Cardinal collisions happen daily. You don't have to be in a foreign country to experience one. Nor does the experience have to be monumental. I've mentioned this a few times throughout by blog postings. As the year progresses, I have found more and more evidence to further these beliefs. And now, I believe it more strongly. Perhaps you will too after I share another everyday, commonplace cultural collisions.
The first regards track. It's track season right now, and much of my time after school is devoted to the sport. The team is divided according to running events. So we have the sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers, mid-distance, and distance groups. Outside of the girls in our particular group, we don't get to "hang" around some of our other team mates. This point manifested itself when, at the track meet last Thursday, I was cheering on certain girls only because they were wearing a Kennedy uniform. Had it not been for the green and gold, I wouldn't have because I didn't even know them.
I remember one girl in particular. She was really good and super fast. (Definitely a sprinter group girl.) After she was done and I was fired up from cheering her on, I turned to my mid-distance groupie. "Who is that!?" I asked.
The answer came as a surprise. I learned her name and that she was in the same grade as me. But there was one thing we didn't have in common: she is not an American citizen. It turns out she is one of the foreign exchange students to our school. So she is actually a German citizen. This was not really the "wow!" factor. What was is the fact that she could pass as an American. She speaks perfect English and she fits in like any other girl on our American track team.
In a way, she inspired me. Here we have this girl who is an ocean away from home, yet perfectly assimilated to a foreign culture. What's more is that she can also speak French and is in AP French already!
My concluding thoughts bring me back to the conversation I had with my mid-distance team mate. We both agreed that our country needs to step it up. We need to take language acquisition more seriously. And ultimately, this needs to start far sooner than high school. So to our state legislatures and school boards, it's time to start learning Spanish alongside our ABC's.
The first regards track. It's track season right now, and much of my time after school is devoted to the sport. The team is divided according to running events. So we have the sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers, mid-distance, and distance groups. Outside of the girls in our particular group, we don't get to "hang" around some of our other team mates. This point manifested itself when, at the track meet last Thursday, I was cheering on certain girls only because they were wearing a Kennedy uniform. Had it not been for the green and gold, I wouldn't have because I didn't even know them.
I remember one girl in particular. She was really good and super fast. (Definitely a sprinter group girl.) After she was done and I was fired up from cheering her on, I turned to my mid-distance groupie. "Who is that!?" I asked.
The answer came as a surprise. I learned her name and that she was in the same grade as me. But there was one thing we didn't have in common: she is not an American citizen. It turns out she is one of the foreign exchange students to our school. So she is actually a German citizen. This was not really the "wow!" factor. What was is the fact that she could pass as an American. She speaks perfect English and she fits in like any other girl on our American track team.
In a way, she inspired me. Here we have this girl who is an ocean away from home, yet perfectly assimilated to a foreign culture. What's more is that she can also speak French and is in AP French already!
My concluding thoughts bring me back to the conversation I had with my mid-distance team mate. We both agreed that our country needs to step it up. We need to take language acquisition more seriously. And ultimately, this needs to start far sooner than high school. So to our state legislatures and school boards, it's time to start learning Spanish alongside our ABC's.
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