... Because it's doing a bang-up job exploring the ways in which cultural assimilation issues play out in everyday life.
I linked a while back to "Picnics, Games and Culture Shock" (Jun 30, 07), which examined the challenges parks personnel faced when trying to mediate the needs of several different ethnic groups in public spaces. Last week's "Feathers Are Flying" (Jul 14, 07) looks at a culture clash in my high school stomping grounds, Prince William County: chickens kept as backyard pets in suburbia.And today's "Two Cultures, Slowly Uniting in Matrimony" examines how thriving Asian communities across the DC Metro area are transforming, and being transformed by, the local wedding industry.
It is coverage like this, which examines how people handle such quotidian details like family pets and wedding planning, that seems to provide a better snapshot of immigration's impact on America than a dozen op-eds that all boil down to OMG illegals!111!!!!!
I really enjoyed this article, partly because one of the things I like about my life -- and, by extension, about the world today -- is the number of interesting weddings I've been to. Just in the past few years I've been to weddings with participants from Tanzania, Burma, Japan, India, Israel, and the Philippines, and my own wedding was an interfaith ceremony. It's so great to see people from different cultures celebrating together, and it didn't stop at the ceremony. In nearly every case, both families were thrilled to have met each other, and were overjoyed with the growth of their families.
(Don't mind me. I'm a sucker for weddings, and a sucker for the detailed saris that Indian women wear to weddings.)
Posted by: Becky | 2007.07.19 at 18:02