There was a story that I once heard when I was younger that was titled “Annie’s Apples.” It was the story of how a little girl named Annie was picking apples with her grandmother one fall day and Annie began to notice how her grandmother had a bucket full of red apples and her bucket was full of green apples.
Next, she began to notice that there were yellow apples to be picked as well. “Grandma, why are your apples red and mine are green?” Her grandmother takes a yellow apple, a green apple and a red apple and lays them out in front of Annie. “Apples are just like people. We are all different on the outside, but once you peel the skin off you can’t even tell the difference.” Although I heard this story as a child, I grew up and realized that those apples helped me understand the art of diversity on a college campus.
Being on a college campus is one of the best experiences one can have. It gives each student the opportunity not only to be educated academically, but also socially and culturally. But how many students actually will take the time to learn about other cultures that they see bits and pieces of each day? How often do we as people find the courage to step outside of our comfort zone and learn about other types of people? Surprisingly, not many tend to do that. It is human nature to gravitate more toward people and cultures to which we have the most similarity. Whether it is living in a dorm that is predominantly one’s own race or attending an event that identifies more with one’s own culture, we usually will go to where we feel most comfortable. But isn’t part of the college experience getting to know people from backgrounds and cultures that are different from your own?
While attending high school, most students were among others that shared the same values, shared the same cultural backgrounds and most likely were members of the same race. After graduation, they were immersed in a campus where the same atmosphere is not the same as it was in high school. In fact, the diversity of a college campus is the next small step into the real world, and how one can adapt to such a diverse community might have an effect on how they can do so in the real world.
Attending campus programs such as the Multi-Racial Unity Living Experience and being enrolled in classes that discuss various cultures are just two ways students have attempted to learn about other cultures. The students and faculty who have these discussions really try to formulate ways for students to vocalize their thoughts and opinions on social topics to get a sense of different views outside of their own. It is in these instances that you witness students who are willing to embrace their differences but also work to successfully find similarities between them and someone else.We are so quick to judge other cultures based off what we see in the media. But if we take those same stereotypes with a grain of salt and actually learn about those same cultures through people of those cultures, most of those stereotypes can and will be proved false.
Why go off media portrayals when you can walk into a classroom, dorm or cultural program and learn a little more about the truth? In doing so you just might find within all of our differences we have many similarities.
It’s just like the story of Annie and the apples. We all might come from different orchards and on the outside come in different shapes, sizes and colors. We also might have different appealing tastes and might even sound different. But underneath all those differences, we all are still apples immersed in a flavorful world of different cultures, classes, races and walks of life. Have you tried a new apple today?
Ashleigh Rogers is a State News guest columnist and journalism and Spanish senior. Reach her at roger125@msu.edu.
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