It is cold today. It was cold yesterday. And I’m not just saying that because I’m from California. Wind chill could bring it down to -8 they said on the weather today, though the thermometer will read in the positive. While yesterday was 10 degrees warmer, it was windy. I’ve learned in my few months here that the wind is more of a factor in how cold it feels than the temperature. 19 degrees can be pleasant and it can be biting. It depends on the wind. 19 degrees can be exhilarating and refreshing. I love that I know this, as I would not have guessed it to be true three months ago. I love learning these new things. I like learning things in general.
Learning about the weather is so much easier than learning the culture. I can now “so…you know…for cute” with the most local of us, but some things are still surprising to me. I went to my daughter’s middle school choir concert last night. There were some differences to similar events I attended in California. The most obvious was the increased ethnic homogeneity, especially in the honor choir. There were only a few kids who did not appear to be of European origin. There were many, many blond singers, definitely a change from my daughter’s CA elementary school that was 30% Israeli, with significant East Indian, and Asian populations. The program consisted of about half Christmas songs, with no songs about winter holidays from non-Christian traditions. This simply would not have happened in California. It would have been seen as offensive to the large number of non-Christians attending the school. It was the first night of Hanukah and there was no Hanukah song. I was actually surprised by that, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been.
Of course I have seen the demographics of the Fargo-Moorhead area on paper. We are 93% white. The community I moved from is only 37% white. I know there is only one small synagogue in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I know that the non-European populations here tend to either be Native or new immigrants. I know that both populations can find it difficult to engage in school activities. One has a history of American public schools being used as instruments of cultural eradication; the other is still trying to figure out how they want to engage in American culture. I could have guessed what the choir would look like and that the selections may not represent the beauty of the diversity of the United States as a whole.
What I didn’t expect was the difference in the behavior of the parents. I moved here from Silicon Valley, a culture built by its relationship to technology. When I went to my daughter’s first school performance, led by the music teacher on Halloween of her kindergarten year, I missed seeing most of the performance. I was there, sitting in the rows of chairs put out for parents. I was even fairly close to the front, row 4 or 5, if I remember correctly. I stood once to see my daughter and try to take a picture, but that was the only part of the performance I actually saw. Instead I saw the backs of the parents who were swarmed in front of the front row and in the aisle like paparazzi, holding up their ipads and iphones and cameras, not watching the performance live, but on the little screen of their device. I wondered how many of them would watch their video later, realizing they missed seeing the actual performance. It was the same throughout my daughter’s elementary career. I learned where to sit so I could see past the wall of parents with devices and I chose, most of the time, to watch it live and remember it in my brain, though I did try to get one good picture of each event.
So last night I took out my phone and focused it, as best I could, on my daughter, who happened to be standing center stage in the second row of the choir. I was trying to get my one good shot. I hear the man sitting behind me say to his neighbor, “She’s taking a picture with her phone. I guess I could do the same.” I was sitting in the second row. My husband was also taking pictures with his phone. I didn’t see anyone else taking pictures. They were watching the performance live, as it happened, as it was meant to be enjoyed. This was new and refreshing for me.
I often wondered in my tenure as a California school parent what effect having life-long paparazzi will have on our kids and I tried to be reasonable in my inevitable paparazzi behavior with my own kid. I scoffed at the worst offenders, judging their helicopter parenting. And now, it seems, by comparison, I may be one of the worst offenders in this new community. The increased freedom children and youth can have here in Fargo-Moorhead was one of the first things I appreciated. Now, I think, I am beginning to understand how differently we engage with our children here than in Silicon Valley. It will be fun to continue to explore these difference as I learn more about the culture here in Fargo-Moorhead.
Learning about the weather is so much easier than learning the culture. I can now “so…you know…for cute” with the most local of us, but some things are still surprising to me. I went to my daughter’s middle school choir concert last night. There were some differences to similar events I attended in California. The most obvious was the increased ethnic homogeneity, especially in the honor choir. There were only a few kids who did not appear to be of European origin. There were many, many blond singers, definitely a change from my daughter’s CA elementary school that was 30% Israeli, with significant East Indian, and Asian populations. The program consisted of about half Christmas songs, with no songs about winter holidays from non-Christian traditions. This simply would not have happened in California. It would have been seen as offensive to the large number of non-Christians attending the school. It was the first night of Hanukah and there was no Hanukah song. I was actually surprised by that, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been.
Of course I have seen the demographics of the Fargo-Moorhead area on paper. We are 93% white. The community I moved from is only 37% white. I know there is only one small synagogue in the Fargo-Moorhead area. I know that the non-European populations here tend to either be Native or new immigrants. I know that both populations can find it difficult to engage in school activities. One has a history of American public schools being used as instruments of cultural eradication; the other is still trying to figure out how they want to engage in American culture. I could have guessed what the choir would look like and that the selections may not represent the beauty of the diversity of the United States as a whole.
What I didn’t expect was the difference in the behavior of the parents. I moved here from Silicon Valley, a culture built by its relationship to technology. When I went to my daughter’s first school performance, led by the music teacher on Halloween of her kindergarten year, I missed seeing most of the performance. I was there, sitting in the rows of chairs put out for parents. I was even fairly close to the front, row 4 or 5, if I remember correctly. I stood once to see my daughter and try to take a picture, but that was the only part of the performance I actually saw. Instead I saw the backs of the parents who were swarmed in front of the front row and in the aisle like paparazzi, holding up their ipads and iphones and cameras, not watching the performance live, but on the little screen of their device. I wondered how many of them would watch their video later, realizing they missed seeing the actual performance. It was the same throughout my daughter’s elementary career. I learned where to sit so I could see past the wall of parents with devices and I chose, most of the time, to watch it live and remember it in my brain, though I did try to get one good picture of each event.
So last night I took out my phone and focused it, as best I could, on my daughter, who happened to be standing center stage in the second row of the choir. I was trying to get my one good shot. I hear the man sitting behind me say to his neighbor, “She’s taking a picture with her phone. I guess I could do the same.” I was sitting in the second row. My husband was also taking pictures with his phone. I didn’t see anyone else taking pictures. They were watching the performance live, as it happened, as it was meant to be enjoyed. This was new and refreshing for me.
I often wondered in my tenure as a California school parent what effect having life-long paparazzi will have on our kids and I tried to be reasonable in my inevitable paparazzi behavior with my own kid. I scoffed at the worst offenders, judging their helicopter parenting. And now, it seems, by comparison, I may be one of the worst offenders in this new community. The increased freedom children and youth can have here in Fargo-Moorhead was one of the first things I appreciated. Now, I think, I am beginning to understand how differently we engage with our children here than in Silicon Valley. It will be fun to continue to explore these difference as I learn more about the culture here in Fargo-Moorhead.