Latino Conflict Management

It cannot be argued that the Latinos/Hispanics argon now making their presence matte in most facets of American society much specifically in the urban communities and the workplace. This group of people is of Latin American descent with integral unique ethnic and heathen backgrounds. Due to this difference it is possible that encroachs whitethorn arise in their interaction with Americans and early(a) races.In closure conflicts with Latinos/Hispanics it is valuable to at first understand situations or behaviors that easily lead to conflicts with them and to admit their stead or personalized concept regarding conflicts. In this way powerful approaches or strategies for the resolution of conflict may be undertaken. According to Gabrielidis and et al, virtually of the most severe problems in intercultural relations arise as a consequence of interpersonal conflicts (1197, p. 661).The greatest difference in the attitudes between the Latinos/Hispanics with the Americans is tha t Latinos are a people who give prime importance to family relationships before other goals or ideas , obligation to in-groups( family, relatives or people of the same race or cultural and ethnic background) and the surrendering of personal interests and needs in favor for the sizable of the group or community while the Americans ,on the other hand, adopted a culture of exclusiveism in which the interests, activities and goals of the individual are top priority. I do not infer here that the Americans do not appreciate family relationships or disregard the interest of others but that it seems that the Latinos placed these issues in higher(prenominal) degree.In the Latino context the innate broad(a)ness or uniqueness of a person sometimes do not show itself in their actions or achievements so they emphasized the respect and protection of dignity of a person irregardless(prenominal) of social class while the Americans on the other hand believed that a person can be judged by his a ctions and achievements. besides while both groups had similar definitions of close friendship, Americans emphasized freedom in the expression of their ideas in the company of a friend and may execute give up the friendship if it stands in the way of self-expression and the attainment of personal goals while the Latinos emphasized support and expression of feelings and make necessary adjustments in goals to keep the friendship.Understanding this difference will help me put the conflict in proper perspective. Through this I can analyze whether the get-go of conflict was that if I made a Latino feel that his family or race was unimportant or that I perceived him as a person of lower dignity or status when I assay to judged him base on what he had accomplished in life or that I made him feel as if it was his fault that he had a low economic status..Based on what I had researched and observed the Latinos for the most part wants to connect with people and as much as possible uphold harmonious relationships with others. In most instances they tend to avoid conflict to the issue that they are non-confrontational. They worry more on saving the face of family and others so that most of the times they do not say directly what they mean, as a respeto (a Spanish term which means respect to the dignity of the person).This attitude is very opposite to the frankness of Americans in their interaction with others.An example is this, kinda of saying that the clothes I wore do not look good on me they will say that my clothes was not exactly straight-laced but that I still look good wearing it. In resolving conflicts with them it is necessary to adopt this kind of indirect communication or else I may aggravate the situation. For example when I differ with opinions with the Latinos and he seemed to insist that he is right, kind of of saying that I was not gifted at all with his attitude I may say instead that I understand why he acted the way he did and that he meant well but that it is better to listen also to the opinion of others.In the positive aspect, the idea that Latinos wants to fend for harmonious relationships with others means that they are less likely to initiate conflict and may be open for rapprochement whenever conflict arise. However, it must be remembered that Latino conflict resolution should be appropriate to the setting and must be able to maintain individual pride and honor (Markus & Lin, 1999). Also extra attention must be given to the tone of voice and proper eye contact.In resolving Latino/Hispanic conflicts, there are different styles to be practise depending on the ethnic and cultural individuality salience of the Latino. Ethnic identity means that he give more importance to his ethnic subscriber line while cultural identity means that he give more importance to the larger culture in whom he is interacting with which in this case is the American culture. Those with strong American cultural identity prefers integra ting (high use up for self and high preserve for other also called collaborating) and compromising (moderate engage for self and moderate concern for other) and uses emotionally expressive styles more as compared to those with swooning cultural identity.Also those with a strong ethnic identity use integrating and accommodating (low concern for self and high concern for other also called obliging) more and third party less than those with shadowy ethnic identity in conflict styles (Cai & Fink, 2002). Latinos, on the other hand, with weak cultural identity used avoiding (low concern for self and low concern for other also called withdrawing) more than other ethnic groups irregardless of cultural orientation perhaps due to the Latino value of respeto and wanting to maintain respect, dignity and harmony in social situations (Ting-Toomey et al., 2000).Armed with all this knowledge, I am hoping that I will be better equip in handling Latino conflict in the future.REFERENCECai, D.A., & Fink, E.L. (2002)Gabrielidis, C., Stephan, W.G., Ybarra, O., Dos Santos Pearson, V.M., & Villareal, L. (1997). preferred styles of conflict resolution Mexico and the United States. Journal of Cross- heathen Psychology,28, 661.Markus, H.R., & Lin, L.R. (1999). Conflict ship canal Cultural Diversity in the Meanings andPracticesof Conflict. In D.A. Prentice & D.T. Miller (Eds.), Cultural dividesUnderstanding and overcoming group conflict (pp. 302-333). New York, NY RussellSage Foundation.Ting-Toomey, S., Yee-Jung, K.K., Shapiro, R.B., Garcia, W., Wright, T.J., & Oetzel, J.G.(2000) Ethnic/cultural identity salience and conflict styles in four U.S. ethnic groups. internationalist Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 47-81.