Diversity

Definition 1
Diversity:  my idea of diversity is a concept where there are differences in people according to their racial/ethnic biological makeup and background. This is a distinct clash or blend of cultures creating a new special culture of its own. These differences can generally be observed by various physical attributes of a person (sometimes few or several) that can be seen or observed in a person including but not limited to the following: hair texture, skin complexion, physical features, accents but in the end we are all one diverse family of many threads in a wonderful and uniquely created quilt of nature.

My mother was born in Suriname (Dutch Guyana) to an Arawak Indian mother of a caramel complexion with long black hair with two long braids and a Jewish German father that had a Caucasian complexion and black hair slightly wavy hair. They spoke Dutch in their household. English was their secondary language.  My mother’s skin was very fair (like a combination of Caucazoid and Mongoloid in tone) and she had long wavy black hair that was often braided and in a bun and she had a strong Dutch accent when she spoke.  My father was born in Canada to a South Asian East Indian father with an olive complexion with wavy hair and a wonderful mustache and a Jamaican (African) West Indian mother whom was very light-skinned with wiry hair.  My father’s skin was a rich dark reddish-brown complexion and he had black wiry and wavy hair and spoke polished English and French as a second language.  I came out somewhere in the middle with a caramel/olive complexion and curly wavy difficult hair.  This to me is diversity, this mixture of all of these cultures creating special me, basically a new definition for diversity. Our skin was as a chameleon and would change to fairer in the winter and darker in the summer sun. People have most often never been able to figure out what ethnic backgrounds we came from often supposing we were Samoan, Latin American or South East Asian and part African. We (children) had our special complexion which many people do not have.  This is/was due to our diverse appearance and speech of polished accent-free English with the exception of pronouncing again with a long “ai,” and “eh” which is Canadian.