Where do you come from? This phrase often comes up during discussions of one’s heritage. In this issue, young contributors from around the world explore food, family, and ancestry to understand deep questions of culture and customs. You’ll find articles, poems, and artwork on everything from the phrase tikkun olam ("healing the world") to triathlons.

1. Jung Woo Bae, founding editor of KidSpirit’s New Zealand Editorial Board, responds to the issue’s Big Question. He writes, “Although I live in New Zealand, I eat Korean food, speak Korean at home . . . ultimately, my Korean heritage is part of my identity.” Have you or someone you have known experienced two cultures at once? How do you understand your own heritage? How does your ancestral history compare to the culture you identify with today? Do these paths conflict or converge? How so?

2. In her emotive Interfaith Connections article “Caught in the Middle,” writer Maya Mesh grapples with one question: Can who your parents are, and where they’re from, change how others see you? Read her piece to find out her answer. Before you do, think about where your parents come from. Did you grow up in the same city as they did? The same state or country? Do you have a different cultural or racial background? How does your childhood compare to your mother’s or father’s experience? What similarities do you notice? Differences?

3. Dr. Wade Davis, a National Geographic Explorer, posits a deceptively simple question in his PerSpectives article, “A Message to Youth.” He asks: "What does it mean to be human and alive?" He encourages his young readers to explore the world, to seek teachers, to be the “architects” of their lives. In what ways do you participate in the human experience? How can you participate more deeply? How might you meet Dr. Davis’s challenge to “dream the impossible”? What are your impossible dreams?

Heritage Group Guide

I have lived in New Zealand for seven years now, though I was born in South Korea. My experiences may resonate with those who also live in a place that is not their country of origin.

I feel connected to New Zealand, perhaps because I have lived here since I was very young. I am familiar with New Zealand culture, and I feel connected to the people who live in and know this place.

When I travel to another country, I sometimes get asked where I am from.

Their eyes widen, sparking a friendly conversation. After talking for some time, I usually get asked, “Oh, I see, so you’ve lived in New Zealand for a long time…then where were you born? In New Zealand?”

Although I live in New Zealand, I live a Korean lifestyle — I eat Korean food, speak Korean at home, and carry out Korean traditions and mannerisms. Ultimately, my Korean heritage is part of my identity.

All these actions I exhibit in my lifestyle may be considered my “heritage.” However, the truth is that heritage can take numerous forms, since our cultural upbringings play a significant role in influencing it. To me, heritage refers to materials, ideas, and traditions passed down from the generations above us. This form of receiving and giving is what has kept cultures and faiths surviving even in modern times. Furthermore, heritage may be entrusted to the next generation in many eclectic ways. Some may pass it down through language, teachings, or even through the arts, such as music.

One rather striking way of passing down heritage is tattooing, which is observable in New Zealand. New Zealand is a beautiful country, home to its indigenous people, the Maori. In my view, heritage is essential for the Maori. They value everything that has been passed on by their ancestors as sacred, especially nature.

One of the unique aspects of their culture is the Ta moko. Ta moko is traditional Maori tattooing, often on the face, and considered taonga (treasure). Each moko contains ancestral messages specific to the wearer — these messages tell the story of the wearer’s family and tribal affiliations, and their place in Maori society.

The Maori people wear the moko as an expression of cultural pride and integrity. More than just a tattoo, it serves as a symbol of identity that tells people who they are and where they have come from. The moko is permanently engraved onto the skin, symbolizing how their heritage is always with them no matter where they go.

While living in New Zealand, I learned that the Maori work to maintain their history and culture. To them heritage is not only a valued treasure, but also what defines their identity.

After learning how the Maori construct their identity, I thought about my own. I have lived away from my homeland for years now, and wonder if there is a possibility that I have, consequently, been separated from my heritage.

When I scrutinize my everyday actions, I realize that my identity as a Korean is undeniable. My cultural upbringing has shaped who I am today and connects me to my heritage even though I live in another, culturally different, country. I feel as if I have a Ta moko of my own, an inked identity that signifies my heritage. This is a tattoo that only I wear and understand; it is a tattoo that reminds me of my Korean origin.

We may not know it, but we are drawn towards the “gravity” of our heritage, so to speak. Heritage is a permanent core that exists as an inseparable aspect of any individual. Like gravity, heritage acts as an attracting force that naturally pulls us to it; our heritage influences our identity, defining who we are and ingraining in us a sense of longing to be within its circumference.

As mentioned earlier, heritage is passed down by different forms of inheritance like language, teachings, or the arts. When we continue to follow the gravity analogy, these forms of inheritance can take root in us as an indescribable force that brings us back to our heritage when we stray too far. In other words, even if we try to completely separate ourselves from our heritage by living in another country, it is fruitless, as we will only be led back to it.

Having realized this, I figured that even though we may be in circumstances where we are simultaneously physically and psychologically separated from our heritage, we still retain our ancestral identity. Just as the Maori have a permanent identity that has been molded by their history and ancestors, I too have an identity that has been influenced by my cultural upbringing and country of origin.

In the end, heritage is a significant factor in our world that may represent an individual or collective identity. It exists as an innate, inseparable force that influences how we identify and perceive ourselves.

We can be separated from our heritage to an extent, but we cannot be fully torn from it. There may be times when we lose focus, but our heritage naturally draws us nearer to our original self, which manifests our ancestry and culture.

In a way, we each wear the tattoos of our heritage — indelible markings that we can trace back to our heritages when we stray too far.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Jung Woo Bae draws on Maori moko tattoos to understand his own South Korean and New Zealand transnational identity.

