I recently moved to the USA, from the middle east. My English is pretty good, and I don’t have a lot of trouble communicating with people at work or in stores. I also don’t know anyone here at all, outside of work. All my family is still back in Gaza, and I’ve been here over a year now, and still feel cut off from American people and culture.
How do you make friends and socialize here? How do I learn more about America and Americans culture? I know a bit about history, but not much about anything else.
I don’t drink or go to bars, for religious reasons. I have joined a couple of clubs based on hobbies, but still feel disconnected. I’m not sure how you socialize or meet new people here, in my family everyone came around your house all the times of the day, and here it seems like neighbors just stick to themselves. I don’t want to bug people or anoy them if that is not the customs here.
Also, what are your favorite parts of American culture and history? So far I have enjoyed Nascar and monster trucks very much, and studying mathematics.
It is very sad for me too see this. America was always held up as an example to me, as a giant melting pot of different cultures and classes, where women and queer and minority people and everyone could be friends alongside everyone. I don’t know what changed , or if that was just a dream. It seems like people just stick with the people and cultures they know and grew up with here, for the most part. Still much better rights for me than in Gaza, maybe it just " grass is perfect on the other side of fence, until you get there." kind of thing.
There has been a decline in third places. There was a decline before the pandemic but the pandemic made it worse. Here’s an article about the decline in America specifically and the newer ways people are trying to connect. It won’t help you make more friends, but will help get perspective of one of the reasons things have changed.
It used to be like that. The last 25 years have changed this country drastically, and not for the better. It’s been really sad to watch this great nation crumble from the inside out.
Parks, bars, book stores, stores that cater to your hobbies, and staying with events until the introverts are more confortable talking.
If you’re hobby can be done alone and people are going to meet ups, then they’re hoping for connections, too. They may just want to make sure you’re not a random.
Coffee can take the place of alcohol as a adjusted experience, if that works for you.
Chicago, IL is going to be a lot more segregated than somewhere in California, or Southern Texas. There are so many mixed ethnicities that it becomes a non-issue and everyone blends together. It’s less prevalent as you move further north, since Caucasian becomes a heavy majority and there are far fewer groups of other ethnicities.
You fell for the propaganda
Edit: the melting pot analogy is accurate, if you picture the rich turning up the temperature and stirring the pot…
Maybe you fell for the propaganda. My friends group consists of native Americans, Eastern Indians, BPOC, Mexicans, Chinese, SE Asians, and Caucasian.
It is very funny to me when young Americans complain about rich people. Almost all of you have a few solid meals a day, often hot food with meat. You have clean water all over the place, and you can even waste it to flush toilets and make fountains. You drive expensive cars, ( yes, even the ones you call cheap,) buy new phones and computers. And then you complain that your air conditioned apartment could be a mansion, that your car could be a Ferrari, that your stable, clean job of sitting at a computer could just be you sitting at home. That you college degree you bought cost too much, and no one told you it took money to get fair treatment. All because those rich people above you don’t care about you and just want to make money for themselves. So far this is the main thing I do not like about the USA.
I didn’t choose to be born in the US. Just because other countries have it worse doesn’t mean we can’t complain about how the corporations of this society are systematically strangling the paycheck to paycheck workers that essentially run this country. They keep us divided, angry at each other and focused on minor issues instead of working to help the starving/mistreated in the US