Okay, I'm not saying Patchogue isn't diverse, but really, it's hard to get more diverse than Queens. Really! According to Wikipedia (and everyone else, too), Queens is the most diverse county in the country. It certainly seems that way.
Queens is home to all the really ethnic neighborhoods - we've got Greek, Indian, Jewish, Chinese, Korean, Nearly every possibly South and Central American population, Guyanese, Carribean, etc. We've got just about everyone covered.
A few months ago, I got an email from another parent accusing the school Ellie goes to of racial segregation. I was floored, completely at a loss as to how to respond. Had he ever been to the play yard or any part of the school for that matter?!?!? It turns out the answer to that was no. If he had, he would have found it quite impossible to support such a theory. If there's one thing Ellie's school has, (and it's missing a lot of things... like recess) it's diversity. And I'm going to miss it!
I love that Ellie knows about Eid, Hunakkah, and Chinese New Year not as some ethereal holiday that exists to someone, but as holidays that are celebrated by people she knows. I know there will certainly be some of that in Patchogue, but probably not as much.
Just yesterday I had the chance to go on a class fieldtrip to a local "farm" and while I was there I asked some of the other parents if their kids spoke any languages other than English. Here are the responses I got (And keep in mind, these are only the ones I asked. I guarantee most of the other ones speak a second language since most of them are 1st or 2nd generation Americans).
Ellie - nope
S.- Spanish
Z.- Urdu
D.- Hebrew & Spanish
M.- Italian
M.- Polish
E.- Russian
Z.- nope
F.- Chinese
Should I be mortified that Ellie is possibly one of two students in a class of 21 kindergartners who don't speak a second language????
7 comments:
I bet you haven't got cowboys, though. We keep pretty close tabs on them out here.
You will be happy to hear, then, that a Pakistani pastor is getting baptized into our (your soon-to-be) ward, so we have Urdu covered. :) He'll be losing his job because of his conversion, though, so if you know of anyone hiring ...
Monica - that's awesome!!! Alas, I don't know anyone hiring Mormon pastors... I'll keep my eyes out.
And yes, we are dramatically short on cowboys. I do know one, but he's a grown-up... does that count?
Diversity. Truly a great thing that cannot be duplicated or manufactured.
When I grew up in Brooklyn (Borough Park) it was the end of WW II and many Jewish people came from Poland, Hungary, Germany,France and Russia....many languages ....but they all also spoke Yiddish. John recently read a book about how Yiddish was everywhere in Europe.
Today Borough Park has more Jewish people than Tel Aviv or Jerusalem !!!Mom-Old New Yorker
That's awesome. You don't get that kind of experience everywhere. You know, Ellie may have picked up some of each of those languages from her friends and is now uber-lingual (I don't know a term for speaking 15 languages).
Our kids really should speak another language (ahem, Ernie), but I guess we're just going to be satisfied to let them LOOK diverse :) Gee whiz.
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