America is the most diverse melting pot on the planet. It’s great to be able to live in a country with so many different cultures, languages, and religions. You get to learn how each culture has their own views and some similar to yours. I grew up in a neighborhood that was prominently latino/hispanic, not that it was a bad thing, but there wasn’t much diversity around me. During my elementary and middle school years, I pretty much had the same classmates year after year. It was nice to grow up with the same people, but a little change doesn’t hurt anyone. I was also part of this latino majority. The language spoken around the neighborhood was mostly Spanish which I also speak adequately. My parents are Catholic so that’s what I grew up believing in. I’m not complaining about any of this, I just wanted to tell you the background story.

After middle school, I was notified that I had gotten accepted into a great high school in Boston. The only thing was that the school was in a completely different neighborhood that I wasn’t familiar with at all. I was a little hesitant to go there, but I was like “you know what? I can’t pass up this opportunity to this great school just because it’s in a different neighborhood.” I also didn’t want to go to my neighborhood’s high school because I knew the majority of people who were going to go there anyways. It was time for me to make a change in my life and meet new people. I mean I knew two people who were going to the same high school, but I didn’t really associate myself with them so it was basically a totally new school for me. I remember my first few days of classes, I was very nervous because I knew absolutely no one whatsoever. Some people there had grown up with each other so they knew one another, but not me.

A few weeks into school, I started making friends and the squad just kept getting bigger and bigger. I was meeting people from all kinds of countries like: Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, China, Portugal, Cape Verde, Brazil, Philippines, Nigeria and so on. The diversity in my group of friends was just amazing. I had never had such a diverse group of friends until high school. I was really happy with all the friends I had. I even met people from countries I didn’t know existed like Cape Verde, Philippines, and Albania. I’m not completely ignorant, you can’t blame me, I never took geography in middle school. My classmates were basically helping me learn geography without even knowing it plus the neighborhood I grew up in wasn’t really diverse. I was mainly exposed to latin american countries. The diversity in the school really broaden my perspective on the world.

Honestly, going to that high school was the best decision I made. I met some really great people who didn’t make fun of you for being smart, but supported you for your intelligence. The diversity within the school really expanded that intelligence to another level. I wasn’t just exposed to different perspectives, but also to different kinds of delicious foods. Getting to know another culture always means getting to expand your menu. Having more food to try is great, but also being exposed to new genres of music can be fun. The more, the merrier. There are always going to be differences, but you never know who you’re going to bond with. Your best friend can be from totally different place from you, but be the best friend you’ve ever had. We may all be from different places in the world, but we are still humans. The color of our skin, the religion we preach, the country we are from, or the language we speak doesn’t take that humanity from us. The more we learn to appreciate and understand other cultures, the better off the world will be.