delara, interrupted

OUCH @ the no freeo stuffo. that is pretty blatantly racist and unbecoming of the nobility of humanity. I can relate to your frustration. I guess it shows how important it is for the American Baha'is to courageously uphold the principle of race unity in all their words and deeds...

i feel you, D. i grew up in a small, white protestant town in texas. i was the foreign brown kid with a heathen religion and a funny name. people can be really ignorant and really evil, and i know that firsthand. (notwithstanding the fact that my parents were asylum seekers who were documented and granted legal residency from the beginning -- and i was born in the US. prejudice rears its ugly head in every scenario)

george and patrick, thank you for your beautiful words. there is a spiritual approach and a spiritual solution to all of this.

and D, i love you for bringing this up, and i know how you feel. there are several reasons i never want to live in the south. you've touched on one of them. yes, it's a stereotype. but it's based in reality, and i've personally felt it too many times to voluntarily subject myself to it for the rest of my life. i don't think i could surive in an environment like that (i mean -- nashville has a statue of the founder of the KKK in the middle of town, right? enough said).

come to NYC. things are different here.

this is a tricky subject, especially when our livelihoods and sense of security in what we know the world to be is at stake.

not to sound like a Baha'i nerd... but i wonder if a look at how very recent guidance from the senior governing council in the Baha'i Faith might relate to this topic:

"As unrelenting social and political forces continue to uproot people from their homelands and sweep them across continents, an uncompromising appreciation for a diversity of backgrounds and for the strength it confers on the whole will prove crucial..."
(Universal House of Justice, December 2005)

this spoke to me quite loudly and lovingly the first time i read it.

and it made me ask myself, what strengths are added to a locale when people from central and south america and africa and eastern europe end up in our neighborhoods and home towns? if we all melt together will i be able to see those strengths?

patrick, heidi, glenn, and george - thank you for your thoughts, feelings and opinions. always welcome, bring it. :) i am enjoying reading other people's perspectives and feelings on this.

patricio - yeah, i hear you. and my life has not been negatively affected by immigration, legal or illegal. i tend to believe we need to respect our laws and not break them. i also tend to believe that there is a lot about immigration that needs to change in this country. so, illegal immigration is just that - illegal. perhaps there are ways we could improve that whole process? it's much more complex an issue than i feel qualified to address. but in the aggregate, it's hard to distinguish at first glance the illegals from the legals, and intolerance and bigotry seem not to care if someone is here legally or illegally if that person is "not from here". know what i mean?

heidi - thanks for coming by! and come again soon and often. also, having lived in chapel hill (nc) for a few years and now here, i too love the south. there's a lot to love! i just know that it doesn't feel entirely like "home" in the visceral way i'd like to feel i'm at "home" - make sense? thank you for sharing your experience too!

glenn - awesome reflections and insight. thanks! and just to clarify, i don't refer to the states as a melting pot - i was saying it is generally referred to that way. i think of it more as a mixed salad. :) nevertheless, i don't believe that the ideals on which this country was founded are in direct conflict with the principle of diversity. it's all a matter of how we make it work...

and g-man - as usual, precious words, precious observation on the temporal nature of our existence and how much care we ought to take when associating with other souls. after all, in our essence, that is what we are. beautiful reminder.

Even American Indians are immigrants. We are all immigrants, to these bodies, to this reality, to this corporeal form. Please observe a modicum of humility and compassion when dealing with your fellow immigrants to this life, regardless of the shape they inhabit, the language they use, or the place their vessel was born and the ensuing circumstances surrounding that unchosen event.

I am a Baha'i. I am also a rather politically conservative person. Most describe me as a libertarian - social liberal and fiscal conservative. I also have been operations manager at a landscaping company with 90% Mexican workforce. All of that is to preface the biases, often contradictory, that I have on this subject.

Learning the language does take time. But how much time?

As a Baha'i, I am often in contact with Persians. I have known a Persian family in my current community for eight years. And the mother and father still can't speak English. Eight years. They can't go much of anywhere on their own.

As a contractor, I have managed many Latino laborers. Some learn English rapidly. Others make absolutely no effort. Three years, and the only English one of the emplyee's knows is "paycheck" "yes" and "no", along with some profanity.

Bigotry rears its head in this arena of discussion all the time. But the "social liberal reaction" to the bigotry tends to ignore the foundations of the complaints.

When the person in front of you at Home Depot does not know English, and you are in a hurry, it is rather easy to become attracted to an English-only law.

When you are a city councilman trying to find ways to cut city spending, and you see the city spent $50,000 translating documents to languages other than English, it is easy to see why an English-language only policy might become attractive.

This is one of those issues where my fiscal conservatism and my socuial liberalism are in conflict.

