LGBTQ Cultural Immersion Experience in Counselor Training
This reflection paper describes a counselor-in-training's cultural immersion experience attending the LGBTQ+ Hialeah Pride festival in October 2019. The paper examines how engaging with the LGBTQ community first-hand contributed to the development of multicultural competence and cultural awareness—two critical components of effective counseling practice. The author discusses the event's impact on self-awareness, worldview, and attitudes toward privilege, oppression, and discrimination. The paper concludes by outlining how insights gained from this experience will be translated into social justice advocacy in a school counseling setting through the formation of a Gender and Sexualities Alliance.
- Introduction to Cultural Immersion in Counseling: Defines cultural immersion and its role in counseling
- Attending Hialeah Pride: The Cultural Immersion Experience: Describes the LGBTQ+ festival attended and why
- Impact of the Event on Developing Cultural Competence: How the event built self-awareness and embrace of diversity
- Impact on My Worldview as a Counselor: Shifts in views on privilege, oppression, and compassion
- Infusing Social Justice Advocacy in Counseling Practice: Plans for a Gender and Sexualities Alliance at school
- Conclusion: Synthesizes lessons and professional commitments from immersion
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds an abstract concept—cultural immersion—in a concrete, well-described personal event, giving the reader a vivid sense of place and experience.
- It moves systematically from description to analysis to application, demonstrating how experiential learning translates into professional growth.
- The author is candid about prior limitations (limited interaction with the LGBTQ community, a "false sense of superiority") which strengthens the reflection's authenticity and analytical credibility.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses scholarly sources to frame and validate personal reflection. By citing Merrell-James, Douglass & Shupp (2019) on self-awareness and Goodman (2010) on privileged identities, the author connects lived experience to established counseling literature, which is a hallmark of strong reflective practice writing in graduate-level counselor education.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a conceptual introduction to cultural immersion and multicultural competence. The first main section describes the Hialeah Pride event in detail before examining its impact on cultural competence. A second major section addresses worldview shifts regarding privilege and oppression, followed by a subsection outlining practical social justice advocacy. A brief conclusion synthesizes the key takeaways and professional commitments.
Introduction to Cultural Immersion in Counseling
Developing multicultural competence and cultural awareness has become an important part of the counseling profession over the past few years. As a result, counseling has been characterized by a focus on enhancing the counselor's cultural awareness and multicultural competence. These factors are considered critical to success in counseling practice because they enable counselors to develop the expertise needed to work with diverse clients. An important part of developing multicultural competence and cultural awareness is cultural immersion, which primarily involves getting into contact with a culture other than one's own (Barden, Mobley & Shannonhouse, 2014). This paper discusses my cultural immersion experience as a counselor aimed at developing multicultural competence and cultural awareness.
Attending Hialeah Pride: The Cultural Immersion Experience
As previously noted, cultural immersion involves engaging with a culture other than one's own. During this process, the individual steps out of his or her own culture and comfort zone rather than simply importing cultural aspects into an already familiar sphere. The main objective of engagement in cultural immersion events, ceremonies, or experiences is to develop cultural competence, which is an important success factor in counseling practice. Cultural immersion enhances knowledge acquisition of another culture by providing a means of experiential involvement.
For this cultural immersion project, I decided to attend an LGBTQ+ event to help understand the experiences of these individuals and develop the cultural competence that would shape my counseling practice. I attended the historic LGBTQ+ festival Hialeah Pride, held on Sunday, October 13, 2019, from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Hialeah Park, 2200 East 4th Avenue. The event, organized by the Hialeah Pride Organization, focused on celebrating and supporting the LGBTQ community and their culture.
One of the reasons I selected this event was to enhance my understanding of LGBTQ culture. Despite interacting with a few members of this community, my understanding of their culture was limited. This event therefore granted me an opportunity to learn more about their culture and to identify cultural elements I could draw upon in my counseling practice when working with clients from this community. Secondly, I decided to attend in order to examine elements within my own culture that might be discriminatory or oppressive toward members of the LGBTQ community. I wanted to understand how aspects of my own background could contribute to discrimination or oppression. By the end of the event, I had not only gained deeper insights into LGBTQ culture, but had also developed a sense of connection with members of this community that would strengthen my counseling practice.
The eight-hour event featured live music and drag performances by members of the LGBTQ community (Evans, 2019). Most attendees carried LGBTQ flags and interacted freely without any discrimination toward one another. Live music was performed by artists from the community. The drag performances featured drag queens—men dressed in women's clothing—who performed various acts amplifying femininity and exploring a range of feminine gender roles to entertain guests. These performers wore dramatic eyelashes and elaborate make-up that produced a comedic, theatrical, and satirical effect. The most memorable moment of the event was a wedding between two women who exchanged vows and were married on stage. The festival provided an avenue for members of the community to interact freely, share their culture, and celebrate together. I had a meaningful and enjoyable experience participating in this festival.
Impact of the Event on Developing Cultural Competence
Hialeah Pride was more than a festival to me; I experienced LGBTQ culture first-hand. I not only interacted with and better understood members of this community, but also developed a sense of cultural competence for my counseling practice. The event improved my ability to encompass cultural competence in counseling by enhancing my self-awareness. According to Merrell-James, Douglass & Shupp (2019), cultural immersion enhances self-awareness in terms of personal and national privilege, sense of belonging, cultural encapsulation, and racism. In this regard, the event helped me examine elements of my own culture and the attitudes and beliefs that have shaped my view of the LGBTQ community. Through this reflection, I identified things I need to address in order to be effective as a counselor when working with this community.
Secondly, the experience improved my ability to encompass cultural competence in counseling by enabling me to embrace diversity. Prior to the event, my interactions with the LGBTQ community had been very limited. The festival, however, made it considerably easier for me to embrace community members and develop genuine compassion toward them.
Conclusion
Cultural immersion is critical to promoting cultural awareness and multicultural competence in counseling. These elements are vital in counseling practice given the diverse nature of the modern counseling environment. To develop cultural competence and awareness, I attended the LGBTQ+ festival Hialeah Pride. This event shaped my worldview and enabled me to develop cultural competence in counseling by enhancing my understanding of LGBTQ culture. As a school counselor, I will integrate the insights from this experience into social justice advocacy by establishing a Gender and Sexualities Alliance.
References
Barden, S. M., Mobley, K., & Shannonhouse, L. (2014). Cultural immersion in counselor education in the United States: A quasi-experimental study. Journal for International Counselor Education, 6, 46–60.
Evans, K. (2019, October 14). Hialeah Pride 2019 brings a splash of color to suburbia. Miami New Times. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from https://www.miaminewtimes.com/slideshow/hialeah-pride-2019-at-hialeah-park-miami-photos-11292187/14
Goodman, D. J. (n.d.). Helping students explore their privileged identities. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from
Merrell-James, R. H., Douglass, M. J., & Shupp, M. R. (2019). Promoting awareness of self: Cultural immersion and service-learning experiences of counselors-in-training. The Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision, 12(2), 1–35.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.