Personal Experience with Ethnocentrism .
It was Christmas eve, and my boyfriend and I were at his mothers friends house for a holiday dinner. His mothers friend was European, and she still had a strong accent because she had just moved here from Europe a few years ago. We were all eating at the table and my boyfriends little brother and sister walked in to ask his mother something. They are 7 and 11. They told his mother that they didn't quite like the lamb and mint jelly and asked if they could have some hot dogs instead. The European woman instantly became red and started yelling at my boyfriend mother saying how ignorant, selfish, and stupid us Americans were. She then went on to say that she wished she had never left her country because she cannot believe how we behave and how we raise our children. .
This situation made me feel very embarrassed and offended. Sure, we do things differently than they do in Europe, but that does not give her a right to say that we are selfish, ignorant, and stupid. I do admit that the children shouldn't have asked for hot dogs instead, but you have to give them a break, they are just kids. I myself would have went for the hot dogs instead of dry lamb and mint jelly. Just because some Americans are not as extravagant and some Europeans does not mean that the right thing to do is to walk around with a cup of tea all the time. If she were to just sit back and realize that we are not such a bad group of people after all then she might have replied differently. We did not criticize her culture and her way of doing things one bit nor are we uncomfortable with they way that she does things. .
I do not think that there is much I could have done to change the outcome, kids will be kids. She should have just taken it lightly and laughed it off, but instead she acted as if it were the last straw to living in out country. I probably should have stepped up and called her on her shallow judgment, but I did not want to be rude in her own house, even though she did need to realize how shallow minded she was being.
