The Culture Shock of Visiting a White Friend’s Home for Dinner
It was right after bowling. The summer sun sat unopposed in the middle of a clear blue sky. One of those picturesque days that only comes around about four times during the Canadian summer. My friend (let’s call him John) and I had just finished up our last game at Planet Bowl and were exchanging our last bit of small talk. You know, the whole “we have to do this again soon,” “we’ll DEFINITELY hang out again before summer ends,” and other polite but otherwise shallow promises that will most likely not be kept.
But instead of waiting at the bowling alley for my parents to pick me up, John had a different proposal.
“You want to come over to my house for dinner?”
Now, this may not seem big to some. But for kids with ethnic backgrounds (read: having a built-in tan), the first time you get invited to a white friend’s home is a BIG deal. It’s not something that just happens. It’s not just a spur-of-the-moment thing. We spend MONTHS painstakingly planning and preparing for these sorts of invitations, readying ourselves like ambassadors visiting a foreign superpower and praying we can broker an official treaty with a powerful ally. At this point in my life, I had known John for a few years. We met freshman year, and somehow our friendship lasted beyond high school. He’d been to my house to work on projects. He knew my parents. He knew my siblings. He knew many secrets that I will be taking to the grave with me. But even with all that, I felt ambushed.
So I politely told him that I’d have to call home to check if my parents were cool with it. He said okay, and I dialed my home number. While it rang, I was already practicing my delivery and tone for when I’d have to tell him my parents said no. If you know anything about immigrant parents, it’s that they are the LEAST spontaneous people you can ever meet. They don’t like surprises, whether they come in the form of birthdays or you coming home and announcing that you don’t want to become a doctor. I was sure they would say no. Imagine my surprise when they not only said yes, but didn’t ask for any details, nor list a single condition for the evening. They didn’t say I’d have to be home by a certain time. They didn’t demand to know the who, what, when, where, and why. All my mom said was two words.
“Have fun!”
This immediately felt like a trap. Parents never encourage you to “have fun.” But I decided to ignore the paranoia my family had instilled in me from the first time they assured me that they wouldn’t get mad if I told them the truth.
And so, John and I waited together near a light gold sedan for his mom to pick us up after her shift ended. We weren’t kept waiting long, as a woman came over to where we were standing. We exchanged polite greetings before getting in her pale gold sedan and driving off.
At first everything felt normal. I was in the backseat with John while his mom put on some music. After a while I decided to pipe up and say something nice.
“Thank you for letting me come over for dinner Ms. Doe,” I said politely, putting on my best ‘foreign ambassador voice.’ The smile on my face was beaming, even though my teeth were still a disaster (braces would not come to my rescue until later on in life). Everything seemed to be according to plan. Until John’s mother replied.
“What did you call me?”
Red flag. I had already messed up. Our two nations were going to be at war before the sun went down. But why? I hadn’t done anything wrong yet!
“Umm, Ms. Doe?” I repeated nervously while looking out the window and considering whether combat rolling out of the car at this speed would be lethal.
John’s mother looked at me in the rearview mirror, then John, and then asked her son “why is he calling me ‘Miss?’” She then turned her attention to me and said something that sent chills through my body.
“Call me Lisa.”
I was mortified. Since birth, I had been raised to address adults by their title, position, and/or their last name. Speaking an adult’s first name was the ultimate show of disrespect. You know how Voldemort was referred to as “He who must not be named” in the Harry Potter series? That’s how I was conditioned to refer to adults!
I would only receive more shell shock when we got to his house. I vividly remember walking into his basement to hang out before dinner where we ran into his dad. I politely said ‘hello Sir’ and put out my hand to shake his. John’s dad looked at me like I was an alien. “What did you do?” he asked my friend, who just shrugged like he didn’t understand why I would do something like this. The nerve.
Then dinner finally came along. I remember sitting at the table eating the wonderful meal. Lisa had made something called a casserole. Apparently, that’s a catchall word in Caucasian households that can be used to refer to anything baked in a dish. I then foolishly made the mistake of asking his mom to pass the peas, calling her ‘Miss Doe’ again in the process.
When I tell you the entire family paused to look at me as soon as the words left my mouth, I am not joking. AND THEN, she told me that she would NOT pass the peas until I called her by name.
At this point I imagine all the immigrant kids and parents assumed I refused to do so, choosing to starve instead of calling an adult by their name. To all my fellow immigrants I am sorry to say I let you down that night.
I called her by her name. She passed the peas. And I ate them. With how much my head was spinning it was a miracle I didn’t spill any food. The rest of dinner went by without incident, though I did have to catch myself several times. Over the course of one evening, I was forced to go against over a decade of training. Every time I called John’s mother by her name, I felt ill. I could practically feel the stares of shame and disappointment coming from my ancestors.
And of course, when I went home the first thing my mom wanted to talk about was how dinner went. I couldn’t look her in the eyes at first. But I gave myself a mental pep talk. I assured myself that I was in the clear. I didn’t do anything wrong! I had a good time! John’s parents may have thought I was a bit odd, but they liked me too! So I foolishly told her everything.
I can still hear her yelling in disbelief that I called an adult by their first name….
