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(More customer reviews)HERE by Doug McGill
If anyone wants a deep insight into the life and mind of a cross cultural human being in a home town in the USA, HERE by Douglas McGill is the book to read.
After 10 years living and working abroad as Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News and as a journalist for the New York Times, Doug McGill brought the world back home hence observing his own home town of Rochester, MN through a global context. Doug McGill shows us that being global is being local. The world is right in front of us. As T. S Elliot wrote: "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
McGill had material to work with since the population of Rochester has increasingly originated from countries around the world in addition to the international clientele of the world-famous Mayo Clinic. Doug McGill clearly shows his readers how local surely is global and global is local and that Rochester is a microcosm of the macro globalization we all live in in every town in America.
To be an involved citizen anywhere is to appreciate and interact with our neighbors whose cultures are different from our own - the benefit of this interaction goes both ways.
Doug McGill not only observed and shared his observations with his community through a weekly column in his local newspaper and with his blogs and website, he also translated this awareness into action. He cared enough not only to listen and give voice to his fellow citizens in Southern MN, the Anuak from Ethiopia, but to be the first to communicate through the internet about a genocide going on in their country eventually bringing about political change on another continent. McGill traveled to Ethiopia and met with key government officials and the Anuak refugees. His actions drew much-needed international attention to a genocide, and put the once-remote and unknown Anuak tribe on the political map in Ethiopia. McGill translates his cross cultural perspective to issues, goes behind the scenes to see what is really going on and then does something about it.
"Here in Rochester, we can be an early warning system for crimes and atrocities committed all over the world, which would never receive the cleansing light of international attention if not for us. We are free; most of the world is not; therefore it's our opportunity and our responsibility to be such a watchdog. We can do this simply by being open to what our immigrant neighbors say."
McGill emphasizes that with the United States' present low rating around the world, we need more Citizen Diplomacy.
"Hospitality is a critical part of Homeland Security. By hospitality, we befriend others before they become our enemies."
"My theory is that hospitality is the greatest of all the human virtues and the one that's most needed in today's world."
McGill quotes Jesus, "I was a stranger and you took me in," and the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, the Hindu sage Kabir and Immanual Kant. He encourages us all to "Invite the world into your home."
In the chapter, Teaching Beyond Arrogance, McGill quotes Jerry Hrabe, a local teacher who learned as a Peace Corps volunteer that the citizens of his host country, "they", aren't any different from "us". "We need to get past the American arrogance that we are the most important people in the world. We have a lot to learn from other countries and other people." He gives his students assignments to look at everything in their homes to see where they were made, scour the newspapers for international stories and influences and interview owners of companies to find out foreign sales, parts bought abroad, specialized positions they've hired from abroad and low-wage jobs they've sent abroad. "If you took away the foreign products and personal connections, many Rochester companies would fold."
McGill adds, "Not to mention without our foreign made clothing we'd be mighty cold in the winter. And if every "Made in China" item magically disappeared we'd be late to work (no alarm clock), unhygienic (no toothbrush), grumpy (no electric coffee grinder) and out of touch (no telephone).
HERE illuminates the concept that developing a cross cultural perspective is a way of being in this world which expands from awareness and appreciation of national cultures and ethnic identity to any one of many myriad issues in our communities and on our planet that need our attention, i.e. MN gun control laws in MN, agribusiness and the local farmers (food is a pillar of life and national security), ecology
- health of MN's waters not only as our own health but of the world's environmental health and the Mississippi River as part of the world's great webs of ponds, lakes, rivers and oceans, the Boundary Waters, MN farmers, etc.
Like MN's Garrison Keilor, Doug McGill universalizes the local human predicament in a clear and poignant way. He shows us that we can all
make a difference by being observant and responsive to our local communities. McGill has concretely illustrated what civic responsibility
and being a caring global citizen is all about and how one person can make a positive difference in her/his community which inevitably impacts outside the community in our interconnected world. So,let's begin.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Here: A Global Citizen's Journey
Here: A Global Citizen s Journeyis a collection of nonfiction essays that demonstrate the dynamic and tangible ways in which a small city in the Midwest, Rochester, Minnesota, is intimately connected to the larger world.Examples include:Thestory of a meeting of two strangers in a Rochester bar in August of 2001: one a local Rochester woman, and the other a soon to be hijacker who would fly a plane into the World Trade Center on 9-11.Accounts of a few survivors of the ethnic cleansing of the Anuak tribe in Ethiopia who now live in Minnesota. Many of these Minnesotans live with the knowledge that their friends and family have been beaten to death or have died of starvation.
Click here for more information about Here: A Global Citizen's Journey
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