Inked Identity: To What Extent Can We Separate Ourselves from Our Heritage?

When discussing heritage it’s important to keep a global perspective in mind.

This is especially true in light of the rapid globalization that has occurred due to the technological boom of our recent years, giving way to a rapid conglomeration of cultures, even among the most culturally distinct regions of the world.

While cultural boundaries can still be found amidst the blending of customs and traditions, aspects of different heritages often do integrate with each other, leading to the idea of a malleable heritage — an identity that can change with time.

We frequently view globalization as a modern term, but significant anthropological evidence points towards a more archaic introduction of globalization to human civilization. More than 1,500 years ago, traders along the Silk Road — one of the world’s first transcontinental trade routes, stretching from East Asia to the Mediterranean Sea — exchanged goods and ideas, allowing for the transfer of trade secrets and techniques, many of which have since become iconic to their respective national identities.

Perhaps the most significant instance of this transmission of cultural identity occurred with the spread of Buddhism at the start of the first century CE. Although globalization today occurs at a far faster rate, this early example provides a glimpse into how we have approached the dichotomy of cultural preservation and assimilation. When monks and missionaries brought Buddhist teachings from India to China, many of their new ideas were adopted by practitioners of Daoism, a Chinese tradition that emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao, or the “flow of the universe.” Even though a number of Chinese Daoists were open to assimilating Buddhism into their lifestyles, this didn’t constitute a complete omission of their original culture in order to follow the teachings of the Buddha. Rather, they were open to inheriting the positive aspects of an unfamiliar culture and aligning them with what they already practiced in their own lives.

In recent years, China has taken a different approach to globalization. In particular, the notoriety of the Western imperialist movement into Asia has cast a dark shadow on the history of the Chinese Empire. With the flood of Jesuit missionaries into China’s ports in the 16th century, the empire’s policy towards foreigners began to change for the worse, resulting in the rejection of all Western culture. This policy was especially prominent in regards to the trade of opium, which was pushed on the Chinese by various Western nations, including Great Britain. The Chinese attempted to prohibit the trade and sale of the addictive substance, but this only encouraged the Westerners to seek alternative means to smuggle the goods into the empire. The Qing dynasty was further weakened by internal struggles and governmental corruption, and the strength of the Chinese Empire eventually broke, allowing Westerners to flood into the country. With the loss of Hong Kong and the sovereignty of the nation, Western powers suddenly had free reign to convert the Chinese to their own culture. In addition to losing control of their civilian population to the whims of the westerners, China lost a large portion of its land, its wealth, and ultimately its empire.

"The empire's policy towards foreigners began to change for the worse, resulting in the rejection of all Western culture."

While this incident may seem isolated, a similar Western infiltration also occurred in Japan, with drastically different results. Compared to the Chinese, who faced a forced conversion to Western ideals after attempting to fight the changes that were occurring within their own empire, the Japanese were slightly more willing to incorporate new ideas into their traditions. Japan had maintained an isolationist policy up until the 19th century, but its freedom from Western penetration eventually ended with the entrance of US Commodore Matthew Perry’s entrance into Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Although the Japanese initially resisted the concessions demanded by the United States, Perry’s demonstration of force and power convinced the Japanese to allow Western trade with their nation.

This decision was in part recognition of the lack of technological advances Japan had made in the past few centuries, along with the potential wealth that assimilating into the global Western economy could bring. Japan eventually transitioned into the Meiji Restoration, a period recognized for helping transform the country into a modernized nation. Although Western trade was made permissible within the boundaries of the nation, the development only helped Japan strengthen its economic and military weaknesses, turning it into a powerhouse nation that would soon be a major contributor to the global economy.

Even today, with the prevalent influences of Western culture on Japan, the country is still known for its unique literature, art, music, and religion. Although animation was invented by European and American film artists, the Japanese form known as anime has since become a staple of their culture overseas. In addition, although crocheting and knitting first appeared in ancient Europe, once the yarn arts reached Japan, they transformed into amigurumi (the art of crocheting or knitting small animals) and other recognizably Japanese traditions.

Even the popular American franchise McDonald’s has adopted special menu items and flavors — such as green tea ice cream and teriyaki burgers — in order to mimic the popular tastes of Japan. Such examples of cultural exchange even on the smallest scale are highly indicative of a nation with a fluid idea of heritage and culture.

Food, in general, illustrates that globalization has affected nearly every nation in the world. One look at how local cuisines are being consumed in foreign nations — from Indian curry in Belgium to sushi in Australia — shows there is no doubt that such examples of cultural blends will continue to blend our cultural identities. Whether we base our idea of heritage on social norms of behavior, on our arts and cuisine, or on our history and shared customs, there will never be one concrete definition that can satisfy how we think of ourselves in terms of our heritage.

History has demonstrated that viewing heritage as something malleable, as opposed to something to be preserved, yields positive outcomes. Identifying ourselves based on cultural norms that we believe to be set in stone may be more destructive than helpful. There is simply no way that we can perfectly preserve a culture throughout the years, especially if we expose ourselves to technology and the global economy. From our religious roots to our modern traditions, heritage has certainly given us a way to identify ourselves, but it’s also changing every day as we interact with different cultures and customs.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Sharon Lin stresses the importance of being open to new ideas as our identities become more and more global.

Heritage: A Malleable Identity

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle.

“Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"

“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s almost become obsolete.”

Love, as well as all other emotions, are insignificant and meaningless to most of the characters in Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver. The passage above struck me because it demonstrates the lack of emotion and honest communication in the world Lowry depicts. Centered around what seems to be a perfect utopian society, The Giver describes a boy’s discovery of the liberated life he’s been denied.

