In April 2017, Rabbi Sacks presented a TED Talk titled, "Facing the Future Without Fear, Together."  He made many excellent points, including:

What do we worship? I think future anthropologists will take a look at the books we read on self-help, self-realisation, self-esteem. They’ll look at the way we talk about morality as being true to one’s self, the way we talk about politics as a matter of individual rights, and they’ll look at this wonderful new religious ritual we have created, you know the one called the selfie. I think they’ll conclude that what we worship in our time is the self, the ‘me’, the ‘I’.

This is great. It’s liberating. It’s empowering. It’s wonderful. But don’t forget that biologically we’re social animals. We spent most of our evolutionary history in small groups. We need those face to face interactions where we learn the choreography of altruism and where we create those spiritual goods like friendship, and trust, and loyalty, and love that redeem our solitude. When we have too much of the I and too little of the we, we can find ourselves vulnerable, fearful, and alone.

Every time we hold out the hand of friendship to somebody not like us whose colour, or class, or creed are different from ours, we heal one of the fractures of our wounded world. That is the us of relationship.

According to Pew Research, here is a synopsis of how the views of the United States population have changed during the past twenty years

The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of all sorts of technologies that let people interact with the world in new ways.

Since 2008, fewer than 30% of Americans have said they trust the government to do the right thing all or most of the time.

The U.S. has become much more diverse over the past 20 years on several measures, including immigrant status. Today, immigrants account for 13.8 % of the nation's population  – near the record high from 1890 – and they have come from just about every country in the world.

Americans display a broad dissatisfaction with politics. As trust in political institutions declines, few Americans now think the political system is working even somewhat well. Majorities say that most elected officials don't care what people like them think and that ordinary people have too little influence on Congress’ decision-making. And most see little or no common ground  between Republicans and Democrats

Many Americans describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” This group is referred to as religious "nones." Religious nones are currently one of the largest religious groups in the United States.https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/09/13/how-us-public-opinion-has-changed-in-20-years-of-our-surveys/

I found this information interesting:

The United States is home to one-fifth of the world's international migrants.

The U.S. foreign-born population reached a record 46.1 million in 2022 (13.8% of the population, compared to 4.7% in 1970).

Mexico is the top country of birth for US immigrants, however immigration from Mexico has slowed since 2007.

After Mexico, India and China are the next largest sources of immigrants.

Before 1965, US immigration law favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and mostly barred immigrants from Asia. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act opened up immigration from Asia and Latin America.

Most immigrants (77%) are in the country legally. 

About half of immigrants ages 5 and older (54%) are proficient English speakers

(https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/)

 

What an interesting piece of music this is.  Meredith Monk wrote this piece and titled it "Ellis Island." Monk's own grandparents made the journey through Ellis Island decades before she composed this. 

As a point of interest, in 1906 the all-time record number of immigrants was posted, with 11,757 immigrants received on Ellis Island on April 17th. Imagine that!

(Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day by Clemency Burton-Hill)

I am getting behind on posting about books I have read.  Here are three books I liked and quotes from each:

Legal status is, of course, an invisible trait.  In multi-ethnic America, is impossible to know whether someone is a United States-born citizen, a naturalized immigrant, a legal permanent resident, a visa holder, or an undocumented immigrant by simply appraising their appearance (pg. 94).

More than other immigration issues, the fate of undocumented children perhaps represented best the torn heart of immigration policy and politics in the United States over the past two decades (pg. 100).

 

 

Along the same lines, I have found that if we feed the unconscious, it will discover connections between what may appear to be disparate realities.  The path to artistic insight in one direction often involves deep study of another—the intuition makes uncanny connections that lead to a crystallization of fragmented notions (pg. 85).

It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.  Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential (pg. 123).

Instead of running from our emotions or being swept away by their initial gusts, we should learn to sit with them, become at peace with their unique flavors, and ultimately discover deep pools of inspiration.  I have found that this is a natural process.  Once we build our tolerance for turbulence and are no longer upended by the swells of our emotional life, we can ride them and even pick up speed with their slopes (pg. 211).

 

A lot of people think that Chinese people are smarter.  No, they are not smarter.  They’re paying attention and they do their homework.  You look at the regular kids, and it’s not that they’re dumb; it’s just that they don’t put in as much effort (pg. 82).

Despite decades of institutional discrimination and racial prejudice, Asian Americans have seen their racial status change from unassimilable to exceptional, most notably in the domain of education (pg. 116).

Stereotypes are widely held, oversimplified, fixed images or ideas of particular groups (pg. 123). Stereotype promise leads to attitudes and actions (pg. 126). Teacher’s positive stereotypes of Asian American students can change the behavior of even some of the most mediocre students (pg. 127).