All Are Same

A couple of years ago, there was a big hit movie (and a tv bomb based on it) called “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. I totally loved it. And most people I know did too. I totally related to it.

How many times have I heard a friend say, “My mom made me eat four helpings. She kept pushing us to eat more. You know how _____ moms are,” where the _____ could be Korean, Chinese, Italian, Jewish, Irish, Black, Mexican, so on and so forth. You could even substitute an American region (say, Southern) rather than an ethnic or cultural background. Each of the friends who say this seems to think overfeeding loved ones is something owned by the specific culture/ethinicity in question.

It’s not.

Almost every culture shows affection and caring through food. The basic survival of a species depends on the ability to find and provide food to keep themselves alive. If you are related to someone — maybe a grandparent or even a parent — who lived through the Great Depression, or someone who immigrated from a country with scarcer resources than the U.S., or maybe just really have a deep passion for cuisine and family meals, then you know what it means to be fed until you are overstuffed.

The older I get, the more people I meet, the more I see that so many cultures are so alike. The more I studied feminism, the more I saw links between feminist discourse and Asian-American discourse. And the knowledge I peripherally picked up about black and Latino studies utilized similar social paradigms and common terminology. Of course there are deep differences as well which should not be ignored, but the similarities help diverse groups of people to understand each other and to understand that progress in one area can help with progress in another. We lift each other up.

I grow frustrated when people increasingly see differences as they get older, as they run into more negative experiences. I see more commonalities, more bridges, more chances to relate and cooperate.

*sings “We Shall Overcome” to self at the top of lungs*