That was a little embarassing, but then to make matters worse, I then called the OTHER desi kid in the class Deepak. I dunno what his name actually was, but it wasn’t that.

In my job, I deal with heaps of different kids, and while I’m talking to a class I might remember the names of about a third of them. To remember names, it helps to associate each kid with certain characteristics, and noting their ethnicity is one thing that helps the names to stick in my mind. But it backfired on me that day.

blockquote>I’m just saying that the sense of “Americans are oh-so-bad” that so many liberal bloggers have is somewhat silly in my experience around the world. Yeah, it’s really tiring to hear stupid things repeated, but the fact of the matter is that stupid people are everywhere, and even smart people can occasionally have moments of supreme stupidity.

I think there are a couple reasons Americans get more flack than other cultures: - Americans are richer than most people in the world, so naturally we’re expected to be more cosmopolitan than people in poorer cultures who have an excuse for ignorance - People are exposed to American culture more, our media is globally very influential – therefore foreigners know more about America than we get to learn about their countries - Hollywood encourages the “stupid American” stereotype and pushes into various films, all of which are viewed by millions around the world and taken seriously, haha - America has 300 million people, we’re a huge country! Therefore we simply have more morons by default. Sometimes our morons travel and are exposed to non-morons, who extrapolate and assume we’re all morons. - Most Americans are monolingual simply because English is the dominant language across our massive country (and up in Canada). Europeans are generally multilingual because their countries are small and surrounded by other countries with a different language; they end up assuming we’re monolingual because we’re xenophobic and ignorant, when it’s simply out of convenience.

It’s best to laugh it off and focus on more important things anyway. If I had a nickel for every time someone said something idiotic about my rather convoluted ethnic background, well… I’d be able to buy a bottle of Coke. Maybe. You seen the price of a Coke these days? Insane!

I agree with your pro-active advice. While it is definitely true that the U.S. is much more open to multiculturalism than many other countries, we can always make things better by teaching our kids about foreign cultures, so they are more aware of the rest of the world. We have a lot of resources in our hands (the internet, libraries,etc.) and we should use them.

I have worked with children in a lot of different settings and most are extremely eager and intrigued to learn about other people and cultures in the world… if our education system developed a curriculum that incorporated more study of different countries and cultures, then I don’t think the perfectly intelligent girl I worked with would be asking me if (for example, but true story) “all Indian people live in like, mud huts?” It took me about 5 seconds to pull up some photos of India to show that indeed, lots of people not only did not live in mud huts, but some lived in fancy mansions. with maids. and yes, some people live in mud huts. I know this girl, know she is intelligent, and no she meant no offense what-so-ever, and was truly interested, but had never had an idea of how people live in other countries at all.

Additionally, I understand your point that it is not just America, but since I grew up in the U.S., and lived in India, but not in any other countries, I can’t really start talking too much about other places. I CAN acknowledge that I have certainly been asked “silly” questions about American by Indians at times (i.e. “Is it true Americans just get divorced and married over and over and over?” or “Are all Americans really obsessed with being skinny and work out constantly?” or “When Americans go on a first date, they all do it that night, like in Hollywood movies, right?”) And I also had Shopkeepers confuse me with other American people (i.e. are you (brown eyes, dark brown hair, tall and awkward, olive skinned tone) the same girl who came in here yesterday? (when it was my friend Melissa– shorter, thinner, blonde, blue eyes, freckles, pink skin tone).

I have also heard some not-so-good stories about other places. Recently one of my friend in India emailed a French company to see if they would ship to India and got this response: “No we do not as it is a third world country and the post will lose the parcel.

Stop bugging us with that, or order in an Europeean country that will ship back to you in India.

We will only accept bank wire transfer to be sure to retain money.”

Or the Japanese guy I was talking to in the Charles-de-Gaulle airport who was just heading home from a study abroad in France who told me it was the worst experience of his like and little kids would point and stare and people would sarcastically shout “NI HAAAOOO” at him.

Anyways, I don’t know where I am going with this anymore.. I got sidetracked my stories… ummm regroup regroup… yes, so I do think this sort of stuff can happen anywhere, and there are always going to be some stupid people.. but I think that we can also say “Hey! Let’s make an effort to teach our kids more” (etc) and make an effort ourselves..

Thanks for being diplomatic– few blog commenters are.

I’m not trying to ruffle your feathers (or even tweak your nose, as it were.) I’m just saying that the sense of “Americans are oh-so-bad” that so many liberal bloggers have is somewhat silly in my experience around the world. Yeah, it’s really tiring to hear stupid things repeated, but the fact of the matter is that stupid people are everywhere, and even smart people can occasionally have moments of supreme stupidity. It’s best to laugh it off and focus on more important things anyway. If I had a nickel for every time someone said something idiotic about my rather convoluted ethnic background, well… I’d be able to buy a bottle of Coke. Maybe. You seen the price of a Coke these days? Insane!

My take on people: there are jerks everywhere. Try not to conflate this one jerk with everyone you know from his identified group. Otherwise, you just end up with silly stereotypes.

dphud,

Funny how that works.

My experience with East Asians have generally been positive; they are friendly and cheerful But don’t expect anything incisive, articulate or eloquent from them, less so something about India. Expect a comment or question like “Which city did Mother Theresa live in” or “where is that Taj Mahal”. Not “India is a complex country grappling with huge problems, yet doing it in the context of a free, democratic, pluralistic system and ideology” They are this earth-earthy to a fault, to make a remark like that.

This is an excellent and accurate observation. And it refutes totally the notion that Hindus and Hinduism represent some kind of ideological threat to the world. Hinduism might be seen as weird, even gross, though often( and Julia Roberts is a good example) attractive. But never a threat. Despite all the gassing and belching pseudo-liberal American commentators like Martha Nussbaum and Paul Gross make about the dangers of the Hindu right, even their paranoia is restricted to India, not even South Asia or Asia in general.