a citizen of worlds

A friend posted the following video a few months ago and this was my first reaction to the post, before I even watched the video: Oh please.  Stop telling me what to think and how to say it. When I ask where are you from I want to know where you feel at home. In fact, the question I’ve acquired here in Doha is “what is your country?” which is often the limit of what our language barrier will permit, but still the beginning of connection and exchange.

That is what I thought and then I watched the video. I loved it.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And now it’s International Week at the kids’ school again. My youngest came home with this sheet and a paper doll figure to cut out and decorate. The questions on the back of the sheet asked what language people speak in our home country, what kinds of food we like to eat there, and what special holidays we celebrate.

Forget about "Where are you from" -"What is your home country is even more difficult to be honest about. 

“We would like to help the children develop their awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the classmates with whom they work and play each day. One way of doing this is by discovering the many different countries that the children call home.”

Funny that the American school, of all schools, would try to simplify this so much- the United States is one of the hardest places to choose a national costume and one single language that people speak. The first food my daughter chose to draw in the box provided was sushi. For languages we ended up answering “English plus more than 300 others,” as we learned from a quick google search. We also learned that 14 million American households have a first language other than English. What would be our national costume? Sure we're American but we’ve lived in Vermont, Georgia, and California… Snowsuit? Jeans and a t-shirt? Gun?

“We would like to suggest that you focus on one country only. Perhaps next time your child has a homeland project to do, they can focus on the country of the parent whose culture was not explored this time.”

As if all the parents here had one homeland! As if each country had one single culture of its own. One woman I know resists the “where are you from?” question because her parents are from two different countries, she grew up away from both of those, her husband is from yet another country and they are raising their children in Doha. What is their country? Or parents could be from the same country but from different ethnic groups or within that country.  Or like Taiye Selasi, they are from countries that didn’t even exist when they were born. So many possibilities.

What if the school talked more to the kids about culture in terms of rituals and relationships? What if the worksheet said “think about where you feel like you’re from- talk to your parents about where they feel like they’re from. Where is home? What would you like to share about that place? What are you most proud of there? What are you most looking forward to doing the next time you are there? What cultural practices (foods, clothes, music, values, family traditions) have you added as you’ve lived in different places and/or met people from other cultures?”

I think we can do better. Let’s celebrate the school as an intersection of people with a vast diversity of cultural experiences and not limit that to “what country are you from?”

“She is not a citizen of the world, she is a citizen of worlds.” –Taiye Selasi