SIETAR DC

February Meeting

Developing Self-Awareness and Global Consciousness through Yoga and Cross-Cultural Competence
One of the core elements to be an effective practitioner in the intercultural field is the ability to be self-aware and help our clients develop self-awareness. Our work emphasizes uniting people of different cultures. Similarly the definition of yoga is “to yoke” or “to unite” the body, mind, and spirit.

Past Meetings 2010

A record of meetings from 2010

Officers

Julia Gaspar-Bates, Executive Coordinator

Julia Gaspar-Bates, M.A., is a certified cross-cultural trainer and consultant who works with individuals and groups from the U.S. and abroad to facilitate the challenges of working and communicating across cultures.

Julia brings a wealth of personal, professional, and educational experience to her work. With over 15 years experience working in international business and educational environments Julia has held positions for a variety of companies and organizations such as Michelin Travel Publications, UNESCO, the American Embassy of Paris, Saga International Holidays, Center for Global Education, and MarketOne International doing global account management, international market research, product development, and translation/interpretation. Prior to co-founding Intercultural Alliances (ICA), Julia facilitated cross-cultural training workshops for executives relocating to and from the U.S. As President of ICA, Julia currently designs and delivers customized programs and seminars for executives, entrepreneurs, and educators from around the world and has delivered workshops in multiple foreign languages, focusing on cultures such as India, France, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, China, Mexico, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy and the U.S.

Julia is also able to share her insights and expertise from a personal perspective. A bi-cultural British-American, she was born in London and grew up in the United States. With an undergraduate degree in the Romance Languages, Julia is fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian and is able to incorporate a deep understanding of the complexities of communicating across linguistic barriers into her work. She lived and worked in Paris, France for seven years, as well as in Mexico, Italy, and Switzerland and has traveled to more than 40 countries in both a personal and professional context. Her seminars are peppered with personal anecdotes sharpened from a lifetime of interacting and working with people from different cultures Combined with her sound foundation in intercultural theory gleaned from her graduate studies in Intercultural Relations, Julia is able to connect with her clients and participants in her programs and provide a deep awareness of the “whys” behind behavior.

Maria Morukian, Deputy Executive Coordinator

Maria Morukian is involved in the design, development, and delivery of cultural diversity initiatives for organizations in a variety of sectors, including educational, health care, nonprofit, government, corporate, and international development.

Maria is currently working with the National MultiCultural Institute (NMCI), a private non-profit organization that has been a leader in the diversity field for over twenty years. Maria collaborates in the preparation and planning of national conferences focusing on issues of diversity and multiculturalism on the national and global levels, conducts organizational audits and benchmarking studies, and designs and develops training curricula for NMCI’s clientele on a variety of topics, including cultural awareness, cross-cultural conflict resolution, managing a diverse workforce, recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, and many more.

Maria completed her Master’s degree in International Communication at American University, where her major theme of study was Latin American culture. Maria’s professional experience includes research and consultation on intercultural and international affairs, business development, and retail and corporate banking. Maria has extensive experience living abroad and investigating cultural and societal issues. She studied and taught English as a Second Language in Barcelona, Spain and participated in an exclusive research project at the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales in Havana, Cuba. Maria earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in Organizational Studies and Spanish.

Nina Hamedani, Communications Coordinator

As an Iranian-American raised in a multicultural environment, Nina Hamedani has always tried to facilitate cross-cultural awareness and understanding. It is this personal background that directed her studies at McGill University in Anthropology, World Religions and Philosophy; and led to a Master’s degree in Cultural Sociology and Communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science in England.
Her focus on bridging gaps between the U.S. and the Middle East centers on the importance of recognizing interconnections between socio-cultural understandings, perceptions, media representations, and outcomes of policy initiatives. However, Nina’s intercultural interests are broad as a result of living abroad and extensive travels in Canada, Europe, Iran and South Korea.

Nina publishes articles in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, as well as online for Press TV. She is also an independent contributor to Connecting Cultures, LLC., working to foster cultural awareness and understanding through trainings on diversity and cross-cultural communication.

Nina is excited about helping SIETAR DC with their communications needs, as well as simultaneously developing a more in-depth understanding of the intercultural field for herself.

Michelle DeFayette, Treasurer

Michelle has worked for more than 18 years in training design, facilitation, and intercultural communication and management with nonprofit organizations and the US government. She specializes in training and development programs for international development, cross-cultural communication, and disaster assistance, including emergency operations and planning. She is a senior manager at International Resources Group (IRG), where she manages a $50 million staff training contract with the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She managed the staff training unit in the USAID Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance for nearly eight years, was the director of training for the National Association of Community Action Agencies, and was a training specialist for the Peace Corps. Michelle has an MA in international communication from American University. She lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and speaks relatively fluent Portuguese.

