Detroit Challenge
RESPONSE:
When I was eighteen I moved from my parents' home in Detroit, Michigan to Orlando, Florida to work for the American consumerism empire that is Walt Disney World. It seems farcical to suggest that my multi-cultural experience could spring from a source that is what has come to define "American". However, I spent months living and working with fellow "cast members" who came from Mormon Utah, from Southern Louisiana, from diverse California and conservative Wyoming. I made lasting friendships with people from South Africa and learned to make Chinese dinners with a boy from Hong Kong. I went to concerts with friends from Brazil and served ice cream to princes of Middle Eastern nations I hardly knew existed. Disney was my first true experience of cultures outside of my own. I learned about people and humanity. I never would have guessed that instead of coming home with a pair of round black ears I would come home with an insatiable desire to continue listening to other peoples' stories with the ears I already had.
Since then, I have worked many across-the-country jobs and abroad volunteering. My first was a short study abroad program in South Africa. There, I had a conversation with a woman we met in a shebeen (an illegal "bar" where, typically, a grandmother sells alcohol to support her grandchildren whose parents were victims of AIDS- the police ignore shebeens because it is recognized to be the only means of support). She told me about her alcoholism, about her children and how she knew she was failing them. The only way she could feel better was to drink until she forgot about it. She asked me for nothing. She just wanted me to know who she was and tell me her story. In this moment I learned that I did not have to aspire to the daunting and impossible task of changing the world; I can make one life better and it will have all been worthwhile. It was hard to see her struggle, to see the Afrikaner mansions overlooking the corrugated tin shanty towns in Johannesburg. It was hard to walk away. I did so only because I had a new aspiration, I would use what I learned from South Africa to improve individual lives.
Being tall, pale and sporting bright red hair is an enormous integration challenge, even in Detroit. In Trinidad, it meant I was a target for racism. It was difficult to feel confident and I feared it impossible to really integrate. There was no way for me to be invisible; there was no way to be Trinidadian. Soon though, I realized the jokes were non-threatening; I once responded to being scorned as "mulatta" with excitement- I must have a tan! I realized that I would never be a "Trini", but I would gladly be accepted into the community if I was friendly; after I met and befriended people I was "Amber" instead of "Snowflake".
484 words with a limit of 500
