Breaking Bread Together To Raise Awareness Of Cultural Diversity

As a general rule, my food-allergic family avoids social situations involving shared food... and potlucks have the most potential for disaster.  However, we do make an exception. Despite the risks, we always attend the Lakewood Community Diversity Potluck hosted by the Community Relations Advisory Commission in partnership with Lakewood High School's Race and Diversity (RAD) Club.

My husband and I are in a mixed-race marriage and know little about our cultural food heritage so I leave the cooking to him (and it has been kielbasa and noodles for the last three years... not sure how that fits in with our culture, but everyone seems to like it). Despite our culinary ignorance we feel it is important to introduce our children to the world around them by exposing them to people with backgrounds unlike our own.

The theme of the potluck on Thursday, January 19 was "The World Lives in Lakewood" and the program featured video biographies created by the high school students in the ESL program. Seeing photos of their homelands, hearing tales of war and abuse and learning a little about the struggles they have faced as strangers in a foreign land really made me realize how blessed we are to live here. 

Although the Diversity Potluck is growing, I am surprised that more people don't take advantage of this incredible learning opportunity. Not only are the various foods providing a lesson in cultural heritage, the high school students that participate provide great role models of acceptance and leadership that I want my children to emulate.

As they grow up, my children will begin to understand racism more (it is inevitable as mixed-race children that they will confront those issues). But for now, I am glad they are aware of each person's uniqueness and still remain blissfully nonjudgmental. Yes, they know that each person in our family has a different skin tone, but they have no use for words like "Black" or "White" since they don't correspond with any skin colors they see in real life and they don't describe anything except physical attributes.

"Why would someone make up silly rules based on what color skin they have?" my son asks. "Isn't that as silly as looking at the color of their hair?" Indeed... If only everyone were so understanding (and incredulous).

Want to introduce the concept of cultural diversity to your young ones but don't know where to start? Check out these resources (and make plans to attend the next Community Diversity Potluck):

• The Anti-Defamation League (www.adl.org) has a great deal of information available. Simply click on "Education" on the left side of the page or go directly to this link: http://www.adl.org/what_to_tell/whattotell_intro.asp  
• Go to FamilyEducation.com and type "diversity" into the search bar. They provide lesson plans, quizzes, Question & Answer pages and crafts to introduce and explore the topic with children. 
• Teaching Tolerance (www.tolerance.org) is an amazing website which serves as "A place to find thought-provoking news, conversation and support for those who care about diversity, equal opportunity and respect for differences in schools."