A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence 

male/female family formation (e.g. can families receive assistance if fathers or other adult males 

live in the home?)  

What kinds of employment training opportunities exist in the community? Are the public schools 

safe, well staffed and well funded? How many children are in private   including parochial   

schools?  

Do most people rent or own their houses or apartments? Do many people live in public housing, in 

homeless shelters or doubled up with relatives?  

What is the level of violence in the community? Gang involvement? Other crime?  

What are the health problems in the community? How many doctors or clinics are available? 

When and how do people seek medical treatment? Do most people have private medical 

insurance? Participate in Medicaid/Medicare? How many are uninsured?  

History of Oppression  

The history of the United States includes many chapters in which government policies harmful to racial 

and ethnic groups were in force. Knowing this history is important, as the legacy of these laws and 

policies linger today.  

Some examples of these laws or policies include: slavery; anti mixed race marriage laws (anti 

miscegenation laws); the forced removal of Native Americans from their land and the establishment of 

reservations; policies on education of Native children that required them to be separated from their 

families; immigration quotas for specific national groups; the internment of Japanese and Japanese 

Americans during World War II; the  separate but equal  policy regarding education for African 

Americans;  Jim Crow  laws restricting Southern blacks' access to services; and state resistance to school 

desegregation demanded by Brown v. Board of Education.  

Today, laws and policies are different, but many are still oppressive. For example, in some states there is a 

move toward English only legislation that would restrict state agencies from providing bilingual services. 

People with HIV infection and AIDS are barred from immigrating to the U.S. The military ban on gay 

men and lesbian women serving in the armed forces is still in effect and a law criminalizing sodomy (oral 

or anal intercourse) has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Civil rights protections for gay and lesbian 

people are being attacked through ballot measures labeling those protections  special rights.   

Questions to consider about cultural groups: __________ 

What is the specific history of this group in the U.S.? What laws or policies have affected them in 

the past?  

What was their impact? Are there laws or policies that affect them today? Which ones? What is 

their effect?  

What is the history of this group in its ancestral country? Was it discriminated against in some 

way?