Fourth of July

Creating a website used to be a formidable task. Nowadays many scripts and organizations help even a rank beginner to create a site. But one must be willing to learn and follow their instructions (i.e.learn to think in computer-speak). Living interculturally is not very different. You have to learn a bit of the other person’s way of thinking, even if it is initially rather alien to you. They may dress differently, use words that are not in your vocablulary, and may come from a fmily background vastly different from your own. They may have grown up with behavior patterns that you would not even dream of.

The Fourth of July holiday is an excellent day for all immigrants to think how they have been forged into a nation. It has always taken a generation or two for newcomers to be fully integrated. Old traditions and prejudices had to die before the excitement of being in a new world could take hold. Hardships of first generation immigrants lingered sometimes into the second generation and created new prejudices. Those, whose families had come more than two generations before, sometimes resented the newcomers, especially the more successful ones or the ones who looked and acted vastly different from them. This is still playing out in other countries, where immigration by racially different people is a novelty. But the world is shrinking, at least mentally. We are more aware of other cultures, can inform ourselves  on the internet, eat ethnically diverse food and may have an immigrant neighbor or colleague. The earth’s resources are finite and must be shared. We no longer have the luxury of being blind to the “other.”