Multicultural Manners : The Political Realities of Gift-Giving

Monsy and Margaret are close friends. Monsy is Mexican-American and Margaret is Anglo. Over the years Monsy has repeatedly mentioned her grandfather, a general who was assassinated during the Mexican Revolution.

One day while at an art fair, Margaret sees a beautifully framed sepia photograph of heroes of the Mexican Revolution, including Alvaro Obregon, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Excitedly she buys it as a present for her friend. On Monsy’s birthday she feels triumphant as she gives this “perfect gift.” As soon as Monsy unwraps it, her face falls and she hands it back to Margaret.

“These were my grandfather’s executioners!”

What went wrong?

Margaret naively assumed that Monsy’s grandfather had been with the revolutionary forces. It had never occurred to her that he was a part of the established Mexican regime. Remorsefully, she took back the gift. Fortunately, her friendship with Monsy was solid enough to overcome this cross-cultural blunder.

An elementary school in New York made a similar mistake. When they flew the national flags representing the native countries of all their students, they chose the official flag of North Vietnam, not realizing that the Vietnamese students at their school hailed from the South and that their families had died at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Upon discovering this, they quickly substituted the Southern Vietnamese flag.

Rule: Ask, don’t guess, which political side a person comes from.