Jonas is assigned the highly respected job of Receiver of Memory. There is only one person in the community who holds memories, as it is a most painful and burdensome task. Jonas meets his trainer, called The Giver, who carries all the memories of the past, filled with both pleasure and pain. The Receiver of Memory keeps all the troubles of the past within himself, preventing the rest of the community being hampered by these memories. As Jonas is introduced to new concepts, such as pain, fear, despair, and love, he realizes that his life without them isn’t a life at all. He becomes frustrated with the world he lives in and wants to change it.

When I finished reading The Giver, I found myself comparing the book’s ideas to current society. The strict rules and orders in the book’s utopia lead to blind obedience of authority. (SPOILER ALERT!) For example, elderly people and babies with deformities are “released,” an act that would equate to murder in our present society. However, it does not seem like an unusual event to the characters in the book. They do not question anything in their world; they are ignorant about any other reality. Today, people sometimes ignore events around them and don’t see how they can change or benefit society.

The concept of Sameness bothered me while reading the book. Preventing people from experiencing pain clearly limits the growth of unique human features. Humans learn from their mistakes and gain knowledge from their experiences. Jonas’s ancestors try to create a perfect society by preempting all citizens’ independent decisions, thereby preventing people from making right or wrong choices. Over time this ideal changes, and an overly protective society is created that focuses on constraining language and emotion. For example, the concept of “love” is meaningless to Jonas’s parents. They are unable to comprehend the word or the emotion. Jonas, on the other hand, feels love very strongly, because he and The Giver are the only ones who can express or think about any strong emotions. When Jonas is first introduced to love, he realizes what his friends and family are missing and becomes motivated to bring these emotions back to his society.

Most characters in the book seem to be one-dimensional robots. Everyone is happy and has the same lifestyle. Anything that threatens Sameness is quickly removed. For example, a non-cooperating pair of twins are quickly released, so that there will be no different or unique baby growing up in that society. I find a frightening similarity between that mindset and that of ISIS, the terrorist organization based in the Middle East. ISIS and the Elders in The Giver believe that if anyone threatens their ideals they should be killed. In part of the book, Jonas says that little children who say something that defies the Sameness principles are spanked. This is ironic because the Sameness concept is supposed to prevent bad decisions, which would prevent violence.

The Giver makes us realize how thankful we should be to live in society without these limits and restrictions. We can all relate to going to a family friend’s house for the first time and having to be polite and sometimes fake gratitude and happiness. This is what the people in The Giver must feel, because they are constantly under watch. This severely limits their capability to truly enjoy anything in life, because they are unable to do anything they want or feel any way they wish.

Overall, The Giver is a well-written, simple, and deep science fiction novel that I would recommend to anyone ages 12 and above. Although the language is simple, the complex themes within the book suit a more mature audience. The book has many layers to be enjoyed by readers on different levels. Taking into account the well-constructed plot and the interesting concepts, I give the book a rating of 4.5 stars.

However, the ending of the book is ambiguous and leaves the reader unsure whether to feel optimistic or pessimistic. I encounter this in many books, where the ending leaves the reader yearning to know more. In The Giver, I wanted to know what the future of Jonas’s society would be, after all the analysis of what it was lacking. Also, the time it took me to grasp the concept of Sameness made it hard to understand the beginning of the book. However, once I understood the setting and background, it was very interesting.

The Giver reminds us that people need uniqueness in their lives and can learn from their successes and failures. Sameness inhibits growth. Ironically, by trying to prevent the feeling of sadness, Jonas’s society inadvertently ended joy. The Giver shows readers that they should never be afraid to strive to be unique, because wins and losses in life make them who they are.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Vanita Sharma shares her thoughts on The Giver, a novel by Lois Lowry.

A Review of The Giver

Maybe it was because I was only seven years old, but my patience level was near zero. When my dad finally came around the bend of that Montauk road, the crowd cheered.

Everyone was cold and exhausted, even the spectators waiting to cheer on their own significant athlete as they whizzed past. All the built-up excitement, hyperactivity, and frenzy, erupted out of me when my dad crossed the finish line. It really showed me how his hard work and effort paid off and it sparked my curiosity. I wondered whether a small boy of my size could ever achieve something like that. I longed to feel the accomplishment of finishing a triathlon.

The thing about triathlons is they are three sports — swimming, biking, and running — done in one competition. I knew I could do all those sports separately, but the tricky part would be doing them all one after another. The very thought frightened me. I was a small kid; I had never had much experience in any of the three sports and to imagine doing all three at once sounded impossible. I found myself saying this out loud and my father overheard me. He encouraged me and said I could train with him any time. Nearly trembling with excitement and fear, I accepted the challenge.

Training with my dad turned out to be very challenging, but it was a great way to spend time with him. I think it is important to state that my father is passionate to a fault about exercise. His devotion gets him out of the house and running, biking, or swimming, no matter how tired he is or whatever the weather. Once, in the freezing rain, he put on his wetsuit and swam across the local lake and back just because he felt like it.

So I agreed to train with him, and soon found out it was a big commitment. We would get up early for a morning jog, or go for a swim at the pool after school. I started to realize that my dad was competing not only with his fellow triathletes but also with himself, especially in a sport such as running. In running, it is mind over matter — I learned this watching my dad push himself despite the pain.

In endurance sports optimism is necessary — the kind of optimism that enables you to ignore the next big hill and focus on the next small step. Each leg of the race keeps getting harder and harder, so to look at the next difficulty and take it on smiling is key. Given this is not my career I try to keep it light and fun. Training sometimes feels arduous or strenuous, but I never regretted getting out of bed and doing something. These are important lessons that my dad taught me.

