A Global Perspective Leads to Global Cooperation
American. Asian. Vietnamese. Texan. All these labels could fit my personality to the tee. Yet, I see my place in none. The zero sense of belonging pushed me away from believing I could identify with any one nation, region, or culture, but it left me confused with what kind of citizen I truly am. As I grew up, I learned about the world’s problems and began to perceive the world in a different light. After recognizing the increasing interconnection in the world, I realized I had one last option: global! Yet, there is a little devil on my shoulder questioning me, “Am I being selfish for not thinking about my own community?” Maybe not. Although those with a national identity argue that we should prioritize solving the issues in our local community before the needs of the world, I believe that adopting a global identity broadens our intellectual and cultural perspective of the world, such as our cultural empathy, which facilitates international cooperation that can be applied to solving the problems in our own national communities.
It is human nature for us to defend the closest “thing” to us, whether it be our community, our dog, or ourselves. In other words, we are naturally locally minded. Thus, our (national) perspective of the world is incomplete as it is central to where we locally identify ourselves. With this perspective, we have less knowledge about the world; there are cultural limitations such as language barriers and even food preferences. For instance, someone identifying as solely Vietnamese such as my father, cannot stand eating burgers and pizza for even two days. For someone like my father, speaking English becomes a challenge and understanding why Americans obsess over guns makes no sense to him. As opposed to my father, my little sister loves to eat different kinds of foods, ranging from pasta to Vietnamese pho. Because she has a global perspective, she isn’t limited to just understanding our Vietnamese culture, but rather her culture has been expanded to include both. By contrast, our perspective expands as we begin thinking about the world rather than just ourselves when we start developing a global identity.
Consequently, our knowledge of the world grows further as we begin to understand more about different cultures and backgrounds rather than just our own. For instance, even though I was born in Vietnam, I grew up with both Vietnamese and American culture in blood. Somehow, it was difficult to understand how living in hunger and poverty feels when I get to live in my three-bedroom home with air-conditioning as my mother puts food on the table every night. However, after returning to Vietnam and seeing a girl around my age beg for food in her ragged clothing, my “classy” Western mindset shifted as I began to empathize and sympathize for kids who don’t get to live the same luxury that I do. Without a global perspective, I wouldn’t even recognize the global wealth disparity.
As a result of that expansion of our intellectual and cultural understanding, we become more interconnected, allowing us to thoroughly communicate our unique ideas and cooperate with others when tackling global issues. By understanding the perspectives of others around the world, specifically the ones that live with different struggles to ours, we develop this cultural empathy which in turn aids us in coming up with effective solutions to those problems together.
Now, before delving into the effects of international cooperation and its application to the local community, there must be a clear definition to what it means to cooperate globally. Global cooperation can be defined as the act of a multitude of countries working together to achieve global issues. By extension, when all countries get together to accomplish the world’s problems and missions, global cooperation is being exercised; countries communicate, collaborate, and engage with each other to discover a global approach to global issues.
Therefore, through such cooperation on a worldwide scale, we can efficiently and effectively combat the world’s problems. With global citizenship, we understand and empathize the struggles that others endure which allows us to recognize what the underlying issues are and how to solve them. The resolution of COVID-19 in various countries perfectly illustrates the global problems that can be resolved when one develops cultural empathy. Consider the COVID-19 statistics in Latin American countries where most of Latin America have endured deadly consequences from the roaming Coronavirus. In Mexico, a poor and dirty country with a low human development index (HDI), the case to fatality ratio is 8.5% compared to the elite United States whose ratio is 1.7% (Mortality Analyses). The low HDI indicates a low level of sanitation across the country which consequently results in substantial deaths especially with an easy-to-contract virus going around. By being a global citizen, I recognize the hurt that native Mexicans may feel during this pandemic; I can empathize for how many loved ones they have loss and I recognize the health disparity between a rich country like mine versus a poor one like Mexico.
Thus, by broadening our outlook and further developing that cultural empathy, we can come together to find a global approach to those global issues. For instance, by understanding the wealth and health disparity between elite Western countries such as the United States as opposed to the poor and ragged nations in Latin America, the countries with even a surplus of resources can provide aid and COVID-19 resources such as more COVID-19 tests and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the packed hospitals to countries such as Mexico where the pandemic has hit its citizens the hardest. By recognizing the privilege in our luxurious country as opposed to those in Mexico as well as empathizing with their losses, we can help them tackle this pandemic together. Otherwise, without international cooperation, lower-level countries such as Mexico or Paraguay or Peru may live in an endless pandemic while we receive the best care.
Admittedly, with a national identity, there is a greater focus on the local problems that global citizens tend to skim over to resolve the bigger problem. Some may argue that global citizens look at the big picture and forget about the smaller details that are just as important as the big ones; the needs of the community are forgotten for global citizenship. Conversely, by being a global citizen, our perspective towards different cultures expands; we start to understand the disparities between different races and cultures as well as the discrimination that they might endure. It is easier for us to communicate with others of different backgrounds when addressing solutions to our local problems. With a global identity, we can apply the process of international cooperation in our own national/local issues. As global citizens, we understand the racial disparity in regard to COVID-19 testing and vaccinations for specific races/ethnicities within our own local community. For instance, in Florida, Hispanics make up 25% of the population and somehow, Hispanics make up 40% of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida (Florida — COVID-19 Overview — Johns Hopkins). In wealthy areas such as Cooper City just north of Miami-Dade country where white Americans make up the majority of the town population in contrast to a predominantly Hispanic area, COVID-19 testing disparities are evident as Hispanic residents wait more than four hours in line to get tested at the Hard Rock Stadium (Vann et al.). Global citizenship allows us to empathize the discrimination that they have suffered and apply the global approach more locally towards our community. Likewise, the same global solution can be applied to Hispanic-dense communities in South Florida such as Miami-Dade and Broward Country. To tackle the racial disparity, more COVID-19 vaccinations can be administered to the Latin community as well as making Coronavirus testing more accessible for the local community. It is difficult to believe that international cooperation can aid both a global society and a national one, the process can be applied in similar ways.
Hence, identifying as global citizens broadens our outlook on the world, both intellectually and culturally which leads us better work with each other to tackle the problems of the world and eventually the problems in our own community. With a chaotic and increasingly polarized society, a harmonious world is in desperate need; hopefully through global citizenship, such a dream can be achieved. With this new global mindset, is a new sense of equality emerging?
Vann, Matthew, et al. COVID-19 Test Access Disparities in Some South Florida Communities Fall along Racial, Socioeconomic Lines: ANALYSIS. 22 July 2020, abcnews.go.com/Politics/covid-19-test-access-disparities-south-florida-communities/story?id=71884733
“Florida — COVID-19 Overview — Johns Hopkins.” Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020, coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida
“Mortality Analyses.” Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020, coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
