Pluralist Americans: Tim W from San Antonio
How can
philosophical
pluralism, as I described it before, guide reasonable and sensible experience
in America? I am trying to answer concretely, turning to examples of people who
have personified this pluralism for me. I
already wrote about Phyllis, a homemaker in a farm in Oklahoma and a woman full
of wanderlust. Today I want to write about Tim W, my college friend from
San Antonio, Texas.
I went to college in Arkansas on a scholarship for Central American students. I met Tim at the start of my freshman year. We crossed paths at “pledge week” for a social club on campus. My English was still broken then. I had difficulty following the thread of conversations, let alone speaking up to participate in them. By the time I had processed what people had said and had thought of what I wanted to add, the conversation had moved on. Sometimes the experience bewildered me. Tim reached out then, speaking as much Spanish as he could with me. Growing up in San Antonio, he told me, he had had many Mexican and Mexican-American friends and had learned some Spanish from them. He was a tall, big, white Texan who liked, even preferred, to hang out with Mexicans. When we met on campus, he noticed and befriended me.
He cared for me in many ways, especially by giving me rides to do chores and go on adventures with friends. Over four years together in college, we went camping, lake swimming, road tripping, hay-riding with dates, hiking in the woods, and mountain climbing with friends. He introduced me to Dr. Pepper, his favorite soda. And he drove his cool Honda CRX very fast along curvy, rural roads. So fast, that one dark night he missed a curve, and we flew off the road and across a fence right into a farm field. We landed unscathed. But Tim got scared and started cursing as he beat with steering wheel with the palms of his open hands. I slowly turned to him and said, “Calm down, Tim.” He started laughing. I guess he liked my “cool,” and I enjoyed his joviality.
The farmer, however, was very, very, very angry. His wife was even angrier. He looked at us with a stone cold expression. She had fire in her eyes and cursed at us. We flew through their fence on a Friday night. First thing Saturday morning, we were there mending their fence.
And that’s the point with Tim. He mended broken things, like communication across languages and cultures. When my English disrupted my possibility of communicating, he sought me out in Spanish, just as he sought out Mexican friends in San Antonio. A pluralist American, he was caring and attentive to difference. I write more about him in my book, Loving Immigrants in America.
After college, I did “do” one very important cross-cultural thing for him, indirectly. He moved back to San Antonio and got a job in advertising. In his office, he liked a woman from Guatemala. Thinking of how to approach her, he thought of me, walked up to her, and said in Spanish that he’d heard she was from Guatemala and that his buddy in college was also a Central American, from Costa Rica. She got curious. They started talking. Now they have been married for many years. And he always thanks me for it, tough it was all his doing. That makes me feel joyful.
I went to college in Arkansas on a scholarship for Central American students. I met Tim at the start of my freshman year. We crossed paths at “pledge week” for a social club on campus. My English was still broken then. I had difficulty following the thread of conversations, let alone speaking up to participate in them. By the time I had processed what people had said and had thought of what I wanted to add, the conversation had moved on. Sometimes the experience bewildered me. Tim reached out then, speaking as much Spanish as he could with me. Growing up in San Antonio, he told me, he had had many Mexican and Mexican-American friends and had learned some Spanish from them. He was a tall, big, white Texan who liked, even preferred, to hang out with Mexicans. When we met on campus, he noticed and befriended me.
He cared for me in many ways, especially by giving me rides to do chores and go on adventures with friends. Over four years together in college, we went camping, lake swimming, road tripping, hay-riding with dates, hiking in the woods, and mountain climbing with friends. He introduced me to Dr. Pepper, his favorite soda. And he drove his cool Honda CRX very fast along curvy, rural roads. So fast, that one dark night he missed a curve, and we flew off the road and across a fence right into a farm field. We landed unscathed. But Tim got scared and started cursing as he beat with steering wheel with the palms of his open hands. I slowly turned to him and said, “Calm down, Tim.” He started laughing. I guess he liked my “cool,” and I enjoyed his joviality.
The farmer, however, was very, very, very angry. His wife was even angrier. He looked at us with a stone cold expression. She had fire in her eyes and cursed at us. We flew through their fence on a Friday night. First thing Saturday morning, we were there mending their fence.
And that’s the point with Tim. He mended broken things, like communication across languages and cultures. When my English disrupted my possibility of communicating, he sought me out in Spanish, just as he sought out Mexican friends in San Antonio. A pluralist American, he was caring and attentive to difference. I write more about him in my book, Loving Immigrants in America.
After college, I did “do” one very important cross-cultural thing for him, indirectly. He moved back to San Antonio and got a job in advertising. In his office, he liked a woman from Guatemala. Thinking of how to approach her, he thought of me, walked up to her, and said in Spanish that he’d heard she was from Guatemala and that his buddy in college was also a Central American, from Costa Rica. She got curious. They started talking. Now they have been married for many years. And he always thanks me for it, tough it was all his doing. That makes me feel joyful.
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