Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/expanding-our-cultural-legacy-a-conversation-with-margie-carter-and-maya-yoshikawa/5025864/
The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine.
—Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
Cultural legacies can be a source of strength, possibly a source of weakness, often a source of stereotyping. In his book “Outliers,” published over a decade ago, Malcolm Gladwell spends a whole chapter on the idea that while we are not completely bound by them, cultural legacies have a powerful effect on most of us. They can push us to conform, to hold ourselves back, or to rebel and reject. If we are self-aware, know our history and the legacies we live with, we can be intentional in our choices to let our cultural legacy be an asset or a deterrent in our lives, and those of the next generations we are influencing.
I have been fortunate to meet and be in conversation with Maya Yoshikawa, an early childhood educator in San Francisco. Over the course of several years, Maya approached me for conversation after the professional learning Deb Curtis and I offered with First Five S.F. I was impressed with her deep engagement and self-reflection. ...