Embracing Others

If you were to walk through my high school, you would find two students that would identify themselves as a race other than Caucasian. Out of these four hundred students, only two can define themselves as something other than the “normal” in my town.

Similarly, if you were to walk through my town, these proportions aren’t much different. Where I live, it’s predominately white. It’s rare to see someone who isn’t Caucasian. I blame it on the geographics.

I’m born and raised in the thumb of Wisconsin, a peninsula that not many people travel to. Therefore, the amount of non-Caucasians in the area is limited. We don’t get very many immigrants looking for jobs, since we can barely support the citizens we already have. Tourists may visit, but only families that already have summer homes in the area. While our town may be beautiful and the seasons colorful, our town lacks the colors that the abundance of cultures bring.

In no way does this mean my town knowingly excludes itself from other cultures. It’s not as if we had a choice. If my town were presented with a more cultured population, I would like to believe that we would embrace it like any other town would. I see it year after year at my own high school. We often host foreign exchange students and each person is eager to learn the customs of the student’s home country. After all, people are curious.

At first, joining HerCulture was just another opportunity to me. It was a way to get to know people around the country. As I become more familiar with the mission of this group, I become more accepting of the world around me. As a senior in high school, I’m about to adventure into a world where the boundaries of cultures are terminated. No longer the Hispanics are quiet, or the African-Americans non-existent. While I live in a predominately white area, I hope that in the future I will live in a place where I will see many different cultures embrace one another.