After I gained a certain level of experience, my dad and I began to develop a friendly competition. We would race up and down hills. Around parks. Five laps of a pool. He would always win, but the trash-talking would still ensue. This bond brought us closer together. Father and son doing triathlons together. One sharing and passing his passion down to the other.

This brings me to how awesome it was to be able to train with my dad. We usually run after school, which is something my dad did when he was a kid. Even though times have changed, that tradition still remains. I hope to be able to pass it on to my kids. I think that we all have an internalized will to maintain sound traditions and pass them on.

"I think that we all have an internalized will to maintain sound traditions and pass them on."

After a few weeks of training, I was signed up for my first triathlon.

To begin the competition, I stood on the beach of a lake, nerve wracked, next to two hundred grown men. It was 5:30 in the morning and I was up to my knees in cold water. Then I listened to the national anthem, making me feel like what I was doing was of national importance. I was out there, shivering with cold and nerves and lack of sleep, and someone fired a gun.

The gun disoriented me as I half waddled, half scampered, elbowing hairy man-arms for open water. Then I was off, swimming towards the impossibly distant buoy that marked my turn. I exited the half-mile swim and ran as fast as I could, barefoot and freezing, towards my bike. I fumbled, dripping wet, trying to mount it. Once on my bike, I found an exhilaration specific to cycling. Cycling is a natural activity for most people and time seemed to go by faster during this portion of the race.

I went through the transition zone again and switched to my running shoes. Another important part of triathlons is to transition as fast as possible, so tying my shoes quickly is something I had practiced many times before. Unlike a normal foot race, at the start of the run portion of the triathlon, my legs already felt like they were made of cement.

For me, the real competition began during the run, because now I could see each competitor as a target. No matter my position in the field, each racer was either chasing me or being chased. The running portion of the race boiled down to pain tolerance, and it was more mental than physical. One of my favorite quotes to keep from thinking about the burning feeling I had was “shut up, legs.” This was a quote from Jens Voigt, the famous German cyclist.

Then I crossed the finish line. I took a breath. At first I was calm, but then began a euphoric celebration with the other finishers. I felt like I had just discovered a community with which I had something in common. It could be that we were all blissfully insane, but I think it was really that we were all happy to have the same desire: to finish and endure a difficult race. No matter what time or place each of us achieved, the sense of accomplishment was there for all of us.

I finally felt proud to be part of a group whose initiation was an hour long multi-sport endurance race. Looking back, I remember the scrawny, impatient seven-year-old on that cold day in Montauk who thought he couldn’t do it. Now, that same kid is not only a huge fan, but also a training partner.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Oscar Luckett finds his place in a community and forges a new tradition by running a triathlon with his father.

Shut Up, Legs

A shimmering pool of knowledge;
Scintillating wisdom —
foraged from 85 fecund years

From pasting together the fragile balsa strips
of model plane

From meandering down the
sinuous lanes of Europe

From the august ivy-mantled buildings
of Georgetown

From distant tarmac
of remote British outposts

To years of tenacious political
wrangling

Fighting with the obstinance
of conviction

The laborious construction
of an iron foundation
of bracing domesticity

This pool, this lambent reservoir
winks and twinkles

And as the gyre of time turns,
it grows ever deeper.

In a KidSpirit Poem, teen writer Will Hodgkinson composes an elegy to the long and winding life of his grandfather.

Ever Deeper: A Poem for My Grandfather

Some people say that being Hispanic can mean a lot of things. It can mean that you are an honor student, a writer, a CEO, even a Supreme Court justice. But it can also mean that you are oppressed, poor, an alien, an outsider.

Being white can mean a lot of things, too. It can mean that you are a school principal, the President of the United States, House Majority Leader. It can also mean that you are racist, entitled, privileged. At least, that’s what I hear.

I am white, but I am also Hispanic. My father is Jewish and of Polish and Russian descent. My mother is a Catholic Ecuadorian immigrant who moved to the United States when she was 17. In a way, I am caught in the middle of multiple identities — race, family, religion, and how society likes to define me as a person. To white Jewish Europeans, I am neither European nor Jewish enough. To Hispanics, I am not Ecuadorian because of my religion and the way I live my life.

In today’s society, kids are used to saying phrases like “you’re so white” if you walk in the room with a Starbucks coffee, or if you use toilet paper to wipe your nose once, you are living the “ghetto life.” Kids are so accustomed to stereotyping and confining people that these comments are often overlooked, and others pretend not to hear them.

I have attended a reform synagogue in New York City for six years. I go every Monday to help teach third-grade Hebrew school, and on some Saturdays for Shabbat services. Every single time I walk into the building, I get asked the same kind of questions:

And, as I get older, “The babysitters are only allowed in 20 minutes before the kids get dismissed.”

Other kids my age walk in. Since they are more obviously white, they don’t get as much as a glance.

When I was younger, some of my older cousins thought it would be funny if they asked me, “What is your religion, Catholic or Jewish?” I had not realized yet that my parents had decided that they would raise me and my siblings as Jewish, so I answered, “both.” They were quick to tell me that I was wrong — I could not be both, that wasn’t how things worked. I was almost brought to tears, trying to make them understand that yes, there was an in-between, and they were looking at it. But no words could persuade their 12-year-old minds.

As I got older, my cousins got meaner. They loved to tease each other, and I hated it. To them it meant joking around and showing their love for each other, but to me it was a reflection of how they truly saw me. As I got older, I voiced my opinions louder. They could no longer dismiss me. I became less shy and more independent. I started to think that I could change them, make them more accepting of others and open their minds to new ways of thinking.

