Multi-multiculturism

An old army buddy emailed me one of those anti-multiculturalism screeds. The maligning missive denouncing the pernicious influence of cultural diversity on our American way of life had the ironic bad luck to pop up on Dyngus Day. Whoever wrote this, it occurred to me, hadn’t spent anytime in Buffalo.  

 

Bishop Fallon High School is long gone. Now there’s a car wash where the school once proudly stood. Fallon was a West Side school which in those days meant most of us were Italian. However, reflecting Buffalo’s ethnic make up there were plenty of Poles, a smattering of Irish and a handful of oddballs with names like Dumpert.  My graduating class also included a Snodgrass, a Higginbotham and Hoffman, Kaufman and Zoffman.

The school may be long gone but those of us who graduated all those decades ago stay in touch. Members of my class or at least a pretty good sampling of those of us still in Buffalo (and still above ground) gather for breakfast once a month. At the next breakfast I attended I recounted the contents of the onerous email. The Fallon boys were outraged by what they perceived as nothing less than an attack on our way of life. In Buffalo, the Fallon boys insisted, we celebrate our cultural diversity. We all believe our lives are richer and fuller because of it. 

No sooner had the group settled down and returned to its usual topic, how tough we had it compared to youth today, when a younger Fallon grad stopped by our table to say hello. He serves on the board of directors of the Italian Heritage Festival which blossoms every summer on Hertle Ave.  The boys recounted the story of the offending email and indignation soared again.  

“If only the people who think like that could come to our festival,” he said, “They just don’t know what they’re missing – the music, the food, the fun, the food, the games, the food!”

 

“The food,” chorused the Fallon boys. 

“And there’s not just the Italian festival,” one of us pointed out. “Buffalo is a festival of ethic festivals.” 

There’s the Hellenic Festival,” someone else noted which lead to a cascade.  

“The Caribbean Festival.”  

“Juneteenth,”  

“The Hispanic Festival,”  

“There’s a Celtic festival in Lewiston.” 

“There’s a Lebanese festival in Williamsville." 

“What about the German festival in Hamburg?” 

 “There’s a Macedonian festival in Blasdell.” 

“Don’t forget the St. Patrick’s day parade.” 

“…and the Pulaski Day Parade.” 

Then the boys started listing Buffalo’s cultural centers: Irish, Polish, Jewish, even, just a few blocks apart in over in the Riverside neighborhood, Serbian and Croatian. (I’ve always been amused by the juxtaposition of last two, the former in a brightly painted home and the latter looking for all the world like a bunker.)  

The Fallon boys concurred that the rest of the world could learn a lot from how we observe our multicultural heritage here. We’re united by how we celebrate our diversity. Our discussion just helped to make it all the more clear that denouncing multiculturalism in Buffalo is like denouncing sunshine in a nudist colony.