Changing the way we see

I had an Email from a friend this morning. She commented on the fact that travel to other countries changes a person's view point so that they don't always look at the world from a solely American view anymore.

I never quite thought about the affect of traveling causing one to see the world from a different view than just that of being an American. I think that may be because I never had that. I went to Mexico any number of times before I ever left Texas to visit another state. After all, it was just a couple of hours drive to Laredo where there were awesome shopping opportunities. It was part of the Christmas experience, just as going to the mills in New Braunsfels to buy material for school clothes was part of the summer time.

I was eleven the first time I went to another state and then we went to California to visit relatives. That meant going through New Mexico and Arizona. While all are unique states they still have the strong Spanish influence that I grew up with.

It was a real eye-opener when I finally did begin traveling in the US. I grew up in a community where I was a minority-nearly all my friends and school mates were of Mexican ancestry. Because the school I went to (Catholic) was one of the first totally integrated ones in the country I also had Asians and Blacks in my classes. When out of thirty students five are "white" three black and two Asian (one Chinese and one Japenese) one grows up thinking of one's self as being "different."

Come to think of it, even though my ancestors came from the British isles and interbred with the various Native people on their way to Texas, I was a minority even among the white students since most whites in my area were of German and Northern European (Polish etc.) extraction.

My first trips to other US states really were eye-openers. The first time I was in a town where there were nothing but whites I felt very uncomfortable. And despite the proof that a majority of Americans are of pale Caucasian descent I still think of myself as a minortiy.

Because of this upbringing I have reached the conclusion that I truly do not understand most Americans. I don't claim to understand any other culture either, but the ordinary white American is just as foreign to me as any group from Europe or the Far East and any points between.