Watched an interesting PBS documentary titled the 'Faces of America', which chronicles the genealogy of a dozen prominent Americans from present day to three centuries back in time. It tried to underscore the idea that through the centuries America has gone from strength to strength with the best that it's immigrants had to offer, sometimes in spite of facing severe hardship and bigotry themselves.
The courage the first migrating generation showed was to uproot their self from what was familiar to them growing up and replant themselves in a foreign setup and then begin to establish a new identity.
The present generation has the advantage of all the foundational groundwork these pioneers put in and have indeed in the examples highlighted shown how they have scaled to their respective pinnacles. From a purely genetic standpoint there is something to be said about these individual scenarios having the benefit of organic code making them successful at risk taking.
However, while a lot of these stories highlighted early settlers I can attest that it has still been a historic struggle for me and my wife who left India and our homes around 22 years of age and made the trek to seek out our own fortunes.
It has been a colorful and often difficult learning experience that in the end has proven valuable beyond measure. Avoiding culture clash while adopting and assimilating rapidly into foreign ideas to make yourself stand out (in small part) whether at work or play or in social context requires effort but America allows for freedoms to let you experiment and establish your own identity.
Our daughter growing up by contrast has not had to reconcile this in as much detail having spent her early school years in California which by its nature is a huge melting pot with cultures from all over the world coexisting in a finely balanced harmonic.
But at some point fifty or so years in the future it will be interesting to see her take on what she makes of her background and how the life she has made has been affected by our decisions today. Not just as parents but as transplants from another region of the world enforcing some of our values and views that may or may not have been congruent to her world growing up.
Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...
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