My post
Beautiful People,
In my book, The Opposite of Comfortable, I described my immigration experience and shared that immigrants never feel fully belonged. But having a sense of belonging is a human need, and in our family, we find ways to save our traditions and cherish our past, while we adapt and adjust to our permanent American culture.
There are some exceptional benefits of knowing other cultures and raising worldly-wise children as I reminded this weekend.
My daughter is an 8th-grade student at 21st Century Public Academy, a charter school in Albuquerque, NM. Since its foundation in 2000, the school has done outstanding work in serving a diverse population and promoting tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance of the differences between people.
On Saturday, the school’s newly-founded band orchestrated by the incredible music teacher, Mr. Ken Johnson, gave a Christmas performance at the local Barnes & Noble branch.
While watching, I realized that the lead singer, my Jewish, Israeli-American daughter was singing ‘Feliz Navidad’ a Spanish Christmas carol!
Never once she’d referred to the content of the performance, the language or the fact that Christmas is mostly a Christian holiday. My cosmopolitan girl doesn’t view religion, language, traditions, gender or color as barriers between people, but she sees them as growth opportunities.
For the performance, each band member chose a song. My daughter, who is a huge fan of The Beatles, selected "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She paid tribute to John Lennon on the 36th anniversary of his death.
She’s only thirteen, but she has lived in many different places to know that people are not so much different from one another and that we all share the basic needs of love and peace.
No matter where you are, what color is your skin, what is your religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity-
Happy Holidays loved ones!
XO,
Sharon
In my book, The Opposite of Comfortable, I described my immigration experience and shared that immigrants never feel fully belonged. But having a sense of belonging is a human need, and in our family, we find ways to save our traditions and cherish our past, while we adapt and adjust to our permanent American culture.
There are some exceptional benefits of knowing other cultures and raising worldly-wise children as I reminded this weekend.
My daughter is an 8th-grade student at 21st Century Public Academy, a charter school in Albuquerque, NM. Since its foundation in 2000, the school has done outstanding work in serving a diverse population and promoting tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance of the differences between people.
On Saturday, the school’s newly-founded band orchestrated by the incredible music teacher, Mr. Ken Johnson, gave a Christmas performance at the local Barnes & Noble branch.
While watching, I realized that the lead singer, my Jewish, Israeli-American daughter was singing ‘Feliz Navidad’ a Spanish Christmas carol!
Never once she’d referred to the content of the performance, the language or the fact that Christmas is mostly a Christian holiday. My cosmopolitan girl doesn’t view religion, language, traditions, gender or color as barriers between people, but she sees them as growth opportunities.
For the performance, each band member chose a song. My daughter, who is a huge fan of The Beatles, selected "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She paid tribute to John Lennon on the 36th anniversary of his death.
She’s only thirteen, but she has lived in many different places to know that people are not so much different from one another and that we all share the basic needs of love and peace.
No matter where you are, what color is your skin, what is your religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity-
Happy Holidays loved ones!
XO,
Sharon
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