Sonia Checchia, Membership

Sonia’s main professional interest is in how language is a resource to facilitate effective intercultural communication. Her functional skills are counseling and training/facilitation.

Sonia is an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she supports diversity and inclusion programs. She facilitates training and events supporting diversity skill building and professional development. Prior to joining Booz Allen, she worked as a study abroad advisor in Washington, DC, and Madrid, Spain.

Sonia holds a BA in International Studies from American University, and an MA in Sociolinguistics (Language and Culture) from Georgetown University. Sonia speaks Spanish and Italian, loves yoga, and is addicted to NPR.

The End of AI, Time for CI: Cultural Intelligence 3-3-09

The End of AI, Time for CI: Cultural Intelligence
March 3, 2009

Dr. Elisabeth Plum, Danish scholar and current visiting Professor at Middlesex University’s Business School in the UK, spoke at George Washington University for an event co-sponsored by SIETAR and the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).

Message from SIETAR-DC's Executive Coordinator

Dear SIETARians,

Yesterday's election was truly an historic moment in our lives. It was a testimony not only to democracy but also to the endless opportunities that lie ahead for those of us currently working in the intercultural field or on the path to entering it. In many ways, Obama is a symbol of the work that many of us dedicate our energy and passions to doing. He is an agent for change, a powerful voice that seeks to unify people from differing races, ethnicities, cultures and values by creating dialogue to explore our similarities and address our disparities, and a leader to restore friendships around the world that have been severed. He represents hope for so many disenfranchised people who now believe, in the words of Margaret Mead, "…that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world."

For us as interculturalists, Obama's victory is even more of an incentive for us to pursue our professional goals of bridging cultural barriers and fostering intercultural understanding. We too are agents of change in our vocations—be it organizing educational and cultural exchanges, providing diversity or cross-cultural training, or engaging groups in conflict to have dialogues to find peace. I hope that in welcoming our new president and this era that promises change, each of us will find a renewed determination to continue our work in developing the intercultural field.

Warm regards,

Julia Gaspar-Bates

Executive Coordinator

Past Meetings - 2009

A record of meetings from 2009

April 2008 Cultural Events!

Films

Desperate Hours: An Evening with the Director

Caramel

Tazza – The High Rollers
Centimeters Per Second
In the Land of Black Pharaohs
Germans in America: Into the Promised Land
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer

Exhibits, Lectures, Talks & Tours

Patterned Feathers, Piercing Eyes: Edo Masters from the Price Collection
Portraits of Privilege
The Mystical Messiah: Shabbtai Zeyi and the Crises of Rabbinic Authority
Jazz Appreciation Month Celebration!
Do All Indians Live in Tipis?
Dave Eggers’ Inspiration: Valentino Achak Deng*

Performances

Japanese Choral Society of Washington
Contradiction Dance
Kite on the Wind: A Tale of Pakistan
La Furia de Flamenco!*
Ziva’s Spanish Dance Ensemble*

* Maria's Top Picks!

Past Meetings - 2008

A record of meetings from 2008.

Multicultural Tourism

1 © 2007 Culturosity Where Growing Minds Go Global… Guide to US History and Culture: An Interview with Tourism Leader Maricar Donato Interview by Kate Berardo

If you want to understand how the world sees the US, ask Maricar Donato. She is Director/Founder of WashingTours and Events and a multilingual tourism leader who guides hundreds of people from all over the globe through the nation’s capital each year. As she unlocks mysteries of US history in her tours, Maricar faces all kinds of questions about US culture from her participants. Some questions are based on fact, others on fiction (or Hollywood), but all highlight common perceptions held about the US of A.

In this article, Culturosity’s Kate Berardo interviews Maricar as she reflects on what she enjoys about working as a professional Washington, DC tourist guide and the perceptions of the US she encounters in her work. According to Maricar Donato, 19 million people visit Washington D.C. each year. Yes, she admits, part of the attraction to the nation’s capital is the number of free museums and attractions. But more deeply, what entices visitors to the nation’s capital is an interest in visiting one of the world’s greatest powerhouses and experiencing the culture that fuels it.

Being a guide in this environment is no small feat. It requires the ability to give engaging tours to people of all kinds of backgrounds, ages, races, and beliefs (something that has become almost second nature to Maricar after 10 years) and often to do so in multiple languages (Maricar works in five). Perhaps more importantly, being a tourist guide means becoming an ambassador for a day or week or however long a tour lasts. Guides have the opportunity to break-down stereotypes and to build ties between nations instead of furthering divides. Maricar takes this responsibility seriously—and finds her job rewarding as a result. In the first part of this interview, she shares the connections she builds and the satisfaction she gets in her job. In the second part, she highlights both common and unusal questions she has been asked about US culture.

