My early childhood was spent in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C., which at that time in the early 1970s was a uniquely progressive place. Our lower-middle-class neighborhood, large looping cul-de-sacs of red-brick row houses, contained a more diverse population than anywhere Iâ??ve lived since.
Black, white and brown people, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Jehovahâ??s Witnesses lived right up against each other; their children played together; they celebrated holidays and broke bread together; and through proximity and intimate day-to-day interaction, they learned both how alike and how different they were. From my childish perspective, multicultural integration was the norm against which all other environments would be judged.
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