Reply #32: My point is that Americanizing things is often to hide a foreign background. [View All]

[Hepburn]

My grandmother was horrified over her pieced ears because to her it seemed foreign. She would wear her hair to cover the holes in her earlobes ~~ her ears were pieced when she was a baby. She was born in 1904 in Europe. Because of this, she was totally uptight about me or my mother piercing our ears. Soooo...to honor her request ~~ and she has been dead for about 30 years now, I never pierced my ears and my mother, who is now also deceased, never pierced hers.

So...it is NOT just a name thing. If you do not have a foreign background, maybe it is hard to explain about the idea of being "Americanized." Each person who has a close tie to a foreign county in his/her background deals with it differently. To some people, it is of no consequence and to others, it is a mega big deal ~~ either in a good way or a bad way.

To me, I am mega proud of my foreign background and love to share this with others. Maybe that is why I have such unusual friends from so many different backgrounds and places ~~ my background has made me very interested in how others see things.