We live in a time where we have this prime opportunity to experience different cultures in our lives on a daily basis. Some of the people who bring these cultures are immigrants, others are not, but we are all here striving for the best life we can come across. This is why it’s such an atrocity when we see acts of violence or malevolence towards these persons. Just recently at my work, I helped a woman who couldn’t speak a single word in English. She was an older woman and her daughter was with her, roughly speaking English to translate for the employees, but it was putting her at a disadvantage. I helped her best I could and smiled through the ordeal or finding her size. A woman a few isles down looked towards her and gave the most disgusted look she could muster before turning her nose up. It was at the register that same woman tried to make me out as an idiot to everyone else in the store. The Hispanic mother? She smiled at me as I checked out her, her daughter, and grandchildren and thanked me in Spanish as they left. At no point did it dawn on me if this woman was an immigrant or not. It never entered my head she was evil. The grandchildren ran around the store and I offered them stickers as they left. The person who I thought was “evil” was the woman who embarrassed me in front of other guests. The woman who turned her nose up at not only me, but that entire family. I’ve had Hispanic families, Indian families, and guests speaking languages I’ve never even heard before. I’ve had people come up to me, asking for help, and I have to take a few extra minutes to understand them. It’s a wonderful thing to come across so many different types of people.

This is why it is so aggravating when people online, in public, and even in our government look down upon people if they’re not “American enough”. What makes you an American? Besides being a citizen; Is it paying your bills? Paying your taxes? Voting or not voting? Not putting ketchup on your hotdog? Getting beer at a bar? Working? It could be many little things that you can’t even put a real name to it. Everyone experiences that feeling of being American differently and that means we have no right to judge. I put ketchup on my hotdog, am I “Un-American”? No. Some people hold onto their cultures even if born here? I hope so because that is their way of holding onto a part of their home and it’s also an experience for people unfamiliar with it. We should be treating all of this as an educational experience to learn about other countries and cultures.

I really do care, don’t you?