Benjamin’s StoryMap

With over a 90% African-American student population, my high school, University City, is not the most diverse school in the world.  But my lunch table during my senior year was very diverse.  The people at my table were black, biracial, white, and Hispanic.  We were Christian, atheist, and Jewish.  We were poor and well off.  We were also from all different parts of the world including Nigeria, Uganda, Mexico, and the United States.  We would often have debates about current events, including the Ferguson riots, gridlock in Congress, and foreign relations with Russia, Afghanistan, and other countries.  Some of these heated discussions lasted the entire lunch period. It was so cool that my lunch table friends all had such different backgrounds and perspectives on the world around them.  The Americans, including myself, viewed issues with a patriotic bias.  I held an interesting point of view as an American Jew, especially since I had just returned from a trip to Israel the previous summer as the Israeli conflict with Gaza was escalating.  But it was the international students–Adekunle, Sharmake, and Carlos–who provided the most interesting perspectives.  Adekunle is from Nigeria; Sharmake is from Uganda; and Carlos is from Mexico.  These three international students used their unique backgrounds to debunk stereotypes and to share their own views on the world.  Lunch period during my senior year exposed me to so many different world viewpoints, helping me become more globally aware.  In this StoryMap, I will reveal how each international student and myself contributed to the conversations at our lunch table.