Integration and making American friends.
I am an Indian and bought house few months back in a “community” - we are the only Indian family. My neighbors are all white Americans. Found that my neighbors are hosting weekly poker game for all the families but they don’t include us despite expressing interest. I tired communicating with them by inviting all to my house for catered lunch to know us but only one turned up. One of my neighbors keeps Foxnews running continually on his garage tv and introduced himself as proud redneck from Idaho. The other one always wear NRA shirts. My kids get bullied by kids and I saw my neighbors kids running to my house, ring the bell and run away fast (I installed cameras that captured this - I didn’t bring this up thinking kids are kids). My son went to play them and came back saying that they were mean to him. I really want to integrate and live in harmony respecting local culture but I am not able to make any non Indian family friends in US. I installed Christmas lights even though I don’t celebrate it, wear Seahawks and Mariner shirts and read about football and baseball to initiate conversations, tried celebrating Halloween, Easter hunt in my community etc etc but I am not able to make any American friends!
Yes in a suburb of Seattle (will keep the exact location out).
Tell us the name of the town!
Aww my heart sinks just hearing this story. Best of luck mate.
Y keep the location out?
My cousin was bullied in school too because he topped the class. He is American by birth but white kids yell ‘go back to your country’. How do kids know all these shit. Of course because their parents talk all these things at the homes. He was bullied for the Indian food he took in the lunch box. Later my aunt started giving him money to buy or European style food in his lunch box.
My son doesn’t want any Indian food to school to - he wants sandwich, pasta, cheese sticks etc. or buy the pizza they provide.
All immigrant kids go thru that, well unless you are in Fremont or something
Sadly there are a lot of backwards racist people in the suburbs. You may unfortunately just have to wait for some of them to die off or leave so better people can move into the hood.....
This is not a troll post. Many Indian families have described similar experiences to me.
I would try making friends at work instead (kids should also make friends at school) and consider moving to a more diverse neighborhood. Your neighbors sound like weird assholes. A certain amount of bullying and doorbell ditching is common for kids but the lack of attempt to include you or accept an invite sounds off.
Also if you want to keep trying to make inroads and you aren’t morally opposed to it, tell the NRA neighbor you’re interested in learning how to shoot and ask him for advice on the best way to learn. He may offer to take you to a range or for you to go with him next time he goes. I’ve done this for friends and coworkers many times. He may ask you why you’re interested to make sure your intentions are good and to help you figure out what to learn how to shoot, so think about why in advance so that discussion doesn’t feel weird to him in case you’d be standing there struggling to come up with a good answer. Gaining common ground with him in a way like this may help ease things along.
East side suburb? I lived in an all white neighborhood for 3 years and most neighbors were friendly.. again not friends but friendly but I get that.. whenever we would cross paths they would greet us with a warm smile but I never got to know them personally which was okay by us.. I don’t think in our community people really interacted much which seems common here.. if you feel isolated you should move to a more diverse neighborhood.. if you feel your child is bullied you should definitely consider moving since that can leave a lasting impact.. in Seattle market it is not too difficult to sell your house though it is sad if you need to do that because of this reason..
Integration is not the same as inserting yourself in your neighbors lives.
Devils advocate
Not exactly. This reads like laying the entire goal of integration on the neighbors. There are many approaches and sources to do this. And expecting your neighbors to become cultural ambassadors is a big expectation. Remember, you don’t have shared social interests automatically with a neighbor. Just shared economic interest.
Is this in Seattle?