This episode featured an immigrant family from Russia trying to assimmilate to the USA. The father would not allow Russian to be spoken in the house because the young son needed to learn english.
One of my neighbors decorated her apartment with lights and put a giant inflatable snowman on her patio. It's super cute with a top hat and he's holding a gift.
Well, every night she unplugs the lights and the snowman deflates. Her neighbor, an Indian man, knocked on her door early in the morning to let her know that the snowman deflated. He said "the man, the man!" ... confused, she followed him outside and understood that he meant the snowman. She plugged up the snowman again and he was satisfied.
Another neighbor reported to her that she has seen the man standing outside and looking toward the snowman late at night.
I just walked my dog and saw the man walking back and forth slowly... he walked onto her patio and stared down at the deflated snowman. I called my neighbor to tell her that he was looking at the snowman again.
He plugs it up himself this time and seems satisfied when it starts inflating. My neighbor that wasn't home when I called her arrives at home. We laugh about how fascinated he is by the snowman and then we come to our own conclusion that they don't have snowmen in India and don't celebrate Christmas either.
She asks the man if she wants her to take a photo of him with his phone next to the snowman and he does. He stands next to this giant snowman with the cutest smile on his face.
This is seriously the cutest thing. This lighthearted simple story has made us all laugh and warm inside.
My grandfather was the same way about Spanish. He would not allow my Mexican-born (legally immigrated) grandmother to speak Spanish in the house or in public. His parents were also from Mexico, though he was born in the US when they moved during Pancho Villa’s era. He served in the Army Air Corps, and later the Air Force during WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
The old immigrants used to want to be Americans. Now they want Americans to be like them.