Q: What do you enjoy most about giving these tours?
A: I enjoy a lot. I enjoy… ..the interaction I get when meeting people who come from such diverse backgrounds. … watching people’s faces, their light bulb moment., their smiles, their tears, their interest in wanting to learn more about America. …threading the stories from the sites that they visit, creates a memory that they can keep and share when they return home. I enjoy when people take notes and ask lots of interesting questions that I can learn from and that I can pass on to my future groups. I enjoy it when they know how to listen and in the end share their nuggets of wisdom gleaned from what they’ve experienced, walked, touched, felt, tasted and smelled. I enjoy speaking with them in the language that they are familiar with but above all the universal language of human contact and face to face interaction. They come to take a tour to know more about a place, to discover, to explore and to learn from an expert. I enjoy also learning from them, from their questions, their emotions, their sensitivity, their discoveries and their ability to interact from one another in a positive or negative situation.

2 © 2007 Culturosity Where Growing Minds Go Global… I enjoy when at the end of a 5 day tour, I call on random participants to give a voice as to what it was that made the tour a memorable experience. Many come and give a voice to their feelings saying that is not the words, or the different languages that have been spoken but moreso the nonverbal communication that wasseen through their eyes, their body language, and above all their human interactions that made it a memory. We call this interconnectivity.

Part of the attraction in meeting Maricar is this clear passion she has about what she does and the energy she brings to her work as a result. But for a cultural specialist like me, what makes speaking with someone like Maricar Donato so interesting is that she has access to many different opinions about US culture from people all over the world. When I talk to Maricar about how the US is perceived, Maricar notes that many of the opinions she hears are based on perceptions which are sometimes distorted, or based on limited information and generalizations. She recognizes the impact of Hollywood: many visitors sometimes seek what they’ve seen in the movies—50s-like diners, the blue jeans culture, huge limousines, display of patriotism, and evidence of the American Dream. However, many of the questions she gets asked pose interesting topics for discussion. What is it, Maricar is asked as they visit the capital’s many war memorials, that makes Americans seem to be at war so often? Good question.

Q: What are some other common questions you are asked about the US? Where do people live… can we see their homes? Why is the American flag displayed so often outside their homes? What is a typical work day like? Why do Americans have such little vacation time? What do they think of us (e.g. the French, Italians, Swiss, Japanese?) Is racism still inherent in US society? Why do people only speak one language? What are Americans’ core beliefs? Why do Americans seem to live, eat and die in their cars? Where does the attraction to ‘time is money’ come from? Why are people so organized here? Standing in line, following rules, waiting for the light to turn green before walking… �� If the next elected President were Muslim or not Christian, would he have to swear by the Bible when he gets inaugurated? If you’re curious about this last question, the answer is no, and he—or she—wouldn’t be the first to use not to use the Bible.

In January, 2007, Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, was sworn in using the Koran. There have also been a number of Jewish Congress members who have used the Old Testament instead of the Bible. The last one is easier to answer because it’s fact-based. What about the rest? We rarely stop to think about how our own cultures shape our daily actions and way of thinking. Doing so can be revealing. Knowing your own culture is a key step toward being able to understand, respect, and work with people from different cultures. Besides, being curious toward cultures (your own and others)—showing culturosity—is a hallmark of success in a global world. So, how would you answer these questions? Do we wave our flag more than other countries? If so, why might that be? What do homes in the US say about US culture? What do you consider core US values? Do those around you agree? Culture is complex and subjective, so don’t be surprised if you encounter different thoughts and ideas as you discuss these questions. If you’d like to hear Maricar’s answers, consider joining one of her tours. Aside from leading people from all over the world, Maricar regularly leads groups of Americans through the nation’s capital, from young ambassadors, to retirees, to convention groups and spouse programs.

Visit Washington Tours & Events at: www.washingtours.net.

Kate Berardo, founder of Culturosity.com, is an intercultural consultant specializing in innovative intercultural learning. With training experience in ten countries with over 30 different nationalities, Kate focuses on cultural awareness, intercultural competency, relocation, and teambuilding. Media worldwide has featured her work, most recently CNN’s Business Traveller and the Dubai Daily Gulf News. This article may be reprinted with the author’s permission.

Please email kate@culturosity.com with reprinting requests and to receive a text version of this article.

Past Meetings - 2007

A record of meetings from 2007.