Presidental Message: Celebrate Diversity

"Obama Urges Students to Celebrate Their Diversity" was a recent headline that was featured in a USA Today article.

The story that followed focused on the President's visit to a Philadelphia school for 5th to 12th graders as they were returning to classes after a summer break. "Life is precious and part of what makes it so wonderful is its diversity," President Barack Obama said. "We shouldn't be embarrassed by the things that make us different. We should be proud of them," he said, "because it's the things that make us different that make us who we are, that make us unique."

The President's words certainly speak to children of immigrants, who can feel different (in a negative way,) when they try to bridge the different worlds in which they travel each day.

In my interviews with adults, who grew up as children of immigrants in the United States, I have heard from several who say it's been a tight rope they have walked between the homes in which they have lived and the outside world where they have attended school, work, and carried on their daily lives. Some of the interviewees continue to have parents who do not speak English and they carry on their roles as interpreters and a link to understanding and negotiating American ways.

It's fascinating to hear how some of the interviewees have changed their views about being a child of immigrants from the time they were young to their adulthood! For several, what had been embarassing about being different has now become a sense of pride and appreciation for their parents' sacrifices to raise their children in the United States.

The people I have spoken to are proud Americans who celebrate the diversity of the Unites States and appreciate their being part of this country's "flavorful" Melting Pot. If given the opportunity that President Obama had, they also could have carried the same message to the school children about the beauty of diversity.

Farmer's Market Bounty

I saw them as I was returning to my car this morning at the weekly Farmer's Market under the highway bridge near downtown Sacramento. It looked like three generations of this Asian family headed toward the market as I was walking away. A grandmotherly woman had her arm around a boy, who looked like he was ten years old, and she was talking to him in a language I did not recognize. I imagined her passing down some wisdom - maybe about farmers' markets she has visited in the past.

That is what is so wonderful about this Sunday gathering of farmers and buyers. Not only is there a beautiful bounty of fresh vegetables, eggs, breads, meats, and fish, but there is also a colorful and varying vision of people from a multitude of cultures. It's not unusual to see men wearing turbans, women with scarves on their heads, and other women wearing saris amongst those clothed in jeans and t-shirts. Different languages swirl in the air with the varying aromas and humanity mixes together looking for food and deals and a shared experience.

I see immigrants, children of immigrants, and so many people I do not know. In my heart and soul, I believe, they have many stories to tell like the ones I am collecting for my book.

It is nourishing to see this bounty at the Farmers Market and to be part of it.

Comfortable with Foreign Languages & Colorful Faces

Sacramento is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. I see and hear that fact in my everyday life - like today, when I went to the farmer's market on X Street and to a strip mall where stores like Marshall's, Ross, and Old Navy do business.

I actually enjoy seeing and hearing the diversity in the hustle-and-bustle of the farmer's market when I am shopping for fresh vegetables at the stalls that overflow with bounties of green peppers, white, husked corn, and nectarines, and so much more! I never hesitate to ask, a Hmong farmer, for example, how to prepare a certain vegetable with which I am not familiar.

When I was at Marshall's today, waiting in a long line, I could hear people speaking in an accent that was not familiar to me. I looked at the speakers, and like so many times before, I smiled at them and they smiled back.

Sometimes, the accents and faces that hint at different roots than mine, lead me to think about my parents and how they learned English and figured out how things worked in America after coming here from Europe.

Did people scowl at them when they spoke Yiddish or Polish to each other? Was it hard to learn the American monetary system? Did I drive them crazy when I wanted to shop at more expensive stores than the ones they could afford?

I'm learning from the interviews I'm conducting with people, who grew up in the U.S. as children of immigrants, that my family has much in common with theirs no matter how different we may look, or if our parents spoke different languages, or if they came from different ends of the Earth. We're all part of America's Melting Pot and that feels very good to me!