A Cultural Welcome Wagon?

It was 1970 and I remember that when we moved from the foreign country of California to the town in Oregon where I would grow up, we were visited by some ladies from the local “Welcome Wagon.” They brought a nice fruit basket, some words of welcome, and some advice as to good places to shop, doctors, dentists, and other professionals that were in the area. Apparently, the “Welcome Wagon” has been around since 1928 as their website explains, 

Welcome Wagon was founded in 1928 by an insightful marketing man in Memphis, Tennessee, Thomas Briggs. Mr. Briggs was inspired by stories of early Conestoga “welcome wagons” that would meet and greet westward travelers, providing fresh food and water for the journey. He created Welcome Wagon to embody this same spirit of warm hospitality and welcome. He hired "hostesses", women who were friendly and knowledgeable about their neighborhood, to personally deliver baskets of gifts supplied by local businesses to new homeowners. Over a cup of coffee, hostesses would tell new home buyers about local civic and cultural activities in the community while handing out gifts and coupons from local businesses. This hostess network expanded across the country until, aside from Briggs and just a handful of males, Welcome Wagon became one of the first all-woman companies in the US.

This business plan for this group found that by giving public service-type information, their representatives could move into giving coupons and plugging local businesses. It really was all about the money.

What if we, as Christian ambassadors could set aside the commercialized approaches of merchants and mega-churches always looking for market share and program growth and provide a different, more relational, and culturally helpful kind of welcome?

In my last post, I included a quote from Soon Ang, and Linn Van Dyne’s Handbook of Cultural Intelligence: Theory, Measurement, and Applications that emphasized the importance of training immigrants in the rudimentary elements of the culture of the country to which they are moving. I will repeat the last part of it here, “Immigrant cultures need to change, and people must become culturally intelligent or stay in the margins of society. People who are culturally intelligent zero in on aspects of culture that are different and respond appropriately.”

This issue was brought home to me again as I was asking a friend of mine about her own experience as a refugee from Laos in UN-run camps in Thailand and then in regards to her coming to the US in the 80s. I asked her what could have been done better and I was surprised when she said the same thing as the Handbook of Cultural Intelligence. She said it would have been better to have someone explain some of the aspects and expectations of our culture before arriving here when all the lessons come the hard way. In addition, no one explained that she could have attended high school when she came. She got a job and taught herself English working in a 7-11. She was one of the feisty ones that seem to be able to succeed despite the odds. 

Part of the problem is we tend to have cultural myopia and think everyone thinks like we do and should behave the way that we do in our native culture. What seems strange to them may be normal to us and vice versa. We need to be able to talk through the potential points of friction before it starts a fire; seeking mutual understanding instead of sitting back and complaining.

What if we were intentional about not just teaching ESL classes, but actually engaging culturally with immigrants, teaching them our cultural “dance” so that they will not be sentenced to “stay in the margins of society” like economic and political wallflowers. At the same time, it would be helpful for us to learn about their culture as well, thus mutually benefiting each other. Revisiting the "Welcome Wagon" idea, what if we also shared the lay of the land, letting newcomers know where "locals" hang out--the best places to shop, eat, and get your car fixed--without any financial kickbacks? It might actually become a wonderful neighborhood!

Finally, there has been much written in criticism of America as a “melting pot” and how it tends to homogenize cultures into one bland bowl of porridge. I prefer to think of it as a pot of soup or stew where the flavor is enhanced and made richer by the inclusion and blending of many other cultural influences. However, for this to happen well, we must do better at welcoming the stranger that stands at our door and be involved allowing them to become a friend, or perhaps family.