Last year, I was talking to a friend of mine whom I’ve known since elementary school about my oldest daughter, Juliette. At the time she was in kindergarten, and I was mentioning to my friend how Juliette was one of only two Asians in her class. The parallel was that when my friend and I were in elementary school way back when, we were the only two Asians in our class. A couple of months later, my friend dug up this old class picture where you can see the two of us amongst our classmates.

And here is a picture of Juliette’s kindergarten class (just the girls) where you can see Juliette and her other Asian classmate. They are actually best friends and even though, this year, they are not in the same first grade class, they play with each other during every break they get.

While I was growing up, nearly all of my school classmates were non-Asians, which was in direct contrast to my friends at church which were practically all Chinese. Juliette is in a similar situation now except that our church is a little bit more diversified being predominantly Asian American.

I don’t know that I have anything specific to say other than observations and pointing out the parallels. My thought is that diversity is best accomplished as an ongoing process of person to person interactions. It is when we describe or assume in generalities that we take peoples as a whole for granted.

My friend and I actually have two other classmates from elementary school whom we still keep in touch with after all these years. It’s encouraging to see that Juliette is friends with lots of her other classmates as well. One of my hopes for my girls is that they will be able to enjoy as long a friendship with all of their friends as long as I have with mine.