Community in the Western World

BY AISSATA

“We all need someone there for us. And as my dad says, it's so important that we find that sense of community in any way that is right for us.”

Aissata: My dad is an immigrant from Mauritania in West Africa, and he moved to the U.S. in 2002. He had to adapt to Western culture, which was a huge transition from his normal life back home, and I've always wondered, as an American growing up in Western culture, growing up in a world so different from my dad, what the culture difference was like for him, what shocked him the most.

Dad: The biggest cultural difference when I moved here is that I did not speak English. And I have to learn it fast. Really, really fast. When I start working, I didn't know. It was just subtle things in American culture. And I learned my lesson... once in a while your mom would put me, "so you don't say this, you don't say this, you don't say it."

But the biggest shock I have is learning that in this country, when you get old people send you to a house where you have no relatives. It's just people, as strangers taking care of elderly. It took me, it took me years to wrap my, my mind around it. And I brought it to your mom. I said, Oh, if your mom get old, I think she needs to come stay with us. And your mom say, “Why?”

I said, why are you sending them to the nursing home? It doesn't make any sense. If we have a room, they should stay with us until the last day. And that's the way it should be.

And I miss too, that point of view, haven't changed. To me, if you love someone that, your parents that take care of you, when you were young, you couldn't do anything, preserve you from hurt, nurse you, and did everything, pay the school. Everything. If they cannot take care of themselves, that should be your job. The role have to be reversed. And that's a belief I haven't changed.

The aspect I think that bothered me more that when I talk to people about it, they say, “Oh, that's not my job, because I have my own family.”

And the hard part of it, they have family because of that person. Who's all. If it wasn't that person, they will not exist. I think the fact that people reduce family to, to mom, dad, siblings, is take away this, humanity, that makes society as a whole. They don't think about what other people will feel about it.

And I think that it's born. It's my front belief, it's born from the fact that we reduce family to two, three, four people. Beyond that, it's not our, our problem. I think that's, that's, that's a shock. It's still a shock to me. Back home, our family home, when my parents get old, there, they hit 60, my mom never cooked again. Never.

My brother's married and the wife come and they take care of them. They don't do anything. They sit in, they go see their friends. They do whatever they want. When my Dad turn 90, 90s, my brothers made sure that he's taken care of in a particular way. When it come to diet, when it come to, he have his own stuff that is regular, and all the kids or the kid that are not in the house, help him, will send them money to help the brother take care of dad and mom. That's where me, being in United State, I don't feel bad because I know they are taken care of. And I think that's, it's a sense of… belonging to a community where you feel safe. It doesn't matter what happen. And often I talk to your mom, I said, people are stressed all the time here. And often because they don't have a community, they don't have a sense of belonging to a community. For example, if you lose your job, you are on your own. Period. In Mauritania, you lose a job, your brother, your cousin, your uncle, your dad will tell you, come stay with us until you get a job.

You don't have that stress of life. You don't know when… what is next? Tomorrow? What is tomorrow? Is tomorrow is a firing? What going to become of me? I am at the mercy of how many month severance I have from my job until I find another one. You don't belong to any where, to any community. Be sure, you will be lonely if you are on your own, because you will not have this, those people who cares, cares about you.

Aissata: His response has made me think about the importance of family. My dad has always made us think with an open heart to be more generous and caring. Family is a large part of his life, and as he said, his culture as well. We often take the small things in life, like community for granted, which I believe leads to unhappiness.

We all need someone there for us, and as my dad says it's so important that we find that sense of community in any way that is right for us. Although our lives may be busy, it's so incredibly important that we take a step back and appreciate those around us.