I would much rather spend the money to assist immigrants to learn English than spend the money to enable them to avoid learning it.

One other thing... you described America as a melting pot. And you're right. In a melting pot, everything becomes the same. America was never intended to be a land of diversity. It was intended to be a land where everyione was welcome to come and become American.

Today, we see the conflict between diversity and melting pot.

The major issues brought up here are too big for me to comment on just now while my children are creating an elaborate scene of make believe involving many items from our living room on a small blanket and I have one ear on them. But I do want to comment on the south. I lived in northern Mississippi for a year, about 5 miles south of Memphis. I experienced prejudice and neighbors who were friendly, even generous, but cool and obviously talking behind our back because we were different, that is, obviously from the north and in other ways non traditonal. Still, I love the south. I loved convention in Jackson MS and the friends we made there. Friends we keep in touch with. I love the neighborly way of life. We were only there a year, but made some of our closest friends. One mother of 4 I met at a library story time(from mexico). A writer, also a mother, we met at Wild Oats(African American). Another woman who wore her baby approached us at an outdoor concert(white like me). She has 3 other children. All of these friendships quickly crossed the line of "nice conversation" and were supportive and healing for all involved very quickly. This list does not include all of the Baha'i's we grew very close to. Every one of these friendships have continued and grown stronger since we moved back north a year ago. I believe a lot of this connection was facilitated by the better aspects of southern life. I'm also very aware of racism and it's terrible consequences. This is one of the reasons I wanted to go south in the first place. To be of some value in creating unity between souls whose temporary cages are of differing shades. From reading your blog I am clear that you internalize this unity. Likely better than I do. But I felt compelled to share the beauty I found there, the receptiveness of so many. I miss it very much. We moved because the summer heat often stopped me for hours and days(not ok with 2 kids if it can be helped), and we thought we'd found a great school for our son in Colorado. After that we moved back to Illinois where we are settled for a while. Still, I often wish we were still there. There's a lot a loving person who goes beyond neighborliness can do there. And you seem very loving(not that I'm saying you should settle there...I have no idea what's best in that way). I am hesitant to post this lest it be deemed...too much I guess...coming from someone you've never met, but I'll take that risk. Also, I want to thank you for being so honest in your blog recently about your journey. It has helped me very much. Again, I hope this is not too much, I just really feel the need to share the light I found there.

Come on Sholeh.

El govermento gives out freeo buffalo, and olio, and queso,and milko and pretty much any other word that you add an "o" to the end of to make it Spanish.

Now to be serious. As the son of someone who is a hardworking man, who's job has been effected by illegal immigrants taking the same jobs for much lower pay, I can understand the anger that some people feel. This is a problem. But the way these people are going about finding a solution is completely backwards to me. Not that I have a solution, but this issue needs to be addressed with compassion and loving kindness. America, as we know it, was founded on the ideals of making a better life for yourself, where you have opprotunity and freedom to choose you way in life. To deny anyone this choice in inherently un-American.

ok, off the soapbox.

yup. no freeo stuffo. seriously.

i like you too, jessica! ;)

i'm with you, kari. i wish we could get it through our heads that the world is becoming a VERY SMALL place. change is inevitable. and yeah - being able to communicate with people around us is vital in such a turbulent world. you never know...

i'm also thinking about the idea that this world is ever-changing. take for instance, my apartment building. three years ago when i moved in 2/3 of the apartments were occupied by English-speaking white people (some from Europe, but English-speaking nonetheless). Now only two apartments (of 16) in the building are occupied by native English speakers.

it's occurred to me recently that since i am of the minority, even if we're still in the US, if i want to know my neighbors better perhaps i should learn Spanish. it would make certain practical things much easier -- like when the power goes out or a bathtub overflows. but perhaps the neighborly relationship would deepen too.

it wouldn't really be so out of the question that our language patterns might just shift in this country. there are some places i go in the neighborhood where signs are only in Spanish and i have to be the one to figure it all out, which honestly is kind of fun.

i wonder what we can do to assist people to be more open to change -- 'cause there's no escaping change really.

oy. It is SO hard for me to understand how people think this way. *sigh*

I like free stuffo, but el governmento rarely gives out free stuffo. Maybe buffalo. I wanted to keep rhyming but I couldn't think of anything. :-D

Wow. I could have written this myself (though probably not quite as well!)

I too am bothered by a lot of these things. My views on immigration are very unpopular around here. The two women I'm now working with are wonderful, loving women with very similar views on parenting & lifestyle, yet the other day at lunch astounded me by whispering about how they feel this country is being taken over by non-white people. Several comments were prefaced by "I'm not a racist or anything, but..." and my heart sank a little more with each one. I'm glad to know there are still some people out there with some sense of the bigger world and our place in it.

I like you!

No free stuffo? Holy crap.