When I was a teenager in high school in New Jersey, about 20 years ago, the world, more or less, seemed “white.� That is, other than a few African American classmates, everyone else that I knew and saw was white.

Obviously, that situation has changed drastically. Latino and Asian immigrants have been flooding into the USA. There are towns in New Jersey that have been almost taken over by Indians from the sub-continent of India. I worked at a high school in the San Francisco Bay area one year ago and I was astonished to see such a large numbers of Chinese students. Even some members of the janitorial staff in that high school had taken it upon themselves to start learning Mandarin! I recently lived for a time in South San Francisco and, due to a large number of businesses there operated by people still fluent only in Spanish, it was the first time in my life that I realized that I couldn’t fully get by in a city in the USA without being bi-lingual.

The world has changed. But here’s the thing I’ve begun to notice. Our understanding of other cultures needs to change as well but it has not been keeping pace. In general, the mindset of the USA is still one of an isolated country. The consequences of that still limited mindset can range from the seemingly inconsequential misunderstandings that arise in cross-cultural situations to an attack as unfortunate and severe as 9/11.

I’m just going to tell of a small personal experience that I had recently that brought this issue to mind. Last week I was hanging out with a friend of mine whose family comes from the sub-continent of India. I won’t give the real name of this friend; I’ll call him “Anand.� He is 26, a college graduate, and he lives at home with his mother and grandmother. His father passed away long ago.

After we were done seeing a movie we stopped back at Anand’s house. That’s when the “fun� really got started – for me anyway. I know enough of Anand’s language that I was able to follow a few of the simple things he said to his elderly grandmother. When we entered the house the first thing he did was strut into the kitchen and demand an explanation from his grandmother as to why lunch was not yet ready. His grandmother, for whom I felt great pity, only mumbled something in response. Anand then crashed out on the couch and I joined him. While we were kicked back watching TV, Anand’s grandmother started carrying food out to us and putting it on plates for us. I was almost mortified that she was so elderly and yet was going through so much trouble on our behalf. Anand, however, felt a little differently. Why was it, he inquired of her, that she wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping the house clean and tidy? Again she mumbled and then shuffled away.

The conversation between Anand and myself then turned to his upcoming marriage. He was explaining how he could never entertain the possibility of marrying a western woman. The Indian system of marriage, rooted in what he considered “traditional� and what we might consider “old fashioned� values, was more his style. With the Indian system of marriage, as Anand saw it, men were still dominant and woman, though not necessarily weak, at least knew their proper place. “I can act like a total asshole,� Anand assured me, “and my wife will never leave me.�

Anand’s fiancé still lives in India. After their wedding she will leave her family and all the places and people that she has ever known in order to come and live with her husband in the USA. And where in the USA will they live? Right there in that same house with Anand’s mother and mumbling grandmother!

In fact, Anand may very well reside in that house even long after his grandmother and his mother have passed away. Who knows if Anand’s own children won’t still be there even after he is gone too.

Now, how would that whole situation strike an average American? There you have a college graduate who is aged 26, lives at his mother’s home and will soon live there with his wife, has no plans to move away and believes in his right to dominate over all female members of his family. I think there are many of us “natives� of the USA who might consider Anand either a failure, a chauvinist, both or worse.

But here’s what I’m getting at. I feel that it would be a mistake for any of us to do so. From the perspective of Anand’s culture, the perspective through which he has seen the world for all his life, he is doing nothing wrong. Indian families such as his often live in “extended� (as opposed to “nuclear�) families. It is still common in such families for a new bride to join the husband’s home. The men in such families are often still the dominant and almost unquestionable authority.

In fact, Anand’s family is an example in this country of how billions of other people live all over the world. It us we “natives� here in the USA who are the oddballs on this planet with our radical notions of independence and initiative.

On what basis could Anand and his culture be judged as “inferior� or “wrong�? And if we do decide to pass judgment, would not Anand be equally justified in passing judgment on us?

There are, in fact, a number of elements of Anand’s culture that I have come to appreciate. Dis-obedience amongst younger people, even teenagers, simply isn’t tolerated and rarely occurs at all. Education is greatly valued. And marriage is still, even in the modern world of the 21st century, considered as inviolable. Even when, as Anand so eloquently phrased it, the husband acts like a “total asshole.�

What I’ve been noticing, basically, is that even though our world isn’t “white� anymore we still fail to understand the new and “non-white� elements in our lives. Are we doing so at our own peril?