Breaking Ethnic Walls, One at a Time

During the long Independence Day break, we decided to do a family day trip to Sandy Hook, a public beach which met the criteria of not being too far away (only an hour away by car) and having a reasonably nice and clean beach and surf. Recognizing that 4th of July weekend was traditionally a busy time for the beach, and expecting high 80 degree weather and parking lots which would close quickly, we heading out early enough to get there at around 10 or so.

When we got to the beach, there were probably twenty or so other families that had already started their day. Most were mostly sunbathing, but a handful were adventurous enough to wade in the water, and there were also a few who tried their hand at some oceanside fishing, with seemingly little success.

We settled down between two families and became a little slice of diversity, a family with young girls who we later found out were from Montreal to our right, and a Hispanic family to our left. The Hispanic family to our left consisted of three young children, a middle aged women and man - both with tattoos, and an older woman.

As is the case with most beach excursions, most of the families kept to themselves, and the children in each family played only with siblings within the family. I don't get the sense that there was any distrust or dislike of others, but rather a typical northeastern American "live and leave others alone" sort of mentality. People, the conventional thinking went, were hear to enjoy family time, not to socialize or make new friends.

At some point though, my kids were playing with the other kids. Carissa, our 14-month old toddler, wasn't shy about walking over to the Canadian visitors and playing with their toddler and gratefully eating their offer of barbecue potato chips. About an hour into their time on the shore, I encouraged Daniel and Sophia to play and share with sand toys with the Hispanic kids, who apparently forgot to pack those.

Interestingly, the adults in the Hispanic family, with all good intentions, firmly scolded their kids to stop touching the sand toys that Daniel and Sophia had lent to them - until I assured them that it was totally fine and that my kids were more than happy to share. And for the next hour and a half or so, the kids played together building sand structures and looking for sand crabs and really enjoying each others' company. And for me, I have to admit having a good feeling that in a small way, a bridge was being built from a race and class perspective.

It sort of reminds me of what my buddy, the Urban Christian, wrote in a recent blog post around the rigidity of class in America:

I would submit to you that not only is class alive and well in America, but it is as rigid as it is real. If you disagree, ask yourself whether you would feel uncomfortably out of place if you tried something different. Depending on where you’re coming from, riding the bus or going to the opera or sending your kids to a certain school will seem so out of character that you can’t even fathom subjecting yourself and your family to it. We make the lamest excuses to keep from doing this – it’s inconvenient, I can’t afford it, my child won’t do well there – but I think fundamentally it is about the unstated but very real barriers that we place upon ourselves to go no higher or lower than what we understand our class boundaries to be.

Of course, I'm neither suggesting that I'm a civil rights hero for encouraging my kids to play and share with kids of another ethnic group, nor would I be so offensive and arrogant as to imply all that I'm so righteous for "slumming" my family to a public beach as opposed to going to Nantucket, the Hamptons or the Cape. Clearly what I did wasn't a big deal.

But what I do hope is that little things like these done all over the world by different people would keep moving the needle just a little bit so that maybe the next time the Hispanic adults from this family interact with an Asians, their past positive experience with our family will be an enduring positive influencer. Or maybe as 8-year old Romolo (a really affable and outgoing kid, by the way) grows up, he'll think more positively about Asians than the would have otherwise. Or maybe it helps neutralize the (sad, but real possibility of the) negative future experience that he has of an Asian storekeeper who constantly follows him around. Of course, I hope that though positive interactions, my children will also develop similarly "positive prejudices" of those of other races.

Or maybe it's just as good for the kids to never get jaded or conscious around the concepts of race and class. For all my musings, I bet Daniel and Sophia saw the experience for what it truly was - they played with a couple of kids, period.