CAP220 - The Counselor in a Multicultural Society

Native Americans consist of approximately 2.3 million self-identified people with a population that is steadily growing. Although this number represents only 1% of the total population of the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001), Native people have been described as representing “fifty percent of the diversity” in our country (Hodgkinson, 1990, p. 1). Across the United States, there are more than 557 federally recog- nized and several hundred state recognized Native American nations (Russell, 1998). Given the wide-ranging diversity of this population, it is important to understand that the term Native American encompasses the vastness and essence of tribal traditions represented by hundreds of Indian nations. Navajo, Catawba, Shoshone, Lumbee, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Apache, Lakota, Seminole, Comanche, Pequot, Cree, Tuscarora, Paiute, Creek, Pueblo, Shawnee, Hopi, Osage, Mohawk, Nez Perce, Seneca — these are but a handful of the hundreds of Indian nations that exist across the United States.

Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003.

 

The Warrior Tradition, tells the astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? The film relates the stories of Native American warriors from their own points of view – stories of service and pain, of courage and fear.

Hispanics are a broad and varied population made up of 20 Spanish- speaking countries and two with the native tongue of Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil): in North America, Mexico; in Central America, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama; in South America, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil; the Caribbean Islands, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, and the European countries of Spain and Portugal (Flores, 2000). Given their worldwide presence, there is naturally a tremendous diversity among these groups, with the only common element being their native languages. It is paramount for counselors, teachers, and others to avoid generalizations or assumptions and to treat Hispanics as a heterogeneous group containing unique individuals.
Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003.

The infographic was created by diversifyournarrative.

Arab Americans have long represented an “invisible” minority. Because many Arab Americans’ physical features are not as distinctive as those characterizing other minority populations, they can more easily blend into the mainstream “melting pot.” Although the Middle East spans both Asia and Africa, Arab Americans are not governmentally designated as a minority population, unlike their African and Asian counterparts. I, for example, while encountering many family assimilation issues, including socioeconomic adaptation to United States culture, first-generation college exposure, and the like, was never eligible for government-sponsored support programs.
Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003.

Correctional counselors often view their clientele from the “thirds principle.” According to this commonly held view among prison staff, one-third of prisoners will never learn to live successfully within a free community. They never learn to assume responsibility for their actions. Many seem to enjoy inflicting harm upon others and meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Correctional counselors frequently devote less attention to these individuals, as they appear to receive little benefit from counseling services.

Another third is viewed as having the potential, with considerable assistance, to ameliorate various personal deficits and eventually return to society. Usually assistance for this group takes the form of individual and group counseling to enhance social skills and problem solving, family counseling to decrease family stressors, and career and academic counseling.

The last third of the correctional population, in this view, has the highest chance of success. In general, these individuals have experienced successful careers and interpersonal relationships but have made uncharacteristically poor decisions that lead to incarceration. Counseling for these individuals is mostly supportive, helping them to cope with the stress of incarceration.
Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003.

The Compassion Project: We loved this video so much we asked to work with the Founder of CPP who created this beautiful video. Visit their website for more information: https://compassionprisonproject.org/ Fritzi Horstman is the Founder and Executive Director of CPP. She is a Grammy-award winning producer for her work on “The Defiant Ones”, has been a producer and post-producer on dozens of television projects and documentaries and has directed several films. She believes it is urgent to bring humanity and compassion to those living behind bars and these acts will help transform our society. She has a Bachelor's Degree from Vassar College.

Everyone has a brain, but most of us do not know much about how our brains work, or the impact of brain research on poverty. Learn how your brain operates and how to change and improve lives. Jessica Sharp is passionate about empowering underserved and minority communities, diverse representation and brain education. She is the Founder and Chief Brain Educator with Sharp Brain Consulting which works with public service agencies to provide education about the brain and its effect on organizational outcomes. She also serves as the Director of Volunteer Services at Meals on Wheels Greenville which delivers meals to homebound individuals in Greenville County.

Asian Americans are a heterogeneous population, which includes groups who differ in their language, culture, religious affiliations, and recency of immigration. Over twenty-nine distinct subgroups of this population are recognized, including persons of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Thai, and Korean cultures (Moy, 1992). Sandhu (1997) reports more than forty disparate cultural groups in this population. Sue and Sue (1999) broadly classify Asian and Pacific Is- lander Americans into three major categories: Asian Americans, which include Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, and Koreans; South- east Asians, including Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese; and Pa- cific Islanders, including Hawaiian, Guamanians, and Somoans.     

Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003.

There are an estimated 56.7 million Americans with some level of disability (physical or mental), of whom over half have a disability that severely affects daily functioning (Brault, 2012). Of the 72.3 million families in the United States, about 21 million have at least one member with a disability. Rates of disability are higher among African Americans (22.2%) and American Indian/Alaskan Native groups (27%) compared with non-Hispanic Whites (16.2%) (Cornish, Gorgens, Olkin, Palommibi, & Abels, 2008)
Sue / Sue / Neville / Smith. Counseling and the Culturally Diverse. , Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019.

Older individuals, those persons aged sixty-five and older, comprise more than 35 million persons in the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). They share many characteristics in common with persons of other ages as well as unique characteristics as a result of their longer lives, developmental tasks, and the situational challenges of later life. In fact, the diversity within the older population, the focus of this chapter, may be greater than that between older and younger adults. Counselors in training increasingly will encounter older persons as clients, or families in which older persons are significant members. Thus, we believe that all counselors need to be familiar with the concerns of later life and strategies for helping older persons address these concerns.
Nicholas A. Vacc, et al. Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations : Strategies for Practitioners, Fourth Edition. Routledge, 2003

There were 163,433,400 females in the United States in 2016, compared to 156,938,600 males (Kaiser Foundation, 2017). The ratio of women to increases with age: among those aged 85 or older, there are about twice as many women as men (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014).