"I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a [sic] man is a member of human, race, and that's [good] enough for me. "
By J. T. Letowski , State College Area High School, Centre County
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A slight twist on Mark Twain's quote creates an idea that should go through every person's mind and heart. Diversity is a beautiful and important aspect of life in a community, yet prejudice is still a major issue in this nation. In a country as diverse as this one, it is sad to think that people can be discriminated against solely because of their gender, class, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. Diversity deals with these and many other aspects of human differences, but the one that has played the greatest part in my life is the abundance of different cultures represented in my high school alone. I spend a fair amount of time with the foreign students in my school, and I have learned so much from interacting with them on a day to day basis.

My parents moved to the United States in 1983, and soon after, I was born, the first one of my family to be born on American soil. As I was growing up, the culture that my parents were brought up with in Poland was always a part of our life at home; this included Christmas Eve dinners, name day celebrations, wonderful food, ethnic music, traditional dancing, and of course the Polish language. I think that since I grew up surrounded by two different cultures, I appreciate the value of diversity more than most of my friends. With time, I took my love of Polish culture and developed it into an exciting interest in ethnography. Indeed, I am fascinated with everything that is involved with studying different cultures. However, I have found that one of the most amazing and at the same time important aspects of culture, and consequently ethnography, is language.

When I entered high school, I had an opportunity to work with other people my age from different countries. Tutoring English as a Second Language (ESL) has not been a truly life-changing experience, but it has certainly become a part of my life and helped me achieve personal satisfaction while meeting many intriguing people.

I met Mai when I was in ninth grade. She was an exchange student from Japan and needed someone to help her with her English or at least somebody to practice speaking it with. One thing that I have always struggled with is working with people whom I have trouble understanding. It's not an issue of not having the patience or the desire to try to understand, but more the fact that I feel awkward asking someone to repeat themselves. I find it disrespectful to ask for a repetition of what was said, when I did not hear or understand it due to a foreign accent or any other reason.

Mai had a solid foundation in English from her studies in Japan; however, she often had trouble conjugating verbs and formulating sentences in the proper word order. Together, we devised a method that helped Mai speak, as well as write, more clearly. Every time she was unsure how to word a sentence or I was uncertain of her idea, she would write the phrase down on paper. Then we would take the sentence apart and, through a series of encircled words and arrows, we would restructure it to get the desired meaning. The rewarding thing was that after only four months time I saw a profound change in her English. I was not aware of the fact at the time, but starting with that first experience, I began understanding how foreigners learning English think about some of the simple things that come so naturally to us. In fact, I have noticed a similar trend in myself while learning French, since there are many rules in the Romance languages that are the exact opposites of rules we learn for English.

This year I have had the opportunity of working with Irena, a girl from Russia. She is very friendly and has many great ideas, however, speaking with me seems like a challenge for her. The idea of speaking with an American just doesn't seem "normal" to her. This idea must practically be a governing rule for foreigners since they form groups and do not try to assimilate themselves into the rest of the student body.

One day I asked Irena why she always gave me two-word answers or simply didn't say anything at all. Her response was simply that she hates speaking English, because when she tries to do so in her classes everybody looks at her and laughs. I know that this is mostly a conception in her head, but that is more than enough to discourage her from trying to express herself. Slowly, with encouragement, she is beginning to talk more with me, yet it is still a challenge for her. If she doesn't know how to say something, I tell her to say it to me in Russian and I'll help her translate. She often just laughs at the idea, but on occasion she has spoken Russian to me, and we worked through her idea and translated it into English. I hope that I am slowly helping her conquer her fear of speaking with others, but I know I will not succeed alone. It is crucial that we understand and value diversity in our world, because people, such as Irena, have so much to say, but are indirectly and, unfortunately, directly silenced due to a lack of patience and appreciation of diversity. If more students in my school took the time to reach out to just one student that is struggling, I think that they would not only greatly help that student, but also help them see life in a new perspective.

Immigrating to a new country seems to me like one of the most difficult things a person can do. They are often faced with a new language, culture, style of dress, value system, and many other obstacles. People always say that foreign cultures and ideas help expand our minds, yet I have found, that as a society, we are very slow at appreciating these ideas. It seems to me that in this 21st century, we would be more admiring of foreigners who have so much to offer. The sooner we understand, value, and appreciate diversity, the sooner we close the gap between countries, and the sooner we can