Surprisingly, this was my first Global Engagement Day I have been to! Nevertheless I was happy to attend one of the discussions.

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I was really interested in going to hear about students' experience with race in other parts of the world. I already had a pretty good idea about what would be discussed, since I personally experienced the issues myself in Spain, but it is always a good idea to hear more perspectives. 

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Like my experience, students talked about the issue of staring by the locals. When it came to race, I did honestly felt a little exoticized in Spain and felt very out of place with all the staring and talking about me. The best advice I could give to deal with this is to do your research beforehand to have an idea of what to expect. We also need to put ourselves in other countries' shoes. How could this country be viewing us, as privileged (probably middle-to-upper-class Americans) students of a First World country? How has history and relations between our country and their country affected the present? How can our "normal" behavior be interpreted differently by another culture? 

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One important thing to keep in mind is cultural relativism, the concept of viewing every culture as highly developed and complex in its uniqueness without our bias and comparisons to our own culture. 

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I went further into this discussion of race and my personal experience abroad in my post about openmindedness I hope you find interesting and insightful to read.