“What diversity means to me: An extra credit assignment.”
What is diversity?
I treasure diversity. Living in the most diverse county of the most diverse country in the world, and going to a diverse high school and one of the most diverse colleges in the country will do that to you.
Diversity, first and foremost I think, means understanding. Diversity without understanding leads to confusion and then dislike and hatred. In a country like America, one must recognize other cultures in order to properly communicate, understand, and live and coexist with them. What happens if this doesn’t happen?
You get situations resembling the one in lower Manhattan, where 9/11 families are protesting a planned community center, that they are calling a shrine to the Islamic terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center because the top two floors are devoted to a Muslim prayer space. You get situations resembling the one in Michigan a few years ago, when residents in several towns protested after Muslims were allowed to amplify their call to prayer five times a day. You get situations like the one out in Long Island where Latino immigrants are being harassed and assaulted.
So unless American citizens learn to truly understand and respect our diversity, we can never be able to enjoy it, and these problems will in fact grow worse, because we are only growing more diverse by the second.
Secondly, diversity for me means development, and by that I mean personal development and growth. I grew up in Richmond Hill, a community largely populated by Indians and West Indians, and I went to elementary school and middle school with the same. But going to the high school I went to really shaped who I was because of the diversity I experienced there. There weren’t just Indians, and West Indians, there were Asians, white people, black people, Hispanics, etc. And because there were only about 400 people in our school (and 100 in our grade), we were able to become a small community and enjoy our diversity more. For the first time in my life, I hung out with Asians. In eighth grade, I didn’t know where Flushing was, but when I was in high school, I was going there all the time to eat, or play basketball, or just to meet up and chill. So diversity is an important part of one’s development because it enables one to open up and experience things that he or she hasn’t experienced before.
Which brings me to my last point which is that diversity also means exploration. There is so much to discover, not just in New York, or even America, but the world. Different cultures, lifestyles, food, music, ideas, religion, etc; there are all these things to find, and none of them would exist without diversity! One could sit and accept his or her own culture/life and not attempt any exploration of diversity, but life would then be pretty bland.
Diversity is an important concept to me. It’s important to treasure diversity because, especially in a country such as America, it’s extremely important in shaping your life and helping you to discover who you really are.
