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Heritage celebrations and the flattening of the world

Sort of diametrically opposite notions.

As part of some Employee Resource Groups at work I happen to get an opportunity to visit with different ethnic groups that make the fabric of California. Each hosts special events that are organized by their ethnicity.

Sept happened to be Hispanic Heritage Month. While California is statistically very relevant to the Latina community and vice versa, their are also large groups represented in the form of Blacks; Asian and Islanders; Indian etc that reside in CA.

Their is also a representation for the Disabled and the Gay-Lesbian community. I wonder if there is one for the pot growers or pot consumers for that matter. Not to digress but I thought of taking a deep dive in thinking about what these groups represent.

Now it is an important group dynamic to see how people interact and what they pursue with folks of like backgrounds or culture when you visit some of these events. That said it dawned on me that the White people are actually already a minority when it comes to a pie chart analysis of the 30 Million or so that occupy the great state of CA.

Wonder how they feel about opportunities and their role in steering the future of our state.

The idea of the heritage month then is to celebrate differences and also collectively understand what the ethnic group's role in today's society is and to determine where in the pecking order of all things economic or social they stand. If there are gaps then work to define plans to address them - ask for help - monetary or time or influence.

Some facts that become clear after meeting the Hispanic folks highlights how they tend to be more engaged in low income jobs resulting part out of low levels of education and part from inability to pursue higher ed due to income constraints.

It is natural evolution for any civilization to migrate into a richer land and try to make the most of opportunities afforded to them. While their is organic growth in their numbers due to earlier generations that settled here working hard jobs, there are also Mexicans and other impoverished folk from other countries that "illegally" make it across the US border (the influence of a third world economy right next door has its pluses and minuses) and add to the growing ethnic population(s).

It is my personal experience that the Latina folk work hard at what they do and are very aware of their role in society and value the incremental good life than where they came from. In that I think they need to be congratulated and encouraged to continue to drive the productivity from the farms to the constructions sites to the kitchens of America.

Division of labor helps the entire society grow. That is not to say that they should not aspire and attempt to ignore opportunities that allow a higher paid or corporate job but that will come through a concentrated effort of working with them in educating them outside the school system, rather than political movements.

Now as far as how we end up working with various cultures in this melting pot the reality is that the Asian (Indian and Chinese) are going to cross pollinate across geographies (they make up 30% of the world populations) and we are going to see a face of the human go from white, black, brown to a light brown with darkish hair that maybe speaks a complex language called Engdirin (which is a cross of English, Hindi and Mandarin).

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