Little did I know that people don’t change. Nothing I said would change their minds. And I tried; I spent hours thinking about what Judaism meant to me so I could then tell them. And in those hours and conversations with my father, I figured it out. For me, being Jewish means tikkun olam or “healing the world,” having a good education, and righting wrongs while you are here. Eventually I realized that I would never get the acceptance I wanted from my cousins and I was heartbroken.

All I could think was, “Can who your parents are, and where they’re from, change how others see you?”

I never got my cousins’ acceptance and I will only get other people’s acceptance if they want to give it to me. So now I have a new goal. I am striving for their respect. I no longer care if they don’t accept me or like what comes out of my mouth. All I need is their respect and I will be satisfied.

Every once in a while I feel as if I’m caught in the middle of a street, and there are too many voices telling me where to go. As much as I tell myself that I’m fine, sometimes feeling like I don’t belong is just really hard. Sometimes it might take me a while to get there, but I always remind myself that I don’t need to leave the street; I am perfectly fine where I stand. Caught in the middle.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Maya Mesh describes feeling out-of-place at the intersection of her Hispanic and Jewish identities.

Caught in the Middle

Let me tell you a story that begins on a ridge in Borneo, close to dusk, with thunder over the valley and the forest alive with the electrifying roar of black cicadas.

I was sitting by a fire with an old friend, Asik Nyelit, headman of the Ubong River Penan, one of the last nomadic peoples of Southeast Asia.

The rains, which had pounded the forest all afternoon, had stopped, and the light of a partial moon filtered through the branches of the canopy.

At one point Asik looked up from the fire, took notice of the moon, and quietly asked me if it was true that people had actually journeyed there, only to return with baskets full of dirt. If that was all they had found, why had they bothered to go? How long had it taken, and what kind of transport had they had?

It was difficult to explain to a man who kindled fire with flint a space program that had consumed the energy of a nation and, at a cost of nearly a trillion dollars, placed 12 men on the moon.

Or the fact that over the course of six missions, they had traveled 1.5 billion miles and indeed brought back nothing but rocks and lunar dust, 828 pounds altogether.

Asik’s question provoked the timeless answer. The true purpose of the space journeys, or at least their most profound and lasting consequence, lay not in wealth secured but in a vision realized, a shift in perspective that would change our lives forever.

The seminal moment came on Christmas Eve, 1968, when Apollo 8 emerged from the dark side of the moon to see rising over its surface not a sunrise but the Earth itself ascendant, a small and fragile planet, floating in the velvet void of space. This image more than any amount of scientific data showed us that our planet is a finite place, a single interactive sphere of life, a living organism composed of air, water, wind and soil. This revelation, only made possible by the brilliance of science, sparked a paradigm shift that people will be speaking about for the rest of history.

Almost immediately we began to think in new ways. Just imagine. Forty years ago simply getting people to stop throwing garbage out of a car window was a great environmental victory. No one spoke of the biosphere or biodiversity; now these terms are part of the vocabulary of school children.

Like a great wave of hope, this energy of illumination, made possible by the space program, spread everywhere. So many positive things have happened in the intervening years. In little more than a generation, women have gone from the kitchen to the boardroom, gay people from the closet to the altar, African Americans from the back door and the woodshed to the White House.

What’s not to love about a country and a world capable of such scientific genius, such cultural capacity for change and renewal?

But let me share one other amazing revelation of science. It’s the moon shot of your generation. It too will be remembered for a thousand years. Indeed nothing in our lifetimes, yours or that of your parents, has done more to liberate humanity from the parochial tyrannies that have haunted us since the birth of memory.

It too came about at the end of a long voyage of discovery, a journey into the very fiber of our beings. Over the last decade geneticists have proved to be true something that philosophers have always dreamed. We are all literally brothers and sisters. Studies of the human genome have left no doubt that the genetic endowment of humanity is a single continuum. Race is an utter fiction. We are all cut from the same genetic cloth, all descendants of a relatively small number of individuals who walked out of Africa some 60,000 years ago and then, on a journey that lasted 40,000 years, some 2,500 generations, carried the human spirit to every corner of the habitable world.

But here is the amazing idea. If we are all cut from the same fabric of life, then by definition we all share the same mental acuity, the same raw genius. Whether this intellectual potential is exercised through technological innovation, as has been the great achievement of the West, or through the untangling of complex threads of memory inherent in a myth, a priority of many other peoples in the world, is simply a matter of choice and orientation, adaptive insights and cultural emphasis.

There is no hierarchy of progress in the history of culture, no Social Darwinian ladder to success. The Victorian notion of the primitive and the civilized, with European industrial society sitting proudly at the apex of a pyramid of advancement that widens at the base to the so-called primitives of the world has been thoroughly discredited. The brilliance of scientific research, the revelations of modern genetics, has affirmed in an astonishing way the essential connectedness of humanity.

The other peoples of the world are not failed attempts to be us, failed attempts to be modern. They are unique expressions of the human imagination and heart, unique answers to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be human and alive? When asked that question they respond in 7,000 different voices, and these collectively comprise our human repertoire for dealing with all the challenges that will confront us as a species even as we continue this neverending journey.

"They are unique expressions of the human imagination and heart, unique answers to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be human and alive?"

What this means for you is very simple. There are tens of thousands of teachers out there in every corner of the world that you did not even know you had.

