Professional Documents
Culture Documents
American Indian and Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original
peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintain
tribal affiliation or community attachment. It includes people who classify themselves
as described below. (Many American Indian people prefer to use the term Native
American, or use the two terms interchangeably. Some Native people choose the
term First Nations, and others choose Indigenous Peoples.)
Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East,
Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China,
India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.
It includes “Asian Indian,” “Chinese,” “Filipino,” “Korean,” “Japanese,” “Vietnamese,”
and “Other Asian.”
• Asian Indian: Includes people who indicate their race as “Asian Indian” or
identify themselves as Bengalese, Bharat, Dravidian, East Indian, or
Goanese.
• Chinese: Includes people who indicate their race as “Chinese” or who
identify themselves as Cantonese, or Chinese American.
• Filipino: Includes people who indicate their race as “Filipino” or as
Philipino, Philipine, or Filipino American.
• Japanese: Includes people who indicate their race as “Japanese” or as
Nipponese or Japanese American.
• Korean: Includes people who indicate their race as “Korean” or Korean
American.
• Vietnamese: Includes people who indicate their race as “Vietnamese” or
Vietnamese American.
• Cambodian: Includes people who indicate their race as Cambodian or
Cambodia.
• Hmong: Includes people who indicate their race as Hmong, Laohmong, or
Mong.
• Laotian: Includes people who indicate their race as Laotian, Laos, or Lao.
Bicultural: A person who is bicultural has the ability to function effectively and
appropriately and can select appropriate behaviors, values and attitudes within
either culture.
Bigotry: Prejudice carried to the extreme of overt hatred, often carried to the point
of violence.
Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the black racial
groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as “Black or African
American,” or as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.
Change Agents: Change agents are individuals within an organization, at any level.
They are educated about managing diversity, and committed to facilitating change
by modeling appropriate behaviors. They also take every opportunity to ensure that
systems, policies and practices are flexible enough to work for everyone, modifying
them as appropriate. Change agents include top leadership, management and
employees at every level. Because managing diversity represents a major change in
the management of human resources, without multi-level change agents
implementation will stall. It requires support from leaders with vision, credibility and
authority -- our champions. A managing diversity champion actively supports the
organization's commitment to managing diversity and is seen by others as a valued
member of the current culture and thus has credibility as the organization moves to
the new vision.
Diverse Supplier: a U.S. citizen that owns a business certified as small, minority, or
woman-owned.
Domestic Partner: Unmarried partners who share living quarters. Typically used in
connection with legal and insurance matters related to gay and lesbian couples.
Ethnocentrism: The emotional attitude that one’s own race, nation, or culture is
superior to all others.
Gay: A common and acceptable word for men whose sexual attraction is to persons
of the same sex, but used for both genders.
Glass Ceiling: Barriers, either real or perceived, that affect the promotion or hiring
of protected group members.
Heterosexism: The assumption that being heterosexual is the only 'normal' and
'correct' type of lifestyle, and in fact superior to other forms of relationships.
Hispanic or Latin People who identify with the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” are
those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories
—"Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban"—as well as those who indicate that they are
"other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino." Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality
group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors
before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Spanish,
Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race.
Lesbian: A common and acceptable word for women whose sexual attraction is to
persons of the same sex.
• African American (ethnic origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa)
• Hispanic American (ethnic origins in any of the Spanish-speaking areas of
Latin America or the following regions: Mexico, Central America, South
America, and the Caribbean basin only)
• Asian-Pacific American (ethnic origins in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea,
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Trust
Territories of the Pacific, or the Northern Mariana Islands)
• Asian-Indian American (ethnic origins in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh)
• Native American (a person who is American Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or
native Hawaiian, and regarded as such by the community of which she or
he claims to be a part)
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of
the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes
people who indicate their race as “Native Hawaiian,” “Guamanian or Chamorro,”
“Samoan,” and “Other Pacific Islander.”
Other Pacific Islander: Includes people who indicate their race as a Pacific
Islander group such as Tahitian, Northern Mariana Islander, Palauan, Fijian, or
a cultural group such as Melanesian, Micronesian, or Polynesian.
Physical Abilities/Disabilities:
“Person with a disability” is the most currently appropriate term and models the use
of what is called “people first language.” Persons with disabilities are protected from
discrimination by federal law, including persons with psychological, medical, physical,
and learning disabilities.
Queer: A simple label to explain a complex set of sexual behaviors and desires.
Lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people, as well as those who refuse to identity with
any of those terms, might use “queer” as a way of indicating “not straight.” Also,
heterosexual individuals who wish to express their sexuality as outside traditional
understandings of being “straight” might use the term to self-identify.
A political statement, as well as a sexual orientation, which advocates
breaking binary thinking and seeing both sexual orientation and gender
identity as potentially fluid.
Many older LGBT people feel the word has been hatefully used against them
for too long and are reluctant to embrace it.
Self-Esteem: How a person feels about herself or himself; pride in oneself. Self-
esteem is linked to family traditions, language, social customs, economic
background, and other aspects of one's cultural environment.
Sexual Harassment: Unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors (quid
pro quo) and other verbal or physical conducts of a sexual nature when:
Sexual Orientation
Gay refers to men whose primary attraction is to other men.
Lesbian refers to women whose primary attraction is to other women.
Bisexual refers to men or women whose attraction is to both sexes.
Asexual refers to men or women who do not experience sexual attractions.
Some Other Race: Includes all other responses not included in the “White,” “Black
or African American,” “American Indian and Alaska Native,” “Asian,” and the “Native
Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander” race categories described above. Persons
identified as multiracial, mixed, interracial, or a Hispanic/Latino group (for example,
Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban) in the “Some other race” category are included in
this category.
Transsexual: Transsexual people are people who desire to have, or have achieved,
a different physical sex from that which they were assigned at birth. One typical
(though oversimplified) explanation is of a "woman trapped in a man's body" or vice
versa; many transsexual women state that they were in fact always of the female
gender, but were assigned the male gender as a child on the basis of their genitals,
and having realized that they are female, wish to change their bodies to match;
transmen, naturally, feel exactly the opposite. The process of physical transition for
transsexuals usually includes hormone replacement therapy and may include sexual
reassignment surgery (a.k.a. gender reassignment surgery). For transwomen,
electrolysis for hair removal is often required, while many transmen have breast-
reduction surgery as early as possible, whether accompanied by genital surgery or
not.
Two or More Races: “Two or more races” refers to combinations of two or more of
the following race categories:
White
Black or African American
American Indian and Alaska Native
Asian
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
Some other race
Values: Values are our subjective reactions to the world around us. They guide and
mold our options and behavior. Values have three important characteristics. First,
values are developed early in life and are very resistant to change. Values develop
out of our direct experiences with people who are important to us, particularly our
parents. Values rise not out of what people tell us, but as a result how they behave
toward us and others. Second, values define what is right and what is wrong. Notice
that values do not involve external, outside standards to tell right or wrong; rather,
wrong, good or bad are intrinsic. Third, values themselves cannot be proved correct
or incorrect, valid or invalid, right or wrong. If a statement can be proven true or
false, then it cannot be a value. Values tell what we should believe, regardless of any
White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle
East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as “White” or as Irish,
German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.