Welcoming Families From Around the World

For this assignment, imagine the following scenario:

You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a childcare center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.

I am so excited to welcome the new family from Brazil.  Brazil is a country that I will be visiting in December and I am looking forward to building a relationship with this family.  We will be having our classroom visits next week and I need to do some research on Brazil so that I can welcome them properly.  

The Brazilian culture is one of the world’s most varied and diverse. This is due to its being a melting pot of nationalities, as a result of centuries of European domination as well as slavery, which brought hordes of African migrants across Brazil’s borders to live in and influence the local cultures with their ancient customs and ideas.

 Brazil has a population of about 190 million people. Of these, more than half are white (which includes Portuguese, Italian, Polish etc. individuals), just fewer than 40% are mixed black and white and less than 10% are black. Approximately 80% of the population ascribes to the Roman Catholic faith. This is due to the intense Portuguese occupation of centuries ago.   Due to the mass Portuguese settlements during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, this language is the official language of Brazil.

In order to be culturally responsive towards a family of Brazilian decent I would do the following:

1) I recently met another ECE that moved to Atlanta from Brazil 10 years ago and Portuguese is her first language.  In the family packet I saw that both parents have only been speaking English for 3 years and I invited Adriana to come on the day of the visit to translate in case language is a barrier.  I want to make sure I am able to answer all questions that this family may have and I hope having someone there that speaks their native language will make them feel comfortable communicating with me.

2) I will post our daily schedule in both English and Portuguese so there will be a clear understanding of the flow of the day and around the room I will have pictures & cue cards in Portuguese and English to help them get acclimated.

3) I would ask them about family dynamics, who is important to the child and ask if we could have photos of all of these people to put up at school for the child to feel familiar.

4) I would engage the family in a discussion about the education environment that their child last attended with follow up questions as to what they felt about the experience; how their child responded to the experience. 

5) I would ask how long they have been in this country and how they came to immigrate here; do they have family here (to determine support systems and family structure and dynamics). 

I communicate a lot through music and I know that it has a way of just making you feel good.  I learned that music in Brazil plays a big role in the lives of many Brazilians all around the country.  Something that I would have for the family upon entering the class would be music from their country.

Having lived in another country before I know how difficult the transition can be.  When I moved to Paris I felt like a fish out of water and had no idea how I was going to fit in.  I was lucky to have people help me get acclimated to my new surrounding and it made a world of difference.  I hope that this new family will feel comfortable leaving their child in my care.  I want them to know that I am there to support them in this new transition as much as I can.  My goal is to make sure this family feels represented, included, and engaged.