You can sail with Polynesian navigators who can sense the presence of distant atolls of islands beyond the visible horizon simply by watching the reverberation of waves across the hull of their vessels, knowing full well that every island group has its own reflective pattern that can be read with the ease with which a forensic scientist reads a fingerprint.

You can follow the Tendai monks in Japan, who as part of their initiation run 17 hours at a stretch every day for seven years, wearing out five pairs of sandals a day.

You can join a caravan of blue-robed Taureg in the searing sands of the Sahara, or hunt narwhal with the Inuit in the light of the midnight sun. Sit by the side of a Bodhisattva in a Tibetan cave, or study medicine at the foot of an Amazonian shaman.

Or you can pursue completely different avenues of adventure and discovery, in science, the arts, social justice, engineering, medicine, the military or the clergy. No generation has had so many options, or shown such promise.

If one can remain open to the potential of the new, the promise of the unimagined, then magic happens and a life takes form. Dream the impossible and the world will not drag you under, it will lift you up. This is the great surprise, the message of the saints. You hurl yourself into the abyss only to discover that it’s a feather bed.

When I was young, living in the mountains of Colombia, a Kamsa Indian told me something I have never forgotten.

“In the first years of your life,” Pedro said, “You live beneath the shadow of the past, too young to know what to do. In your last years you find that you are too old to understand the world coming at you from behind. In between there is a small and narrow beam of light that illuminates your life.”

If you can look back over a long life and see that you have owned your choices, then there is little ground for resentment. Bitterness comes to those who look back with regret on the choices imposed upon them. The greatest creative challenge is the struggle to be the architect of your own life. So be patient. Do not compromise. And give your destiny time to find you.

In a KidSpirit PerSpectives article, Dr. Wade Davis encourages us to dismantle the fiction of "race," to explore the world, and to learn from teachers we never would have expected.

A Message to Youth

From a young age I was taught to stand up for my beliefs. More importantly, I was taught to appreciate diversity.

We can choose to appreciate and tolerate the beliefs of others, along with honoring our personal beliefs. I have grown up with friends from different religions like Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, and have always valued the friendship and meeting of minds over religion.

My family is very devoted to God. We believe in spiritual masters, and some spiritual truths, but we are not ritualistic. Hinduism is a faith that has lots of deities; the most important are Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Alongside Hinduism, we also follow the life and teachings of a saint, Sai Baba. Sai Baba lived in Shirdi, India, during the 1800s and early 1900s. His followers are from many different religions, and in recent years I have seen many foreigners visit Shirdi and choose to follow the Sai path. I believe this is because Sai Baba is one of the rare saints who was able to explain universal values and ethics by emphasizing humanity more than any one religion. He loved children and was a “spiritual father” to the common man.

I also find the philosophy of ubuntu very inspiring. Ubuntu is an African word that means “humanness.” It is often translated as “humanity towards others,” or “I am because of who we are.” The “we” here stands for the human race. We are who we are because of the diversity around us. Diversity teaches us to appreciate the power of perspective — different ways the same thing can be seen by people from different backgrounds. For instance, my family and I are vegetarians, but I consciously don’t look down upon my friends who relish non-vegetarian food. Women in southern India prefer to wear the saree, while in the northern region the salwar kameez is more popular. It is interesting that my mom wears both the saree and salwar kameez, as well as trousers and skirts!

And isn’t it beautiful that there is an overwhelming unity in this diversity! All humans have the same blood color, although they follow different religions. You can’t judge people on the basis of the religion they follow. I believe that all religions converge at a point and become one. They’re codes of moral conduct, disciplinary guides, methods to become a good human being. In the end, they all teach empathy. None of them requires you to make enemies out of practitioners of other religions. All of them are different paths to reach the same destination.

I was brought up in Aurangabad, a city named after the emperor Aurangzeb. Although I don’t follow his religion, I still appreciate the great architecture of his times. The Bibi ka Maqbara is a tomb that was originally dedicated to his wife, and the building’s style reflects the family’s Muslim faith. However, it has now become a landmark open to the public because of its intricate architecture. Most heritage sites in India were created by kings and emperors belonging to certain religions, and their architectural styles are symbolic of the specific religion of the creator. Nevertheless, in most places heritage sites are open to people from all religions and countries.

Though religion and heritage are often connected, I feel that they can — and should — exist independently. The repeated failure of humans to look beyond their religion in order to appreciate diverse perspectives and widen their horizons has led to various rifts within societies and between countries.

I’m proud of present day India’s multiculturalism. Here you can experience unique traditions, practices, food, and various other things. Diversity helps you learn. It teaches you to adjust your expectations and be more tolerant of other religions. And, most importantly, it gives you a chance to show the world your empathy. But unfortunately, some Indians don’t make diversity sound like a good thing. I’m pained to see them categorize everything in our diverse culture into religions such as Hinduism or Islam. They label people, monuments, food, and pretty much everything with certain religions.

If we look back about 450 years, we’ll find an Indian capital city, Delhi, where diversity was celebrated. And that was all because of a great emperor, Akbar, who was a proponent of co-existence. However, his descendants ruined everything he stood for. The public started linking great monuments to various sects and created closed communities. Closed communities were a great disadvantage, as they prevented trade and caused people to criticize other religions. Unfortunately, in that period monuments came to be known not for their beauty or art, but for the religion of the people who built them.

As a race, we have become engrossed in dividing and separating countries, people, land, and money. It’s like we’re making 100 slices from a small loaf of bread. We might just forget to see our fellow humans as equals, as individuals who belong to the same species as we do. The only thing that makes humans as powerful as they are today is cooperation, which I fear is being lost to religious terrorism. When personal beliefs are imposed on one’s fellow human beings, and virtues of tolerance and inclusivity are not upheld, disruptive forces are sure to create an imbalance in society.

