United colors of America

As much as we would like to believe that one might stick out with a different ethnicity or the color of the skin in the United States of America, in reality, it’s quite a contradiction. It is almost like a fine potpourri of so many different cultures, religions, and backgrounds that it becomes difficult to even get a second glance sometimes.

In fact, I remember taking a computer course some 10 years back and had an African American fellow student. Not that I am proud of it, but I stared the hell out of him the first day he entered the class. I wasn’t being derogatory but to satiate my curiosity, I just wanted to observe more.

It was and somehow still is, pretty unusual for us to see different ethnicities amidst us in India. The situation is changing slowly but back then, it was a big deal. Just recall, how many of us have friends who are African, Japanese, or French? Back then, people from different cultures, let alone the color of their skins, stick out like sore thumbs.

Now the trend of exchange students is making the world shrink even more. The US today is a far more open society in accepting differences and sometimes even appreciating it. What better example than a black president. In the US, wherever you go, you keep bumping into Mexicans, Europeans, Asians, or African Americans. The truth is that more than a melting pot, this country is like a salad bowl where you can taste and experience each ethnicity on its own and they don’t necessarily have to merge as one big bowl of bland soup.