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| Dinner at the camp |
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| Me along with all the Argentine and American Counselors |
Intercultural
relationships can be a beautiful thing. According to Martin and Nakayama these
benefits can include things such as acquiring knowledge about the world,
breaking stereotypes and acquiring new skills. I experienced all of those
benefits first hand this winter break when I traveled to Argentina. One person
I grew really close to I was there was named Juan. He was one of the counselors
at the camp we worked at that had spoken the most English. We were able to talk
and share stories about our lives together. Despite only getting to know him
for less than 2 weeks we became very close.
One
of the challenges of our relationship has been the language barrier. His
English is very good and my Spanish is very bad. We are able to communicate
fairly well, but staying connected through messages can get confusing with
still some of a language barrier. One of the positives of our relationship has
been the chance I have gotten to see just how similar I am with someone half
way across the world. He has opened my eyes to the beauty of the Argentine
people. Some of my negative stereotypes that I didn't even know I had vanished
when I got to know these sweet people.
The
book states this quote, “People may be simultaneously privileged and
disadvantaged, or privileged in some contexts and disadvantaged in others”
(399). I see this dialectic standing true in Juan and I’s relationship. He was
amazed at how much money I had brought to spend in their market and I felt
slightly guilty for having the ability to buy so many things. I brought a huge
suitcase filled with what I thought to be my “bad” clothes but he thought these
were nice clothes. I didn’t wear an outfit twice the whole time I was there and
he worse his multiple. These are just a couple was the Privilege-disadvantage
dialectic showed through in our intercultural relationship.
Martin, J.N., &
Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural
communication in contexts (6th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill
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