And, one year I had the following in my homeschool:
One Philipino
One Native American
One Black
and two average white kids
We had a great time exploring each others’ cultures, including mine and the AWK’s European’s roots. We talked about how each nationality had come to America. And yeah, we studied world religions, too. Gasp! We even dealt with Islam...the day after 9/11.
OK, burn me at the stake.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be doing cross cultural studies and learning about other cultures.
Back in the 1960s, when I was in High School, I got way into studying East Indian culture after becoming intrigued by George Harrison’s involvement with Ravi Shankar. Being a budding guitarist and a big Beatles fan back then, I persuaded my parents to buy me a sitar, and started listening to Indian music and learning about it culture. I got into Hinduism and read the Bhagavad Gita. It was a great, fascinating experience.
In my life I have become interested in different cultures and took it upon myself to learn about them. I became interested in various Asian cuisines, learned how to cook in different styles, studied Korean and Japanese martial arts and became interested in getting a feel for these cultures.
In the 90s, I became fascinated by Caribbean culture (Jamaica, British Virgin Islands) when I visited those places, and was thrilled to learn from the people who lived there.
But first and foremost, I have always identified with being an American. It used to be that when I would meet foreigners in my own land, I would be proud falttered that they came here to learn about America and experience it.
But now, with all the multicultural crap, the push for legalizing illegal aliens, and the relentless trashing of traditional American culture by the leftist media, academia, and political class, I become very offended by foreigners who come here and expect that we need to change our culture (and demand that we learn their languages on our own shores) in order to accommodate them and spare them from “offense.”
Do you see the difference?
The implication of that Coke ad was that anyone from any foreign culture can come here, keep their own culture, their own language and somehow be American. It’s the old melting pot vs. tossed salad analogy. And I am very offended today that the tossed salad business seems to be prevailing.