I like foreigners better.

Well, maybe that title sounds mean, I enjoy talking to foreigners ....more....maybe there's just not a delicate way to put it. I think Americans can be very rude, unfriendly, selfish, opinionated, defensive, arrogant, entitled, pompous ....yea, I guess that sounds a little mean-and in fact in my colorful description of Americans I, an Americano, am being a little rude...unfriendly....opinionated...defensive.... arrogant and entitled to say all of it!

What does this have to do with my LIFE LIST and my blog?! Nothing really, I just received one of the nicest emails ever and it got me thinking about WHY I gravitate to my foreigners so much... part of the reason is that they are a TREAT to talk to. Their accent alone is completely endearing, the formal words, phrases and displaced conjugations are precious, and the way they put a sentence together can be so poetic! So here's part of the email I just received from Pricilia, my Brazilian mom friend....

"We love our friendship. One of the best things that happened to us here in U.S!"


then recently, I had sent her a thank you card, two days later I received a card from her telling me she "will guard this letter like it is a treasure"

One time I gave my friend American friend "Shammon" (name change to protect her reputation) a sapphire ring that my first boyfriend had given me at 14..... and she pawned it for $10 reasoning that "a pack of smokes was a pack of smokes man". I gave Pricilia a piece of paper and she's guarding like a treasure. Nice, Shammon, real nice. 


I just wanted to share her sweet words with you, sometimes I hear people say such unkind things about our immigrants living her-they're so ignorant I will not even repeat them- I just want to do everything I can to encourage every American to simply be friendly to the foreigners who have left everything behind to live in this country and to understand that our cultural differences are just DIFFERENT-not wrong or bad.

I cannot imagine how trying, stressful and emotionally wearing it would be to move to a new country, where you don't know anyone, you don't know where anything is, you don't have credit, you don't speak the language.... I would NEVER be brave enough to take on something like that.....but mostly because I cannot stand the complete disregard for decent television programming in other countries.

This post is totally apolitical and not an invitation to have a discussion about immigration policies in the U.S. it's just a slight nudge on the back to ask someone where they're from, learn something about the culture of a local business owner or look up a word in a co-workers' mother language to make them feel welcome and that someone has shown an interest. 

'My' Brazilian and 'my' Russian have deeply enriched my life and my daughters life-to read about how we hooked up with them click on their links above!