Once, my grandma told me a story from her childhood. She lived in Delhi in the midst of attacks by a terrorist organization. Prior to the attacks, she had helped a Muslim family that lived near her house. Due to unfortunate events, they had no income, and they had a newborn child. My grandmother gave them food and helped them in any way she could. During the attacks those same people came to her house and said they would protect her. Why? Because of their shared humanity. You get back what you give.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Samarth Jajoo invokes the saint Sai Baba and the cities of Aurangabad and Delhi to highlight the values of tolerance and diversity.

A Personal Exploration of Diversity and Heritage

I still remember walking down a dusty country road in the Chinese city of Chongqing early last summer with my dad, my little brother, and my grandmother. We were walking toward a cemetery lined with graves of the forgotten.

A car rushed past, and the sun sent waves of heat down upon us. Far ahead was a shop. We walked closer and closer until we were right next to it. My grandmother spoke in the Sichuan dialect and said, “We’ll take five incense sticks and two of each paper money.”

After we bought the goods, we trudged up flight after flight of steps, lined with graves on both sides, until we stopped at one grave. 张永禄 (Zhang Yonglu),1933-2007. My grandfather.

We prepared our money and incense sticks, carefully laying them around the tomb. My grandmother then began to lecture my little brother and me.

“Today is a special day. It is when we honor the deceased and make sure they live well in the afterlife,” she said, as my dad lit the incense. “The incense will please the dead, and burning money will ensure that they are not poor in the afterlife.”

We all took turns praying to my grandfather, wishing him well in the otherworld, and asking him to protect us from harm and make sure all of our family members stay healthy in this world. We burned the money near the tomb and watched in a daze as the paper turned from a light yellow to a dark brown, curling up as the fire consumed it, releasing trails of smoke and our best wishes into the sky.

Honor your dead as you honor the living. That is what filial piety — or respect and caring for one’s parents, brothers, and ancestors — means in Chinese culture. It is one of the core concepts of Confucianism, and teaches children to be good to their parents: respect them, care for them, provide them with comfort, and of course, never harm them. We carry on this duty even after our beloved ancestors die. Experiences such as the tomb sweeping helped me discover more of my culture and heritage. It shows me how people are bound together by heritage and how this dedication carries on no matter what conditions we find ourselves in — war or peace, hard times or happy times.

Zeng Zi, one of Confucius’s disciples, once said, “Filial Piety is the principle of Heaven, the righteousness of Earth, and the (proper) conduct of the people.”

This quote sums up the importance of showing unwavering respect and dedication to your parents, grandparents, and ancestors. It teaches me to respect not just my parents but also all parents in the community, to regard everyone as a family member, to consider everybody’s opinion, to be patient and calm, and to respect my community as an extended family.

Traditional Chinese society is based on the family, not the individual, as the quote “家和万事兴” (“If the family is in harmony, all things in the world will go well”) implies. Family is the basic social unit in Chinese society. For example, in rural Chinese society people use terms such as “Brother,” “Sister,” “Auntie,” and “Uncle” to address other members of the community. We feel that everyone is part of the community and we treat the community as a big extended family, rather than trying to satisfy our individual needs.

Family values, such as respect and caring, are what brings our society together, what makes us survive during tough situations, what makes us feel empathy when another has suffered a loss, and what makes us relate with one another since we have the same dreams, the same goals, and, most importantly, the same values.

Filial piety is not only special to me, but to everyone in China. The first chapter of the Chinese book 弟子规 (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child) is called “On Being Filial At Home.” This commitment and dedication to parents and siblings is exemplified during the Chinese New Year, when people take leave from their jobs to visit with their parents, brothers, and sisters back home.

Last Chinese New Year, I saw on television that about 300 million migrant workers work somewhere outside their hometowns or home provinces. During the days leading up to the New Year, there is a massive exodus of workers, as factories close for two to four weeks and workers rush home to see their families. Many workers go home by train, but those who cannot afford to take the train, use other methods to get home. Some ride motorcycles for two to three days straight; others take cross-country buses, which can be a grueling ride of four or five days. Those worst off hitchhike across China for six to seven days and may face unpredictable weather, such as blizzards or hail, as the New Year falls in the winter months. Some who spend days getting home may only spend one or two days with their families before having to make the journey back to where they work. All of them, however, having grown up with the values of caring and respect, think it is worth the time and hardship to visit their parents and other family members.

I had my own experience similar to this. Two years ago, my mom, dad, little brother, and I were stranded in the Houston airport. We were going back to China to visit my grandparents for the New Year. However, we were caught in the middle of a huge snowstorm and our flight was canceled. After three days of rescheduling, we finally made it to China, just in time to see our grandparents for the Lunar New Year, when we gather as a family to celebrate an auspicious new beginning.

Because community is our extended family, filial piety also teaches people morals that go beyond the family, such as compassion, caring, respect, dedication, perseverance, and respect. Other values are present, too; for instance, treating everyone equally, offering constructive criticism, dealing with the fact that not everything is going to turn out the way you planned, and allowing room for compromise.

Filial piety hasn’t affected me in a dramatic or drastic way, but has managed to change my life for the better in small ways — I view my teacher as my parent, thanking him or her after class, and never having unnecessary outbursts of rage; I try to communicate with my friends and deal with things that would normally be frustrating.

