Not American enough

A new Miss Tanzania was recently crowned. This ended the year of controversy surrounding the previous winner. The previous Miss Tanzania was of Indian heritage, but a third generation Tanzanian. One man interviewed stated, “First of all she is not Tanzanian – she is from India and she looks like an Indian. So I feel, at the competition, we didn’t have a representative.” A second man said, “An Indian can’t be a real Tanzanian because Indians are never fully committed to being Tanzanian.”

I disagree with these men and agree with them. The problem is, she IS Tanzanian by birth and location. However, if she hasn’t integrated with the Tanzanian culture (as some suggest) then I would say she is not truly Tanzanian. This is the problem I have with many of the minority cultures in America today. They want the best of both worlds. Minorities want to be American, but they want to retain their heritage. The two ideas are, unfortunately, at odds with one another. How can you consider yourself a part of a society that you never engage in? If you never bother to learn and speak the national language, how can you say you are American? A considerable amount of my heritage is Mexican, but I am annoyed by Latin Americans that expect Americans to speak Spanish to accommodate them in America.

I discussed diversity with someone I recently met at a party. We were discussing diversity in general and she was saying how she sees large cities as more diverse. I disagreed for several reasons. First, while statistically the large cities seem more diverse, typically when you break those numbers down even further you find the larger cities are mostly segregated into pockets of people groups. The Italians have Little Italy. The Chinese have Chinatown. The examples go on and on. These “diverse” groups rarely interact in what could be considered diverse activities. Instead, they choose to associate with their own people groups and do not integrate into the American society fully. The sole exception is the school systems. The children become integrated through school and enter a confusing time where life at school and life at home are almost polar opposites. Oddly enough though, after generations of this “schooling” the groups remain largely separated by choice. When you get into small-town America, racism can’t thrive in the same manor. When you are one of two minority families you have to integrate to survive and the people around you slowly get to know you, learn about you and respect you. Now, this does not happen overnight and some people never change, but it does happen. Breaking down the walls of diversity requires that you get to know people groups different from your own. This just doesn’t happen, by in large, in the big city. In the small towns though there is little choice and I would argue that they have a clearer view of what diversity can look like.

Couple that with the sheer volume of people in large cities and you begin to see why I say there isn’t real diversity. As a city dweller the people you see on the street one day, you may never see again. That means that you go from your segregated neighborhood to your job, to a segregated restaurant and home again. Your only interaction with a Puerto Rican may be the one you bumped into on the street last week. You base your opinion of Puerto Ricans on that one encounter and what you’ve “heard” about Puerto Ricans. Thus, the bias begins. Like I used to tell an anti-Christian who loved to debate with me. “You base your opinion of ALL Christians on your limited encounters. How many Christians have you met? Let’s say you met 1000 and they were all as you describe. Is that 1000 a statistically significant number of the population of Christians?” When you are required to interact with people different from you, you are forced to break down misconceptions through experience.

I guess my take-away is this, step outside your comfort zone and experience life. You’ll be a better person for it. Integrate with the society around you and learn from it and from the people in it. Having a more worldly view starts with your own self, your own habits and misconceptions. Tear down the walls that surround you and you can begin to help tear down the walls that surround others.