Culture Goes Beyond Race Identity: Cultural Sensitivity in Legal Representation

One day in court, I had a 5-year-old client come in through the Shelter Care area where children sit awaiting court. His mother had not seen him for several days since being removed from her care. He walked into the courtroom and saw his mother. He ran to her; she scooped him up and held him. After a few moments, I encouraged him to sit next to her. She then reached into her big purse and pulled out a tube of lotion. She began to put lotion on his face; He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, so she proceeded to lotion his legs and arms. The court deputy moved quickly from his chair to stop her, and the mother’s attorney reacted by reaching to stop her. The court looked at me with a look of “What the heck is going on?” I immediately told everyone it’s okay. She is putting lotion on his ashen skin. The mother said, “They let my baby leave the house without lotion today.” It was such a sweet tender moment and one I will never forget. This mother was showing love to her son the best way that she knew how in that moment. She was ensuring in that moment that he felt cared for and looked his best.

It is interesting to reflect on this story as I write about culture. No one in that courtroom on that day understood what was happening. I knew because I grew up in a culture that had similar values about skin and always looking your best in public that stemmed from my parents living in the South during the Jim Crow era.

Without delving into one’s own culture, it is hard to delve into another’s. Yet when one does, it gives you an appreciation and an understanding of a child, a parent, and a family dynamic that you, as the attorney, can possibly explain and maybe understand. For that mother and child in court, there was an immediate assumption that what she was doing was wrong. But I was able to explain it because I understood it.

I share this story to help frame the conversation of culture and the importance of it in the representation of children and families. Culture plays a large part in that effort.

Everyone’s family is different even within the same race or ethnic group. Not one is monolithic. Expand culture beyond racial identity. Culture relates to class and community. Where one’s culture includes a strong community, typically you find a strong, vibrant quality of life. But when that community breaks down or is lost or severed, then the family breaks down and individuals struggle. This is why understanding culture is important in life and especially in the legal representation of families.

While culture is different for everyone, it is based on beliefs and values. It is more than just practices, although practices typically come from the beliefs and values passed on from generation to generation. It includes behavior around morality and laws, manners and social behavior, dress, religion, language, arts and literature, rituals, family relationships and power structure, education, and more. Ultimately, it is the beliefs and values that connect people.

Culture is deeply personal, intimate, and to some very private. My father shared very little about his grandfather or living in the Jim Crow South. I learned more about him after his death than from him while living. But it shaped him as a man, husband, and father, thus it shaped me as his daughter. We are shaped by what our ancestors endured, regardless of whether we acknowledge it. It affects how we think, act, and are as human beings, and unless we spend the time looking back, we may never appreciate it.

Try to find yourself and make the connection as to why you may act a certain way or believe the way you do. Maybe it was something said by a parent or grandparent. When we take a moment to disrupt our thinking that there is only one way, it helps us to not see someone different in their behavior or thinking as the “other.” We miss so much when we fail to see and understand people for who they are. While my journey is not complete, in doing this, I have become a better attorney to my clients.

To help me connect with my clients, I don’t ask the obvious. I ask them about their life, something simple like, “Tell me about one of your favorite meals that you like to eat. Who do you eat it with? Who cooks it?” Then I follow up with, “Tell me more.”

Often my clients do not understand their family themselves. So, if I ask a question about their culture, they may not have an answer. But if I ask, “What is a meal like in your house?” I find out if they eat at all, and, if so, whether they eat together at a table or grab fast food at a restaurant, if a parent or grandparent cooks, and what their favorite foods and smells are. “Tell me more” gives me further insight. If they are out of the home, they tell me what they miss, such as foods or a particular activity or practice with the family.

I realize that youth are shaped by what they did in their home, with their parents or extended family, which reflects how their parents were shaped and those before them. While the kids don’t understand that what they are sharing with me is their culture, I do, and it is kept confidential. They may not want anyone else to know because “others” think something they shared is weird or strange. My goal in learning more about their culture is to connect and, through that connection, help them understand the law and how it works and how the application of it affects their life and reunification with their family.

Connection helps a client feel more understood, and, through that connection, you can have more impact on your client and the court. How much more persuasive are we when we deeply feel an issue and can articulate that to the court?

Many of my clients want to be understood and don’t want someone to assume something negative about them because of their race, accent, language, education or lack thereof, socioeconomic status, background, or attire.

Help your client to understand the way our laws have developed and on what they are based. They can then share with you what they understand. It may take a time to help them understand the laws, but the connection is worth it.

We live in a multitude of cultures, based on values. People have crossed cultures and created families that no longer represent just themselves. But because of their values they come together and create a new culture, bringing in various values and beliefs from both of their ancestors. When a family is disrupted because of intervention by child protective services, there is one important question to ask “What is the most important thing to you?” Most children and parents can answer that. We as attorneys then must ask ourselves: “How do I help them attain that?” You may find that connection with your client will pave the path to the answer.

In the process of getting to the answer in helping a family we must presume nothing. It is difficult, especially with the parent child relationship. It is primal to all of us. Yet, in child welfare, the parent is being judged for their parenting. They feel different and exposed. All they are trying to do is their best to pay the bills, keep a roof over their family’s head and put food on the table. For the child, they feel different, exposed, confused and now there is something wrong with their family that they have a social worker come to their house, disrobe to make sure there are no scars, open their refrigerator and cupboards to check for food or even worse live away from their parent until the judge says its “safe” to return home.

A family may not be answering the question about their culture and who they are because it is not on the tip of their tongue; but, as attorneys, asking the question and taking time to understand can make all the difference in connecting with that child or parent and keeping that family together.

Be gentle! Only ask what you need to know. Meet people where they are. Share something about yourself that you don’t mind them knowing. It may help them open up to you. We as attorneys don’t have the right to private information. But connecting and sharing honestly why you may need to know something about who they are and their culture or way of doing things may allow you access. It may be difficult for your client to share. Sometimes sharing cultural truths in the past may have been used against them and hurt them. But if you don’t get it immediately, be patient. Remember, it is a privilege and not a right.

Culture is dynamic and fluid. At one point in time, in the U.S. culture, women did not wear slacks or pantsuits to court. As a society we no longer maintain that custom (thank goodness)! Culture is not a one and done activity or a CLE to complete. I have interviewed many to write this article. And I realize that cultural awareness is a journey, and everybody is at a different point. Culture can be a shared experience for some in the same race or community, but not the same for each person within that same race or community. Be gentle with yourself as you grow in your own cultural awareness and sensitivity.