Socially Secure
Last week I spent a morning at my local Social Security office, and today, I have a Social Security Number. I feel oddly like I’ve really arrived and yet also like I’m betraying the old country.
As I waited in the office last week I mentally composed a posting I never got round to that was going to be entitled “The Melting Pot”, as there are few experiences I can imagine that better illustrate the reality of America’s cultural and racial mix than sitting in a Social Security office in California. Every age, race and gender was represented, and every notice was printed in both American and Spanish.
The question of the country’s racial integration in particular has been at the forefront of my mind and many others’ given the Presidential Election and the truly disturbing levels of racism that have surfaced in some commentary (both professional and personal) over recent weeks, but you’d never have believed it in that office last Tuesday morning.
And I guess I’m well and truly in the melting pot myself now I have this number.