Diversity and Sympathetic Imagination

We are exposed to a great deal of diversity millions of times every day. We walk the same paths and interact with numerous people with various backgrounds. Our world is composed of a great amount of different varieties of people. By embracing the opportunity of being around so many different people, we can learn different cultures, values, and personalities of others. The only way we can learn from this great diversified world is through sympathetic imagination. We must attempt to put ourselves in another person’s shoes to see how we would feel in their situation. “By its sympathetic identification the imagination perceives, as abstract reason cannot, the fundamental reality and inner working, the peculiar ‘truth’ and nature of the particular, concrete object” (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/sympathetic%20imagination.html). By doing this, we can create better relationships with others and learn much about others’ identities.

One reason I was so excited about going to the University of Texas was the great variety of people I would be exposed to. UT is a massive campus with a great deal of diversity. I have met so many people with such different lives than my own. I have met students from small towns, big cities, poor families, wealthy families, different religion backgrounds, different racial backgrounds, different states, and even different countries. I think it is such an awesome opportunity to embrace in order to learn more about ourselves as well as the world we are living in. Just by looking around the campus, you can see the great diversity. You can even see the university’s importance of diversity on the University of Texas website. The picture to the left shows the diversity logo that is on the home page of UT’s website (utexas.edu). The university encourages students to interact with diverse people and ideas in order to take full advantage of their education. Click on the following link to see how diverse the campus is in terms of race, gender, hometown, and year. http://www.utexas.edu/academic/oir/statistical_handbook/06-07/pdf/0607students.pdf By interacting with diverse students, we can do our best to put ourselves in their lives to see what it is like to be in their situation. We can learn from other student’s experiences. For example, I learned a great deal from reading the articles in the course anthology, in particular Miguel Ramirez’s “The Unknown Want.” By reading about his past experiences and imagining myself in his background, I could get a good feel of how his experiences of feeling like an outsider affected every aspect of his life. As he expresses in his essay, “Despite – or perhaps because of – the heartache it has caused me, being an outsider has motivated me to succeed. I spent twenty-one years doing my best in school in order to fit in” (843). By exemplifying the principle of imagining ourselves in another’s shoes, we can truly learn about various backgrounds as a way to get along better with others and grow into one connected world.

I hope to take full advantage of every aspect of college to learn as much about the world in order to help me be a productive member of society in the future. Everyone has role models they admire and aspire to be like. No one is perfect and everyone hopes to continue to improve. By using sympathetic imagination, we can put ourselves in our role model’s shoes as a way to help us become more like them. In Norma Andrade’s essay, “On Being Canela,” she discusses her past experiences and relationship with her mother transforms her life. “The life that she [her mother] has led for her children and the experiences that she has gone through as an immigrant to the United States for the benefit of her children are a constant reminder of why I need to wake up every morning” (852). Norma Andrade put herself in her mother’s situation as a way to see what her mother has given up for her and in turn, Norma continues to improve herself. We can imagine ourselves in Norma’s place as a way to learn about diversity and how we too can learn from our role models. After reading Norma’s situation, it reminds me of my own mother, my role model. My mother has given up so much for my family and exemplifies a true passion for her family. By learning about our role models and others’ role models, we expand our horizons and knowledge. This can lead us to better relationships with others and a more connected world. The picture to the right shows the world as one connected place, what we can strive for.

By using the principle of sympathetic imagination, we can put ourselves in another person’s shoes and see what their background and situation is like. We can learn much about our society and ourselves. We learn about the diversity of our university as well as our world in order to better understand other’s opinions and values. We can learn to get along with others and understand why they believe what they believe. By learning to understand and communicate with others, we can improve our future society and become one unified society.