Rose colored glasses :(

A face book friend who’s avatar is of a dog with glasses on, one eye glass is blue the other is red, it reminds me of an analogy I heard a long time ago about rose colored glasses.  It strikes at the heart of so many people I work with and my own kids.  It goes something like this.

If you come from a country where everyone wears blue glass, as soon as you’re born you get a pair put on, you cannot take them off they are there forever. You live, see and believe everything the same way because you all have the same color glasses on. One day you move to another country where everyone wears yellow glasses, they live, see and believe the same because they all wear yellow glasses.  You feel lost and completely alone because you cannot see their world in yellow glasses you only can see their world in your blue glasses and there for cannot understand why people here do the things they do. You stick out your different because everyone can see you have blue glasses on. So to fit in, not stick out and understand this new country you put a pair of yellow glasses over your blue glasses knowing that they will never come off once they are on. But you still do not see the country in yellow but for ever will see the world in red. You no longer can see in blue and you cannot see in yellow you will be part of both and make your own world seeing red.

Working with refugees and seeing first hand this process they go through and most do not have someone guiding them through the new world they find themselves in.  I cannot even imagine how hard that is to leave absolutely everything you know, believe and understand to go to another country to find freedom from persecution, fear, genocide and corrupt governments: to be isolated alone and unable to communicate with the people of the new country. The United Nations and our country believe we are helping them.  We are but we give them minimal help getting them integrated into this country.  So for the rest of their lives they will be noticed as different and unaccepted as an American even when they acquire their citizenship. They will be a cross of both countries and live seeing this country with rose colored glasses.