world map and highlight the places that have represented important turning points in my life. I would conclude my self-introduction by showing a few pictures and a sociocultural identity web that I created to tell who I am, in regards to my family, race, ethnicity, language, religion, education, profession, and more.

Of course, it is never that simple or easy to fully explain and demonstrate who I am in a mere number of minutes. However, residing in an ethnically and culturally diverse urban area in the southeastern United States, as well as lecturing about cultural diversity issues to a diverse student population, has inevitably driven me to constantly examine my own identity, my life journey, and my roles as a cross-cultural educator and a researcher. In retrospection, I have realized that many significant parts of my life have shaped who I am and what I pursue in my career today. I have transformed from the once bashful young girl in the far west of China to a confident scholar in the eastern United States; a person who now straddles multiple culture worlds and who is determined to promote the common good between China and the United States.