In this week’s table talk, I had the chance to listen to how the United States has changed over the past few centuries. Seema gave us a snapshot of the large-scale developments that were occurring in each century in the country beginning in the 1400s and how transportation has evolved tremendously so that we could have all the roads and automobiles that we have today. It was really interesting to think about how we are able to make inventions so quickly when we see a problem in our current way of living. For instance, we used to use horse and carriages to be able to move from place to place but Seema explained that because of sanitary reasons (i.e. horse dung all over the streets), cars were invented to fix this issue. I haven’t taken a history class in over two years although history has always been one of my favorites subjects. After this quick and fun history lesson over dinner, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed this subject and that I would definitely want to take some history classes here before I graduate!

In this table talk, we discussed the early days of America. It was first discovered by Christopher Columbus, which opened the gate for European culture. Spain began to colonize. The French and Dutch soon followed. Surprisingly enough, Sweden even had a bit of land, which released Swedish culture into America, even if Sweden’s presence was brief. Of course, the greatest presence was England. All of these countries impacted the early stages of America and shaped it into what it is today. The diversity within the country is so present, it can be described as macrodiversity. macrodiversity is when you can study the variety of cultures, languages, beliefs nationally.  The most interesting thing I found about this discussion was that everyone in the group was a first generation. Half of the table spoke a language beyond English. I found this really interesting, given that the topic was about America incorporating a variety of cultures. I find Cornell a very diverse place and am meeting people who come from different backgrounds from me. This exposure is unique because a lot of other schools tend to accept people from similar demographics or have a small student body, despite the macrodiversity. I am really lucky to attend a university so large and diverse.

I attended the table talk on the Making of Urban America. An interesting fact that I learned during this event was that Halloween did not originate in America, but rather it originated in Ireland and Scotland. This was really interesting to me because it always seemed to me that America was the one that celebrated that holiday the most out of any other country. I feel like nowadays people associate halloween with America. I thought this fact perfectly symbolized how Americans take things from other people and other countries. For instance, the talk was about how the colonization of America entailed eliminating a majority of the Native American population. America belonged to the Native Americans, but we have depleted their numbers to approximately 1.2% of them in our current population. The Native Americans had their own history in America that the textbooks never mention, but rather that Americas history starts when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The reason is because we as Americans feel a huge guilt for eradicating a huge portion of these Native Americans and stealing all of their land, claiming it as our own. This is all symbolized in the holiday of Halloween. We have taken the celebration of Halloween, which was intended by Celtic paganisms to celebrate the new year where ghosts and spirits would come out to haunt them, and turned it into a day where children and adults dress up in costumes while sharing and eating candy. It is the American way to take things that were not ours to begin with, but make it our own.