A time when I value Indiana’s lack of diversity: killer snakes don’t like soybeans

When it came time to leave Cape Canaveral (I tear up just thinking about it), Greg and I narrowed down our move to California, NYC, or Indiana. We left no area of the country unexplored.

We liked Northern California, but we could only afford the house style known as “our car”. Living an entire world away from our families with a newborn and Greg on nightshift? Recipe for ugly.

I liked NYC. Greg? He’s never warmed up to my favorite city. As if a 3 hour commute and 15 year waiting list for preschool were “hurdles”. Somehow the middle ground was:

Indiana.

Who knew.

Low cost of living, family nearby, I got to keep my job, crappy weather, and all the corn you (and the most of the world) can eat…face it, the Hoosier State has it all. The trade-offs included a lack of diversity. We imagined raising a family in a place with a little more…variety. The Human Kind. You can argue this point, you crazy Indiana people, but I called African Americans, “The Chocolate People” until I was six. I assumed that beautiful brown skin was chocolate because I’d never met a Chocolate person to whom I could pose this critical question. We thought that maybe we could afford to travel (ha ha, thoughts we had before we purchased our first jumbo box of diapers and can of formula). As it turns out, that won’t be necessary.

Yesterday Sara attended a birthday party for her friend, Suhita, whom she affectionately calls, “Sue-peta”. She attended with her friend, Noah, who is fabulously Brazilian (sorry, I can’t type Brazilian without leading it with the word fabulous…because they are. They have baby perfume there! And Ana Paula gave me some! It smells WONDERFUL!). The theme of the party? Dora. Hmm. Hispanic, covered. They danced and played among the beautiful women in saris and the beautiful children in jewelry, while Ana Paula and Marcio and I chatted about this and that. The kids were led through a Dora-style adventure. Then we had some Dora cupcakes….roll the “r” please. Dorrrrr-duh.

And I had to ask myself, exactly what were my concerns, as we left the Indian birthday party with a hispanic theme that we attended with our Brazilian friends? It’s not just the internet that has brought us together. It’s our neighborhoods. It’s all around us in the warmest of most welcoming of ways. Maybe my childrens’ generation will see a time that culture is just what it is: something with which to identify and not something that divides. Maybe having a lifetime of friends named Suhita and Amani and [insert long list of American names used by her gorgeous Asian friends who know we Midwesterners will never learn to pronounce Myung Sea] means my girls will never know there was a time someone equated different with bad. Ignorance is an ugly beast girls. As a Momma who embraces the world and ALL its delicious food (you knew I’d go there…because it all comes down to what brings us together…good food)…I hope for this kind of a world.