078: America Deconstructed with Chai Sohan
About This Week's Guest America Deconstructed with Chai Sohan & Shaima Adin Shaima Adi Chaitanya Sohan Chaithanya (Chai) Sohan immigrated to America from India in 2001. She currently works as an Electrical Engineer in the Silicon Valley. Chaithanya graduated from San Jose State University with Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. Chaithanya Sohan has worked as a writer since 2002 when she started writing content for various websites. She free-lanced as a writer until 2013 when she decided to write her book America Deconstructed. Some of her works are published in websites such as www.rethinkreality.com. Chaithanya enjoys traveling and runs her own blogs www.nomadicsue.wordpress.com & www.wordspeare.wordpress.com. Shaima Adin came to the United States as a refugee in May 2000 at the age of 16 with her mother and sisters. She is originally from Afghanistan but has lived several years of her life in Pakistan as a refugee as well. Currently, she works in an engineering management position at a Safety and Quality-testing laboratory in Union City, CA. In light of recent times and all the debate about immigrants and refugees around the world, Shaima joined forces with Chaithanya to put forth the stories of immigrants from different backgrounds that have called America home. Her purpose in doing so is to paint a different picture of immigrants and refugees by displaying their side of the stories and the struggles of starting from nothing. The video below shows you some of the people featured in this book. https://youtu.be/OUgHGa55j54 Her tips to become more culturally aware are: * Be more open to other cultures. Don't think your culture is the best of the best. There is something good in every culture. Also in the "other" culture. * If you don't accept the other culture you won't get far with it and in it. * Get to know other cultures. Travel if you can. And if you can't, read books. Be somewhat careful with TV and video, as they can be one-sided. Interview Links Links that are mentioned in this episode: * To support the book and make your pledge go here. * Email: csohan@gmail.com You Can Also Listen to the Culture Podcast and Management Podcast Build your Cultural Competence, listen to interesting stories, learn about the cultural pitfalls and how to avoid them,