On the first day of the Chinese New Year, my brother and I kowtow — kneel down and bow — in front of my parents, grandparents, and other elders. We do so to show our respect and dedication to them, and in return they give us small red pouches filled with money. This money will allow us to have a happy year and, it is believed, will protect us from malicious spirits in the New Year. Just as our deceased grandfather in Chongqing protects us in the other world from the evils in this one.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Nathan Zhang reflects on the importance of filial piety — honoring one's family and ancestors — to Chinese culture.

Blood Is Thicker Than Water

I am from packed suitcases, the roaring sound of jet turbines,
The cabin crew’s announcements that I’ve heard a thousand times.
I am from Harris Teeter and food-tastings at Sam’s Club,
The stubborn memories of shopping on Sundays that still remain.

I am from that little Panera Bread, with broccoli and cheese soup in a bread bowl,
And the irresistible smell of Chinese food, especially my grandmother’s steamed buns.

I am from ever-growing eyeglasses and the vegetable garden in my backyard.
I am from messy lockers and scattered books on my table.
I am from Brunson Elementary and the feel of mulch under my feet in the playground.

I am a cloud moving to a totally new place.
I miss my friends but there’s nothing I can do.

I am from one of the most polluted cities in the most populous country in the world,
Which has surprisingly started to feel like home.
I am from “Holy Moly” and “wo qie” — two phrases that you hear a lot in our house.
I am from Minecraft and TF2, games so addictive that I was almost consumed by them.

I am from books, which are doors to wonders, secrets, imagination, living skeletons,
Worlds I’ve never even dreamed before.

I am from quiet bookworms, nerds who bury their noses in books all day,
Who have become writers with great stories.

Down in our old Carolina home, bought and sold two years ago,
Sitsan album full of grey dust and old memories.

Snippets of the past unexpectedly
appear at night, a little dark and old.

Not yellowing photos, but warming love and hope, strength and compassion;
That’s what binds us together in the house we call home.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Nathan Zhang pieces together a collage of places and moments that have sculpted his sense of self.

I Am From

I have forgotten.
Forgotten the best part of me.
Inside I can feel it,
but I can neither see nor hear
what life before me was.

What did I do when I was young?
What did I smell?
Why can’t I remember
the first four years
of my tiny life?

Unknown shapes and dull colors
flash before me.
Old smells of spices and memories
clog my brain.
I stifle back a tear
As I try to remember.

What did I do?
What did I say?
What did I smell?
Why did my toddler life go away?

What have I done?
What have I thought?
Why have I forgotten my past?

Somewhere deep inside
the faded life is still alive.
All I have to do is dig it out
but will I ever find it?

From the moment the officer found me
at the station in Mumbai
to the day at the packed adoption center
where my new life was chosen,
I have forgotten it all.
Lost in the corner of my mind,
dusted and rotted to the inside,
left, discarded, thrown about,

Why did my childhood memories decide to disappear?

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Anushka Canfield confronts the troubling feeling of losing one's earliest memories.

Forgetting Me

She was a name.
A single compilation from 26 letters
into a single meaning,
a single girl.

She was a name
that survived on the tip of her pen
in the loose pages of her triple-ringed journal.
The word was her identity.

She was a name
at the beginning of a sentence.
Choked from the mouths of her peers
and drowned in the spit of her enemies.

She was a name
like the other billion around her,
like the billion before her,
and the billion after.

She wondered why she gave herself her name.
Why she even had a name.
If she could trade it for a much more pleasant name.
How to spell it.

She wondered why she was a name.
Not a girl,
but just a name.

In a KidSpirit poem, Casey Robins narrates a girl's struggle to grasp the significance of her name.

Juno

Jotting down my life in an unknown language,

Understanding it is not always what it seems,

Doing what I believe is right, following my heart,

Admitting I’m in my own world, where no one can point a judging finger at me

I honor my family and ancestors through my unspoken words and sacred actions,

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Zoe Siegel navigates her uncertainty in the Jewish faith with an acrostic.

Judaism

In the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, six-year-old Hushpuppy resides in a poverty-stricken, desolate area known as the Bathtub, which is a fictional rendering of a southern Louisiana Bayou community.

Having never left the area, Hushpuppy’s surroundings consist solely of violence and struggle. She lives with her father, Wink, an ill-tempered man with deteriorating health. As conditions around Hushpuppy worsen, she must face the unforeseen reality of losing her father and living independently.

In the opening moments of the movie, we are shown that the Bathtub is a territory cut off from the rest of the world. We aren’t, however, given any insight as to why it has been isolated. We learn that Hushpuppy is a nature-loving, adventurous girl. Furthermore, we see her community’s appalling standard of living — every resident is impoverished.

Hushpuppy is black, though the people of Bathtub belong to various ethnicities. It’s intriguing to see how they’ve banded together, setting aside racial differences. In our modern world, race has a large influence on who we socialize and interact with, but in the Bathtub, everyone is united because they have a common goal: survival.

Hushpuppy’s rebellious side is demonstrated when, after an argument with her father, she intentionally sets her house on fire and hides. While hiding, she says to herself, “If Daddy kill me, I ain’t gonna be forgotten. In a million years, when kids go to school, they’re gonna know once there was a Hushpuppy who lived with her daddy.” This shows us her state of mind. She wants to be known and remembered. She knows that the world is bigger than what she’s experienced. The act of burning her house is perhaps a manifestation of internal frustration due to isolation.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Mustafa Khan offers his view on Benh Zeitlin's film Beasts of the Southern Wild.

A Review of Beasts of the Southern Wild

Redolent with associations of home, family, and ancestry, this issue celebrates all that binds us to each other — from the quotidian experiences of food and tradition, to our larger sense of identity.

Heritage Group Guide

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