I had a really interesting experience a couple of weeks ago. My son brought a friend home with him from college for part of summer break. His friend is from Bangladesh and has been in the states for only 2-3 months. I will call his friend Tucker.
Tucker is eager to learn about American culture. He wants to understand and to acclimate. He's trying to reconcile what he knows of American culture from Hollywood productions with what he is experiencing here now. In general I avoid generalizing people. No pun intended... but I don't like to lump label folks like, "Those people are like this, and these people are like that." The real answer is -- we are all just individuals. We are each born unique and then shaped by nurture, and resultantly we just are who we are! You will find a few open minded and open hearted intellectuals in southern Mississippi, and you will find a few evangelical christians in San Francisco.
But, the problem is that the brain seeks to classify and categorize and compare to what it is familiar when taking in a lot of new information. It seeks generalizations to make sense of everything. So when Tucker was trying to understand what the US is like, in general, or what southerners are like, in general, I felt I had to validate some of the stereotypes he was questioning because I saw that it was helpful for him, at first, to understand a general big picture. I did keep reiterating that everyone is unique and you can't generalize folks, but also had to agree that southerners move a little slower on the roads and people from NY/NJ...in general...have a certain accent. THIS WAS HARD FOR ME!
Anyways...Tucker is amazing. He's 20 and for a college scholarship has traveled, literally, to the other side of the world by himself. He's adapting from a living in a large crowded Bangladeshi city, mainly Muslim, to a small Tennessee town full of Christians. Here he lives alone, takes care of himself, and insisted on cooking for us 2 nights last week. He was curious, polite, frugal, driven, grateful and a fantastic cook. That is how I will now generalize the people of Bangladesh in my brain. 馃槈
