The Human Zoo

During the past exciting week, I have had two grandsons graduate from high school and have been keeping my 6 year old granddaughter while her mother is on a nursing trip to Nicaragua. The flurry of activities has been a welcome relief from the incessant yammering of politicians and pundits talking through our craziest election year ever. It’s the craziest because we have to hear about it all the time unless we have wonderful distractions to clear our brains.

I grew up very white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, smack in the middle of the country in what is now the reddest of red states as far as voting conservatively. I’m not sure why that is because I used to do some work for the American Red Cross in this area, out in the rural counties, where I found the population to be very diverse and very blended. Anyway, I grew up in the 50s and 60s, mid-century they are calling it now. My high school had one African-American student out of thousands and I think he was the son of the janitor. He was very well liked, but I realize now how hard it must have been for him. Our other ethnic students were from the foreign exchange program, so they were well accepted.

It was college before I began to meet kids who were different from me and that was still rare at Oklahoma State University, where I was excited to meet real cowboys at a school where our mascot was a real cowboy. I had one African-American friend, from Arkansas, and she was pretty open with us about her experiences. I also made some Lebanese friends, male and female, who had come to America to flee the terror in their country or as exchange students. One of them was in our wedding and lives near me today. My husband loved this guy and they could tease each other with affection, “camel jock” never being used other than as a joke that made them both laugh. I’m sure our friend had never been on a camel just as we had never lived in a teepee, as most people thought we did in Oklahoma.

It’s been a gradual change through the years as I helped enroll Vietnamese refugee children at my children’s elementary school, wondering if we could ever pronounce their names correctly. I remember meeting little Thuy, Hung, and Fa as kindergarteners, shy little children in a strange place. My children’s most beloved teachers in elementary school were African American and Middle Eastern and we didn’t really even think about it.

When I worked at the American Red Cross, I worked with a diversity program since the Red Cross serves all people and we were trained to respect their cultures in order to help them in times of disaster. It was an education in all the cultures who lived in our area at the time, turn of the century (21st century). There were Russians, Muslims, Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics and many others living in our city at the time. I had no idea there were so many cultures right here where I grew up.

When I’d served on the Board of the American Red Cross many years before, I’d been one of the first to distribute information about AIDS to the community since the Red Cross is a leading supplier of blood products. The information consisted of a pamphlet explaining the disease. When I came back as a staff member, this area had grown and I became an HIV/AIDS educator, learning how to take the information into the Native American population. One of my dearest friends was the diversity expert at the time and I learned of her childhood as a half Native American child growing up poor in Tulsa, the side of Tulsa I didn’t know about as I grew up. Now she’s a PhD, a far cry from her struggles earlier.

All of these things have grown in my mind through the years as I’ve been exposed through volunteer work and the time at Red Cross to the diversity in our community. I never felt threatened by it and welcomed the different cultures. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many countries, the best way to realize that people are as alike as they are different on this planet.

This past week, watching my beloved grandchildren with their friends and out in the community, I realized how very far we have come. At the school where I graduated in such a white class, seven of my grandchildren have friends who don’t match them in color, but they don’t seem to care too much. If they like them, they accept them. Here’s a random photo I took of my grandson running onto the field with his football team     In this photo, looking at it today, I see his best friend who has a very Italian family, a Native American, an Hispanic, black students and coaches, white students and my grandson (with the beard) who probably looks Middle Eastern if you don’t know his family. These kids are a team that worked and played together on and off the field.

Here’s my other graduating grandson as  the tall captain of the soccer team with his Hispanic co-captain.I arrived at commencement early by myself to save seats for the families and sat through part of the graduation of another high school. This school has a higher percentage of Hispanic and African American families than my school, but the result is the same. I watched large family groups whoop with pride as their student crossed the stage to receive his or her diploma. They all had cell phones or cameras to take a million pictures of their child’s special day. No red carpet will have as many flashes as a graduation. Everyone is all smiles, swelling with pride. The experience is the same for all of us and I teared up watching kids and families I don’t even know.

Thank goodness my grandsons are in the same class so I didn’t have to sit through another ceremony with the speeches that are to inspire us and will be forgotten in a minute. The good part is listening to the students speak and then walk across the stage. One of the largest cheers from the crowd went out for Javier, a beloved Hispanic student. Another was for this great kid, one of the student leaders of the class, who won an award for representing Native Americans so well. I watched him on the football field, with the drama students, and at assemblies and I agree. In my day, nobody acknowledged Native American heritage, even in a state where we have more tribes than any other, and today we embrace it.Students of all ethnic backgrounds flung their hats in the air, ready to enter a world where their next steps might go in all directions. For this day, they were celebrated for being who they are.Here’s to my boys, hoping all good things for their futures.A few days later, I took my granddaughter to the zoo. It was a sunny Sunday so families were out in force. As we walked and walked that day, I heard voices all around me speaking in various languages from English to Chinese to Spanish. Watching the people, I realized there was no difference. We were all saying the same things for the same reasons. “Stay close!” “Stop running!” “Come here!” No matter whether you are a Mimi or an abuela, a Daddy or a Grandad, by whatever name you call us, we are all there to share the experience. We all paid the money, carried the children, pushed the babies in strollers, rode the train, and said “Look!” with excitement as we shared the experience of seeing a giraffe in person or met the penguins up close.We had the same experience that day, generations of families together making memories for our children and grandchildren. It didn’t matter what language we spoke or where we came from. We were all trying to ride herd on little ones, watching them play, keeping them safe from the dangers all around us, and loving them so very much. There was no difference in our hearts at the zoo that day.

Last night, my granddaughter introduced me to a place I’ve driven by many times and never noticed. It is a Mexican bakery and was delightful with its variety of baked goods, its cleanliness, its friendly service. I looked it up on the internet because I was fascinated that it is a 5th generation business. Started in 1912 in Mexico, it became one of the largest bakeries in that area of the country. For some reason not given, one of the family members came to American in  1998 and opened the bakery in Tulsa. They have three bakeries here and are about to open a fourth with the vision not only to make pastries rich in ingredients and taste, but also to promote family values and unity. How American can you get? Or how Mexican.

This morning, the television came on blaring the latest ugliness in our election. I think all the candidates and the commentators need to take a day off and go to the zoo. It’s much more civilized there amongst the animals.