Cultural Fusion Will Continue with All Our Help
By
Gerry Niskern
We’ve all been reading about the Afghanistan refugees coming to our country. They are just a continuation of the many immigrants who have found refuge in the United States over the years of the existence of our democracy. Many worry about how we can handle the new residents and how they will fit in. I’m reminded of a party that took place in my old neighborhood a few years back.
Cars and pickups began arriving on a Sunday afternoon. They brought ladies in their Sunday best, carrying covered dishes. The daddies toted babies in their car carriers. Later, that evening, we couldn’t see the dancing in the garage, but judging from the strobe lights, music and laughing, they were having a good time.
Actually, the sound of a foreign language and the music reminded me of my Grandma’s house back East as I was growing up. On any Sunday afternoon polka music from my Italian uncle’s accordian filled the air. And I’m sure the language carried across back yards was just as confusing to the neighbors. And my cousins and I played hide and seek, chasing and shouting like the little Latino kids.
Those cousins of mine grew up. They married into various ethnic families and scattered across the United States. My grandparent’s offspring learned American ways and taught some of their ways to others. The extended family boasted computer programmers, major league ballplayers and engineers working on the first manned spacecraft our country launched. They played football in high school, golf with business clients and tennis anytime they had a chance.
In other words, they assimilated, just as the families coming here now will also. They have fought side by side with fellow Americans in our country’s wars. This country needed their labor in its industries just as the immigrants are needed now to drive the economy.
The cultural and ethnic fusion has been slow, but steady. But our diversity in color, culture and thought is what made this country great. Our democracy has long been called “the great melting pot”. Let’s stir that melting pot with friendship once again in 2022!