A Day in Diversity is a take off from 100% American by Ralph Linton.

A Day in Diversity – It is a Small World After All!

I wake up and am greeted by my lovable and loyal dog, a Chihuahua whose ancestors were domesticated by the Aztecs of Mexico, and venerated.

I make coffee with the label Folgers, but whose origins are African.

I may have watermelon, whose origins are from South Africa or eat a banana …whose origins are from South Asia. 

I put on my sweater made in China and my winter coat made in Vietnam.

I get into my Toyota, a Japanese brand name, and drive on tires made of rubber found in Brazil or Cambodia, and whose wipers were invented by an American woman.

I come to work at a college originally established by Methodists who were also Abolitionists, but with a high number of Catholic students.

I check messages on a telephone invented by someone of Scottish descent, who also communicated in Braille.  I write my appointments on my desk calendar made of paper invented by the ancient Chinese.

I speak on my cell phone, manufactured in South Korea; get tech help from someone in India; and print my payment on an HP printer manufactured in China.

In the cafeteria I will probably eat beef, sacred to the Hindus; fruit, probably from Mexico or Chile; and a glass of milk whose method of preservation was invented by a French scientist.   

If I am ill, I visit my doctor, whose name is of Bangladesh origins, who uses a stethoscope invented by a French man, and who took the Hippocratic Oath which is thought to have been created by Hippocrates, from Greece, and is believed to be the father of modern medicine.

When I get home my dinner will consist of a salad with tomatoes, domesticated by the indigenous of the Americas, and a glass of wine from Argentina, with Puerto Rican style rice and beans.

And that, my friends, is my day in diversity…

By Idali Feliciano