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And Now, a Glorious Tiny Desk Concert by Mexican Singer-Songwriter Natalia Lafourcade

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wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam11/03/2017 8:53:09 pm PDT

re: #102 HappyWarrior

I’m not surprised by that. I hear ya about the personal freedoms thing. I was talking to my mom’s cousin about her mom (my mom’s dad’s older sister) and my great aunt who was born before my great grandparents were naturalized said that what struck them when they got here from Slovenia and the Austro-Hungarian Emprie was that they had a lot of individual freedoms and they didn’t fear being watched. Plus, I am sure family connections was another thing too. I think the best thing an American can do a foreign visitor is be as friendly as possible. I hear an accent I don’t know, I honestly do want to knwo where these people are from. The beach resort town I go to has a ton of Eastern European kids that work at the restaurants and bars in the summer months and they’re nice kids. I’m often curious to talk to them because a lot of them are Slovakians and when I find that out, I point out my own roots in that country. I think they A) Appreciate an American knowing their country and B) Not just assuming they’re Russian.

I never had the chance to ask my grandparents about their emigration from Sweden — they had all died by the time I was born — but their reasons were probably not all that different from my Chinese students’ desires to emigrate. Nineteenth-century Sweden was (a) overpopulated and (b) depressingly hidebound about social class and religious beliefs. Swedes came to America to escape that kind of oppression as much as to better themselves economically.

Now I feel that the USA is gradually becoming as hidebound about social class and religion as the Old World once was, at least within certain demographics.