In an effort to help eliminate racism and empower women, a continuing discussion on women’s issues Thursday will focus on adjusting to American society.

Three panelists representing different countries and backgrounds will discuss the “Triumphs and Tragedies of Coping in American Society” at noon Thursday in Room 234 of the Memorial Union.

The panel is one of a series of lectures started last semester as part of a YWCA program on campus.

Joyce Hyunjoo Hwang, campus program coordinator for the YWCA, will moderate the discussion. She said panelists will talk about coping for people who come to the United States as foreigners and people who come to Ames as non-Iowans.

Panelists will share their personal experiences as parents and their interactions with schools, said Hwang, graduate student in hotel, restaurant and institution management.

Panelists will also discuss other general cultural issues they have had to deal with, such as getting involved in the community and forming friendships with Americans and the work place, she said.

“By sharing differences and similarities we experience, we … eliminate racism, which is one of the missions of the YWCA,” Hwang said.

Yanira Pacheco-Ortiz, program coordinator for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, will be on the panel along with Lyuda Hupalo, 3830 Berkshire Ave., who is from Ukraine.

Hupalo came to Ames with her husband and their two daughters. She said she and her daughters did not know English and said the education system in Iowa is very different from that of Ukraine.

“It was frustrating of course, but we had a lot of friends,” Hupalo said.

Her children took English-as-a-second-language courses, and she took classes through a church. She said she also had many international friends when she came who were very helpful and would give her rides.

Shelley Taylor, program coordinator of agriculture administration, is another panelist and will be representing the viewpoint of someone who is from the United States but had to adjust from living in a larger, urban city to living in Ames.

Taylor said she was surprised to be invited to speak on the panel because she is from Boulder, Colo. — not a different country.

“Diversity does not have to be just focused around international differences,” Taylor said.

She said she was not expecting big adjustments.

“Iowa is definitely smaller, and there is not as much anonymity,” she said.

“People are more involved in each other’s lives because of that. In Iowa, you’re a big fish in a small sea.”

Taylor said she noticed when moving to Ames residents are required to be involved more in their community — an adjustment she said she had to make.

Two other panels will also be held as part of this program. A discussion on cross-cultural marriages and the stereotypes involved with them will be held April 13.

Motherhood and different cultural practices involving pregnancy and childcare will be the topic on April 22.