WE ARE THE (SMALL) WORLD. . . .

It's January 23, 2010, a week and a half ago our little corner of the world was changed forever when the tiny country of Haiti was rocked with one of the deadliest Earthquakes in history. True, Florida is several hundred miles from the island, but being the closest state to the island nation, we became the point of entry for refugees and ex-patriated Americans wanting to return home.

When I worked in costuming, there were large numbers of white anglo-saxon Americans and Hispanic Americans in my department. Spanish, Span-glish, English all became common place at work. However, when I started working at the resorts, I found myself swimming in a mix of spanish, vietnamese and Haitian Creole. I remember walking into the cast building of All Star resort and wondering ' When did I just leave the country?' Working around so many hispanic people, you start to pick up bits and pieces of the language. Although I have tried to learn a second language, i discovered that i just don't have the language gene. However, listening to the Haitian housekeepers, I keep asking myself, is that even a word?

Language barriers or not, once we heard about the earthquake, our thoughts immediately went to the Houskeeping staff, which at most resorts is heavily Haitian and Vietnamese. Disney had made it known that they are stepping up to help the haitian cast members any way it could. They made a substantial donation to Red Cross almost immediately. There was a Help Haiti Now telethon on January 21, 20010 and nearly 400 cast members volunteered their time to man the phones room taking donations. Even the little things say alot, like having a bake sale in the cast cafeteria with all of the money raised going to the Red Cross. In the cast hallway, there is a bulletin board dedicated to cultural diversity issues. I was walking out today and someone had put up several pages of Haiti facts and figures.

Diversity. It's a funny word. Basically it means to acccept and respect each others differences. That's a great concept, except when it's used to exclude the majority. Let me explain. In the character costuming building we had a manager from Puerto Rico. We had many of the hourlies from hispanic countries or Miami, BUT not everyone spoke Spanish. That didn't matter. Our manager (I use this term loosely) did an entire shift meeting in spanish AND never translated what he said to the non-spanish speakers. They were pissed. As I would always say, Diversity goes both ways. I will respect you, if you respect me; that, however, rarely seemed to happen.
(By the way, that manager got laid off in the 2009 management layoffs. Hmmm, karma.)

Before I wrote this week's blog, i was trying to think of a country that's not represented somewhere at Disney. I honestly can't think of any. Before I left costuming, Epic (Indiana Jones show) has three guys who spoke Russian. (2 bulgarian and 1 Russia). We had a tumbler from spain by way of peru. If you think Africa isn't represented, Wrong. Animal Kingdom Lodge has several people from various African countries working in various jobs. When I was there they had a door greeter from Niarobi (I think) and several others that entertained the kids with storytime and African music time.

Most of them are on temporary work visas like the ICP's (International College Program). ICP's come over to work for pretty cheap wages, pay high rent in Disney apartments and then leave a few months later before they have a chance to get jaded and bitter. When you think of Epcot's World Showcase, think ICP's or temporary work visa's. Although, I'm not so sure about Canada and Mexico. They could probably fudge a little there and no one would notice. So China has been sending people over for years to work in the China Pavillion. However, once Hong Kong Disney opened and the talk of a Bejing Disney maybe in the works, there has been a huge wave of chinese ICP's coming through the college progam.

When you see wave after wave of fresh off the bus internationals, it would be easy to start generalizing cultures. In the first bunch of ICP's of 2010, the ones from China seemed so timid and shy. I kept thinking 'and the warrior Genghis Kahn is your ancestor?' Australia and England ICP's are pretty much "Hey, how are ya doing. . . where's the party?" American college program kids are more like "Hey, the party's at my place. . . bring the keg!" (Nothing personal meant, it's just honest observations). In 2009 we had two Chinese ICP's kill a duck at the apartment complex. Thier intentions where to eat it; instead, they were sent home immediately.

When you talk about Diversity in a work force, you can't forget politics. During the Bush Administration, one of my cast members at Epic was a staunch Republican. He worshipped the ground Bush walked on and always hated it when I pointed out the president's flaws and misdeeds. After the Iraq war started, I ask 'D', "What is YOUR President doing now ?" Sometimes, he'd just hang his head and walk away.

And what conversation about Diversity would be complete with out mentioning religion. Again at Epic, one of the tumblers is Moroccan Muslim. I am a Southern Baptist. We would start talking about religion and the break room would clear out. I was always fine with agreeing to disagree and move on. My Muslim friend, however, would tend to get a bit fired up at times. Before I tranfered he offered to give a copy of the Qur'an. I accepted it and told him i'd read it, but that was as far as it would go. . . .Finally, We agreed to disagree.

It's all good