If you’re into counterculture kitsch, you might want to check out the nostalgia-themed resort hotel at Walt Disney World in Florida. It features a “Hippy Dippy” swimming pool, surrounded by flower-shaped water jets, peace signs and giant letters that spell out “Peace, Man,” “Out of Sight” and “Can You Dig It?” Fifty years after the … Continue reading »
culture
Immigration and the economy: Everything you believe is wrong
I am not an economist. As an anthropologist, I have been trying to write about things like cultural difference and the need for mutual respect across differences in our pluralistic nation. So it fascinates me that comments on my posts repeatedly, and often irrelevantly, argue that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans, or … Continue reading »
Fear of the Other: An anti-American position
Xenophobia: “an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.” Unreasonable. That is the key word here: not “that which is foreign or strange”, particularly at a time when the fear being stoked is of things that are not really foreign or strange. Immigrants to the US … Continue reading »