What Do Cultural Prisms Have To Do With Your Identity?
Photo by LinkedIn on Unsplash
This year's International Women's Day theme was Break the Bias (#breakthebias), a global commitment to call out bias, challenge perceptions, and forge a path for women's equality. This important campaign made me reflect on how culture influences gender roles and more specifically, how cultural prisms are inextricably linked to gender beliefs and practices. In celebrating Women's History Month and the incredible contributions women have made to our culture and society, we must also grow awareness around cultural prisms, to both welcome and dispute them.
Our world is made up of cultural prisms, a multitude of cultural dimensions which affect how we perceive one another, engage and conduct business internationally.
One aspect of cultural prisms is how we identify with how we see ourselves, including our own internal strengths and weaknesses. These are the elements which make up our own identity. It’s helpful to understand in which situations these aspects of ourselves are more dominant and when they are less powerful.
Another element of the prism is how others perceive us when we are in our “comfort zone” and exhibiting character traits which are compatible with the cultural heritage of the environment in which we were raised. While we may not always identify with these cultural elements attributed to us, it is important to acknowledge them. Identifying them also helps us to understand how these associations can lead to stereotypes, generalizations, and cultural bias.
There are also elements of our identities which are defined according to the international context and those aspects of ourselves which remain overlooked. These all contribute to the cultural prisms of our society.
When we look at all of these aspects of ourselves, it’s important to ask - Which part of me is most helpful in this particular moment? Which part of the prism is most useful in this situation?
Identifying cultural prisms is especially important in order to be successful in a multicultural and global work environment.
This month, I asked Cecilia Li, SVP and Chief Information Officer for Urban Edge Properties, to share more about her experience in owning and leading with her cultural background as a Chinese-Venezuelan living in the US. Like many of us, Cecilia experienced confusion growing up with multiple cultural identities, which she was able to come to terms with as an adult. Exploring a career as a woman in technology was not easy, though, and following this path forced her to go even deeper to understand the many aspects of the cultural prism.
Q: Cecilia, when you meet a group of fellow colleagues and like minded individuals, how do you introduce and present yourself?
CL: I show up as my true self. When I walk into a room, the most obvious thing people may notice is that I am an Asian woman in technology. However, once I engage with people, they get to have a sense of who I truly am - a social, outspoken, and atypical technology leader, who knows what she wants, demands high standards, and has fun along the way. I attribute this to my upbringing, my mother being Asian and the more rigid one when it comes to education, and my father being Latino and the more outgoing and extroverted.
When people ask for a fun fact, I sometimes start with a joke - "My background is Chinese and Spanish, so please don’t mind me because I often make up my own words." While making up words may seem embarrassing, it has become part of my brand. The reason for this is because I arrived in the US at the age of seventeen without speaking much English. The point is, I create my own narrative and ensure I define myself to others before anybody can make the wrong assumptions about me.
Q: Is there anything different you would say if you were alone in the room?
CL: While I adapt my delivery and content to my audience, I am still me at the end of day. How I present myself when I am alone does not necessarily change, but I would also add that I am a mother, a family person, a mentor and an inspirational leader. And lastly, with a mischievous grin, I present myself as a badass woman!
Q: Why does it change and how did you go about understanding that?
CL: I adapt to settings. How I interact with my colleagues may be slightly different to how I interact with friends. Similarly, how I behave and present myself may also change depending on the cultural background of the person I am talking to. For example, different cultures have different ways of greeting one another. Some cultures prefer a distant greeting, while other cultures prefer greetings with hugs and kisses. So, I would adjust accordingly. However, the core of who I am - the mentor, the mother, the leader, the assertive... does not change. I suppose I learned that that by observing and immersing myself in the setting I find myself in, and some trial and errors along the way.
Q: What was your process to understand more about yourself and help you define who you are?
CL: From kindergarten to high school, I was the only Chinese student amongst Venezuelans in my school. Sometimes, kids would call me “China” in an “endearing” way instead of calling me by my name. But my parents were incredibly good at ensuring we embraced our multicultural background and to never be ashamed. I have this vivid memory of my father telling me “Your name is Cecilia, not China. You should tell people.” Demanding that my friends call me by my name was the first time I realized that I should never let my race or ethnicity define who I am. I define who I am myself.
Then as a young adult, I chose an industry and career path that were both male-dominated, and once again, I found myself alone and different. But moving to New York City, which is one of the biggest melting pots in the world, helped me realized that what makes me different is also what makes me unique and gives me an advantage. So, I turned my narrative around - I am one of the very few women in technology that can bring an edge to this role. I can make a difference and shine with my unique background, style, and business acumen.
Q: Are there growth and learning opportunities that you’re still working on?
CL: Yes, 100%. I'm continuously adapting my brand as I evolve as a person. My identity has morphed from being an Individual Contributor to a Mom and a C-level Executive, and I now aspire to be a leader who empowers others, especially women in technology, to achieve their dreams. You see, I was once told that I would never make it in technology because I was a woman and an immigrant. I did not believe that and I am now a CIO. The message I want to send out there is that if I can do it, any woman can do it too. Just don’t give up. It’s time we break the bias.
As Cecilia so beautifully shared, there are things that we can control in terms of how we define ourselves and share our identity with others. Ultimately, we have the power to define our own narrative.
The change starts within. Each of us gets to decide which part of ourselves we want to bring to each situation. Being able to take a stand and say “This is who I AM” versus having to blend in is incredibly empowering. We can flip the script and own our identity. We can, in fact, lead with it. And rather than deferring to cultural norms, we can source our own response and open the aperture and opportunity to what is possible.
Now I’d like to hear from you. How do you define yourself? What cultural norms have you taken on as part of your identity? Are there any that you don’t identify with?
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Take Action and Put it into Practice
List ten things that you find to be part of your identity ("I AM" statements). Take a moment to reflect on the statements you made.
What is my dominant identity, one that I often feel in any given situation?
What is the dominant identity others perceive about me in any given situation
What’s different in an international context
How do I adjust to these differences in perception?