Wow, I wish the author had spend a little less time patting herself on her back for her love of diversity, and a little more time shedding her irrational cultural prejudices.
It all started when my husband first asked me to marry him.
I said, “Under one condition, that we never live in the Midwest.”
He agreed. We got married in my parents’ backyard in California in front of 200 relatives and friends, and off we went on a four-year adventure doing anthropology and international development in Kathmandu, Nepal. Upon our return, I thought we would be heading for Berkeley, California, as planned. Imagine my surprise when he insisted that we return to Michigan “for only two, at most, three years,” while he wrote up his dissertation.
We have now been living in Michigan for 19 years.
So what to do with the children?
My children are well-educated in not only their own cultures (Chinese, Greek, American), but many cultures. We have watched Cambodian dance, played the gamelan, pounded mochi, blown a shofar, learned Thai dance, listened to stories in Arabic, performed Chinese Lion Dance and Chinese Yo-Yo, attended the symphony. We have eaten barbeque in Texas, Mexican food in California, falafel in Dearborn, dim sum in Vancouver, kalua pig in Hawaii.
[How about Metzger's and Bill Knapp's?]
With a strong sense of self and ethnic pride, my children are surprised rather than crushed whenever they encounter racist stereotypes and discrimination. They laugh, “How come those people do not know what Chinese people are really like?”
With this column, I invite you to walk with me and my four children as we go about our “Adventures in Multicultural Living.”
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