As I was driving home from Lynn today, I was listening to a program on the radio of an interview with a Eboo Patel (his blog, his organization), I was struck by his statements about American’s pluralism. He summarized his organization’s goal as one which builds an environment (or in his words, a “movement”) of “religious pluralism” by fostering respectful relationships whereby people from varying backgrounds can celebrate their commonalities and at the same time understand their differences. I think this is important and all, but this idea is nothing new to me.

What struck me was when he continued to flush out the aspects of such respectful relationships, noting that we discover and define ourselves when we meet others that are different. I was reminded of my own periods of the continual self-discovery while abroad, when my homestay father and his son would ask me questions like: “Why is it that in America, people move out the house when they turn 18?” and “What is important in America?” and “How on Earth do you Americans pay for college (opening up an interesting series of discussions on the notion of credit)?” My mind turned to one of the women that we met at the New Americans Center in Lynn. She was an immigrant (or perhaps a refugee) from Russia and as I looked around her office, I noticed artwork and trinkets which encapsulated the different aspects of her culture: a matryoshka doll and a menorah both on her bookshelf, an abstract drawing of a concentration camp, and another Jewish-themed drawing on the opposite wall. Marks of a Russian Jew. My mind jumped again to a dinner conversation with my girlfriend’s father about how his grandparents were “Old Country” Russians and how the only shoes they wore were black boots that laced all the way up above the ankle. I found myself there, in that woman’s office, in the same mental pickle that I found myself in while I was in Nicaragua talking to my host-family about my (American, Jewish, suburban, twenty-something, etc.) customs. Again, I was trying to answer the question: “Who am I?” in the context of “Where do I come from?”