ACAD received this excerpt from a male Arab-American that highlights the struggle with subtle discrimination. This excerpt is a great example of the CARD program’s book collection:

I’ve been working in my current position for a little over a year now.  I work alongside a few others that started at the same time.  We’ve all trained together, learned together, and have gotten used to each other.  We are always trying to lighten the mood and constantly make fun of each other and talk about random things.  There is this one Indian guy in the group.  He’s in his mid thirties and has been in the USA for about 4 or 5 years now.  He has a very thick accent, and his communication is very poor.  His written communication is nearly impossible to understand.  Not just the accent, but word usage and phrase construction that he uses contributes to the confusion.  Our mutual coworkers like to poke fun at him.  The intent is no different than trying to poke fun at each other.  However,  it’s not just the character and personality that is attacked.  It seems that ignorance and an inability to separate the elements of a person leads people to include his heritage, cultural/language differences as part of the ‘poking’.  I have lived amongst and known people from every imaginable corner of the earth and have learned how to interpret these elements in to what I am looking for.

Unfortunately, in this case, it’s all one package and I feel this person gets an unfair approach.  Most of it comes from an inability to understand a point of view.  These people are cheated by perception and rely on their own flawed interpretation. He is given an image of a ‘boring’ and ‘weird’ guy.  Well, he has no family in the state (aside from a couple friends), he recently moved from another state.  He maintains a simple life and routine.  It makes him more genuine and thorough in everything he does, however, people are just not used to this.  He does speak his mind occasionally and provide feedback.  People just don’t feel he has anything else to contribute beyond what they have already presented.

I think it will take time.  Working in our world, parallel to his, should continue to provide comparisons; not just contrasts.  Through the similarities and developed communication, my coworkers may be able to overcome.