I think a lot of people are upset by the strange customs of outsiders, but they look the other way because they want the tacos.
Iām still sad that we didnāt end up getting taco trucks on every corner.
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Be lessā¦ that, please.
Plenty. I tend to put on ignore anyone who wastes time talking about their heritage to me. I didnāt ask, and Iām not telling anyone else my heritage. When people ask about my heritage, based on my name, which is quite obviously an origin of a specific Euro country, I tell them my father was born here, my mother, whose parents were also born here but have some different Euro heritage, is also important to me, and I know nothing about either heritage except from what I see in the movies, and, no, Iāve never been to Europe and Iām not interested in going.
And all that is a waste of time for me to explain.
Just an extra expense of energy that could be used on more productive matters.
If you feel differently, then you be you.
Disclaimer: I do have privilege. Others might not.
Lastly, anyone who thinks other peopleās cultures are important (especially in the bad way) are a-holes.
Canadian food got a whole lot better (and Iām not talking tacos) after we opened up immigration in the 1960ās and those immigrants introduced us to their food. That is an element of culture that should be retained and shared.
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- except in NL where we are only now discovering Asian food beyond Canadian Chinese and spices beyond salt, pepper, and savory.
Thats just the South.
Wait till you see rural Texas. Its like a time warp.
Blue states tend to be the most progressive/accepting of immigrants (in terms of diversity). There are still problems due to poverty (creates friction between various groups) but you dont see as much overt racism and discrimination as you see in the South.
Donāt have much experience with midwest or the rural states (Montana, Dakotas etc) but I suspect they are probably somwhere in the middle vs Blue states/South.
But NL has some pretty unique food in its own right. One of my SILās cousins prepared a Nfld feast for us when we visited several years ago and we have never tasted those items elsewhere.
Yeah, Costco carries buckets of salt meat. A former co-worker owns a business that makes pudding bags for pea (pease?) pudding. Was at a reception Saturday where one of the appetizers served was cod tongues. Some of the stores carry seal flippers in season and you canāt get dried capelin at several of the grocery stores.
On the other hand, Iāve got a co-worker who up until he developed coronary issues didnāt eat vegetables because they tasted so lousy when he was growing up as his mom boiled them to mush. Part of the problem is fresh veggies and fruit can be scarce here, particularly in winter when storm disrupt the ferries. I have some good Jiggs dinner, though it is pretty salty. Cold plates are bland and gross. Fish and chips can be good, but if Iām going to try and avoid having coronary issues of my own, I need to limit it to only a few times a year.
I was in Montana for a wedding this summer. That had to be the most lilly white place I have even been. I think I could count the number of minorities I saw in the 4 days I was there on my fingers and toes and have digits left over. Maybe other parts of Montana are different but that was my experience while there.
Whitest place Iāve ever been is rural Wisconsin.
Anyone who criticizes That 70s Show for being too white has obviously never been to the approximate area where it takes place. (The actual town is fictional but we know itās a drive to both Madison and Milwaukee.)
My first visit I saw 0 non-white people in 5 days. My second visit I went to the Brown County Fair and I did see maybe 5 black people (out of thousands, not counting Mini Me) and I hate to go there, but I believe that every single one of them had at least one piece of Packers gear on. (Green Bay is in Brown County.)
You have no idea. When I went to UW in the 80ās, the plaza beside the school had a pizza place and a pub.
Today it still has a pizza place. Plus itās got 50-100 other restaurants, most of them āinternationalā. Mexican, tons of indian, arabic, pretty much and sub-genre of asian you can think of. You want a specific type of noodles? Got it. You want arabic? got it. You want this type of indian or that type? Got it.
And thereās another 100 restuarants of similar variation within a few blocks.
I absolutely love it. I really like trying new food and the variations I have available in just that one plaza is beyond what youād find in even bigger cities. Iāve honestly never seen anything like it.
Hereās one example, tucked away at the back of a parking lot in the basement of a student building:
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Try rural Newfoundland.
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You need to try the hawker centres in Singapore. They are amazing.
I take joy in othersā joy.
Other people expressing happiness brings me happiness.
If someone takes joy in doing a 23 and me test and tracing their genealogy to an Irish king or a Dutch pirate or a Scottish rebel, who am I to tell them I donāt care? If they are sharing part of themselves with a gleam in their eye, Iāll share it with them to the best of my ability.
Iāve been a lot happier this year since I decided to live less in my own head and start sharing this crazy world a little more.
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I also like celebrating differences. I enjoyed learning about MILās culture, which is part of Mini Meās heritage, and I enjoy the many cultural museums too. I enjoy my hometownās Oktoberfest as well as the local Celtic festival and the Chinese New Year celebrations to say nothing of the myriad of restaurants featuring many types of international cuisine.
Some cultures are better represented than others, which I think largely represents the underlying population. Nothing wrong with that.
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Donāt have to, my BIL is a newfie lol. Couple times a year we have to do a jigs dinner, watch way too many newfies get way to drunk and way too loud.
A few years ago at one of these parties the neighbours called the cops lol. Like, weāre adults here, and the cops are rolling up on a noise complaint? So thatās also fairly newfie I think.
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Well at least you are not eating cats and dogs as the folks in Springfield, Ohio allegedly doā¦.
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ā¦or whales and bears. Probably should include worms too.
Lol, i used to work for the Wausau insurance company, in central Wisconsin, and as a Jew, i was very exotic. People said things to me like, āIāve met a Jewish person before.ā They had a āChineseā restaurant. It didnāt have any chop sticks. The fish& chips and beer were good, though.
The town I grew up in could compete with anywhere in the US for a lack of diversity. There might be a few dozen people that live there that could claim some mixed race status out of a few thousand. In the ~20 years I lived there I may have seen a black person in town a low single digit number of times? it was a pretty dismal place, but also only a few miles from areas that had sizable minority populations.