S/o s/o s/o cultural awareness and you?

You sound like me 

My mom is half Mexican, I married a Puerto Rican, my ds's gf of 7 yrs is Mexican, our dd's boyfriend is Chinese, my dog breeder is black, her mom is black and Japanese and the co-workers I hang out with are Bulgarian, Philapino, Hawaiian, black and white. 

I love learning about other cultures, customs, traditions and foods. My mom hated being Mexican so I didn't know anything about our culture. I lived in San Diego for two years. I dated a Mexican, that was born in Guadalajara, for 7 yrs, so I've learned a lot about my own ethnic culture.

My friend's grandchild is black, white and Asian. And adorable!

I spent the last 6 years studying public health. I now know that I know almost nothing about different cultures and even with all of the research and program design and studying I've done. I've barely uncovered an inch of the iceberg.

So I keep an open mind, continue to do my part through listening to what people are saying and avoiding putting my preconceived ideas onto them.

I am studying Spanish, and I have worked on habitat trips in central America four times. I also volunteer and work with homeless families, of all colors religions and backgrounds, etc.

This is one of those threads that is difficult to answer without sounding ignorant. For example, this truth - "My best friend is from Kenya" sounds too much like "Really, I have black friends!"

I will share that one thing I enjoyed when I was working was when we'd have our international potluck. We had so many people from so many different countries and backgrounds that it was always an amazing feast. (My contribution was usually red beans and rice, lol.) We had people from all areas of the US, and then folks from (off the top of my head, and this was over 10 years ago) Morocco, Jordan, India, Sierra Leone, the Netherlands, Russia, Iraq, Turkey, Mexico, Philippines, Spain, and I'm sure a ton more that I'm forgetting. There was always such pride among the people who participated, so I never feared the potluck germs!

We had our children go to the district we taught in. My oldest child was in high school before he realized he only had one white friend. I don't think that is necessarily cultural awareness, but I love the fact he didn't realize that he was the white friend (of everyone else).

I work in an international office. The full time staff is mostly caucasian but everyone has extensive travel and living abroad experience. There are also a few who were raised in other countries.
The part time staff changes every semester but right now comes from Morocco, Saudi, India, Brazil, Russia, Malaysia and Cameroon.

It is hard to spend 9 hours a day in that environment and not develop some cultural awareness. My son is married to a Japanese national. Neither one of them plan to give up their respective citizenship.

I'm Mexican and grew up in a very mixed community. I remember my best friends in elementary school were another mexican girl, an african american and a caucasian. Of course that neighborhood has changed significantly over the years, with it no being probably 90% latino.

It my first school, my best teacher friends were Japanese. Over the years I've had many friends of different nationalities. I've learned from them, and I hope they've learned from me.

My high school boyfriend was black and lived in low income housing. I spent a ton of time with him and his family, even though my family didn't accept it. He grew up in the hood, then went on to play in the NFL, then that ended rather quickly and then he got into trouble and ended up in prison. He's out now and has changed his life around. We are still friends to this day. If you look at his history on the surface, people would think he was a bad person. I just know him differently than most people. I see the good in people. Sometimes to my own detriment.

My high school was about 50/50 black/white, and some of my closest friends were black, so I learned through them. One guy I adopted as my 'brother' and my parents called him 'son' (interesting given they didn't want me dating a black guy, but were fine with being super close friends!)

I then dated a few black guys in college and after. I haven't in a long time - 10+ years, but doing so over the years gave me a different perspective I think.

Now I volunteer at a food pantry and I also work with youth of many different backgrounds through work, so just through natural experiences I guess. I don't bury my hand in the sand, especially as a southerner. Nor do I think that I'm superior. I love hearing from people different than myself.

I am white and was raised in a rural area and remember very specifically the first time I met a black person (I was 15).....then I went to college at a very small private school on the Oregon coast and met my (black) husband the first day I moved into the dorms. That was almost 21 years ago.

What have I done to raise my cultural awareness? My husband and I have conversations all the time (like, at least a few times a week) about racial attitudes and our perceptions of different things going on in the world. I made a point in college to take diversity classes (African Americans in the Pacific Northwest; Geography and cultures of Oceania; African American History since the Civil War; the Civil Rights Movement; Race, Class and Gender).

I work with a very diverse group of people, and have been there for 15 years. I have had extensive conversations with one of our hospital aide's about Islam and her beliefs/practices (why she wears the hijab, lots of teachings/things her religion teaches). I have a longstanding, ongoing dialogue going with a Vietnamese RN I work with, where he tells me minute details of life in Vietnam, along with the incredible story of how he and his family came to the US, and I am his 'go-to' person to explain subtle US practices that he finds confusing. We celebrated a few months ago when he realized that he has now been in the US longer than he lived in Vietnam. He's a hoot--he and his wife and two little kids go on a road trip every summer and are seeing all the National Parks and monuments.

I work with nurses/aides/therapists/social workers, etc from Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, The Philippines, Samoa, Portugal, Canada, India, Latvia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Cote d' Ivoire and Nigeria (probably more, but that is what I remember off the top of my head). We have the most diverse, awesome potlucks with dishes from all around the world.

I love geography, so I play around with maps and atlases and am addicted to jetpunk.com quizzes--I can finally label all the countries on a map of Africa and name all 196 countries of the world (but they cheat a bit and lay them out alphabetically as you answer them, so it is easier to figure out which country you miss). I google different countries and cultures to learn more about them--I had a patient with the last name Sherpa, and learned with a little research that Sherpa is a surname, a culture, a language, and an occupation. I love learning things like that and broadening my knowledge base.

Basically, this white girl from the boonies puts forth a decided effort on a daily basis to understand and learn more about different cultures and ethnicities. I have been very aware of the few situations where I was around a large group of people and was the only white person there. That does not happen often in this country (especially in very white Seattle), and I really embrace the experience of being a little out of my element and being different. I need to understand that. My kids will be seen as black, not biracial. I need to understand to the best of my ability what it is like to be African American in the US so I can help keep them connected with their roots. The white side is not going to be so hard for them to see/understand, but they need to know both.

I live and work in a very diverse county. My immediate neighbors are Korean, Indian, Pakistani, and a little Chinese, and of very mixed income. Countywide we speak over 90 languages at home. This is a tremendous benefit to me and my family to live in such a place.

As a librarian it's my job to understand the people I work with every day and look for ways to meet their needs.

But it is also a real pleasure to get to know people who don't look like me and learn something about their lives. This is one of the best parts of my job.

I grew up where there was zero diversity. We had one Jewish family in our town and there was one black person in my whole school. I knew that I wanted my family to live where there were lots of different lives and perspectives. I've always read a variety of written work. I don't feel that I actively pursue cultural awareness so much as it is just part of our lives on a daily basis.

My descendants are German and Dutch. I married a Welsh man. We live in a multicultural area. My neighbors are from Haiti, Brazil, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden, Columbia, Honduras, Canada, Jamaica, Guatemala and Mexico. One of my best friends is Hispanic. I can understand a lot more than I can speak. I volunteer at a food bank run by black people. The people who volunteer there are Jamaican, Canadian, Welsh, Italian, Italian and Jewish, Hispanic and Haitian.