I'm glad to say that Abilene is starting to have a bit more of a multi-cultural feel to it, due in part to an organization bringing in 100 refugees a year. It's been going since 2004 here in Abilene. Our neighbor is a teacher and she told me our public school system has 127 languages spoken among the students. I'm sure the number sky-rocketed when the refugees started coming. I just get a thrill out of meeting people from different places. When in Houston, I always see people from vastly different cultures. My ears dance with the musicality of other languages. My eyes cheer as I see clothing made (and worn) in India, Africa, Asia... Abilene has a long way to go to opening minds, hearts and systems to other people, but at least there has been a start*.
*As one who doesn't really know, I do think that Abilene has done a fairly good job at catering to the hispanic culture in that many banks and some businesses will make an effort to make it known that they have Spanish speaking employees. There are lots of ESL classes geared toward Spanish speakers, a huge section of Spanish materials at the library, Spanish speaking churches and of course restaurants...
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Did you know that Toronto has the honour of being the most culturally diverse city in the world? I think that Vancouver is in second place.
There was one Sunday morning when the song service was run by our African immigrants who have been attending and I heard that it was much more lively than our regular service. (Unfortunately Ruth and I were away that Sunday so we didn't experience it directly.)
I love that Canada (for the most part) celebrates it's multiculturalism. Calgary has several ethnic festivals throughout the yearL Carifest, Africadey, Chinese Street Festival, Greek festival, and several more that I am forgetting. We enjoy attending.
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