Ethnic clubs in the US.

[Jamie (K)]

Last weekend I went to a Czech and Slovak festival that was sponsored by a Czech and Slovak club in my city in the US. Some funny things happened there. One of them was that, in the middle of a very friendly conversation, I made an American woman of Czech origin extremely angry by telling her that the population of the Czech Republic has the same percentage of stupid people that any nation has. She believed that Czechs are of superior intelligence and was outraged at the mere suggestion that there are stupid, lazy people among them, as there are in any country.

This got me thinking about ethnic clubs and festivals in the US, and how odd they are.

No matter what their ethnicity is, you will find certain interesting characteristics at these clubs. Among them...

1. Their festivals are very embarrassing to people who actually come from the country the club is celebrating. If you go to these clubs' festivals, you'll find that the only people who are really from the other country are vendors at souvenir tables, and they don't belong to the clubs. The club members and event organizers are all American born and can't speak the language of the other country, and they hardly know anything about the country, at least anything that's true.

2. Many of the things that the event organizers think are "traditions" are really weird practices that were made up in the US. For example, many Americans who call themselves "Polish" (but can't speak a full sentence of Polish or even pronounce the word kielbasa correctly), will organize masses in church that are accompanied by polka music. Using the polka as liturgical music is horrifying to real Poles, but the Polish-Americans think it's "Polish" to do this. At various ethnic festivals, people wear strange clothes that they think are traditional in the country of their ancestors but are not.

3. No matter what the national origin of these Americans' ancestors, they are all convinced that the people of that nation are better looking, and inherently more intelligent and industrious than anyone else on earth. They also usually think that practically every other nation stole all their ideas and technology from their country but that the whole world refuses to admit it. They do weird "historical research" to prove this.

4. Very few of the members of such clubs are highly educated.

Have you ever visited a club like this?

[Rosalisa]

It sounds weird but interesting. I have never come across a club like this. So what do you think about it, Jamie?
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If you want to change the world, be one of the change.

[Jamie (K)]