European Cultures

Understanding Culture and Diversity in Building Communities

What is culture? As community builders, understanding culture is our business. Whether you live in central Kansas or New York City, whether you live in Miami, Nevada, or the Pacific Northwest, you are working with and establishing relationships with people–people […]

Why It’s Hard to Talk about Race

Dr. Robin DiAngelo explains why white people implode when talking about race. I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. This […]

Why Are People Racist?

Why are people racist? If we’re all part of the human race, why are people racist? After all, there are no biological differences between people. No race is superior or inferior to another. We’re all the same. There are many […]

Let’s talk race: a teacher tells students not to be ‘color-blind’

Let’s talk race: a teacher tells students not to be ‘color-blind’ Author: Meghan L Mills , Assistant Professor of Sociology, Birmingham-Southern College Following the recent events featured in the media such as the riots in Baltimore that came after the fatal […]

A Politically Correct Lexicon

Your ‘how-to’ guide to avoid offending anyone By Joel Bleifuss In the late ’70s, “politically correct,” “PC” for short, entered the public lexicon. Folks on the left used the term to dismiss views that were seen as too rigid and, […]

Marie Curie

Born Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win the award in two different fields (physics and chemistry). Curie’s efforts, with her […]

Alice Waters

Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, activist, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its organic, locally grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine. Waters opened the restaurant in 1971. […]

Doc Hendley

The absence of clean water and its consequent illnesses kills more children every year than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. These and other water crisis statistics encouraged Hendley, who was working as a barman, to raise money by pouring wine […]

Polish Immigration

Poland, the seventh largest country in Europe, occupies an area of 120,727 square miles—some-what larger than the state of Nevada. Located in east-central Europe, it is bordered to the east by Russia and the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia […]

Irish Immigrants

Irish Immigrants in the United States By Kevin Kenny Irish immigrants had a rough start in the United States, stuck in urban poverty and taunted by some of their neighbors. They and their descendants overcame the obstacles and prevailed.  Kevin […]

Italian Immigration

More Italians have migrated to the United States than any other Europeans. Poverty, overpopulation, and natural disaster all spurred Italian emigration. Beginning in the 1870s, Italian birthrates rose and death rates fell. Population pressure became severe, especially in Il Mezzogiorno, […]

Albert Einstein

Born in Ulm, Germany, the young Einstein was dissatisfied with the restrictive schools in Germany. At the age of 16 he moved to Switzerland and graduated from the Federal Institute of Technology. In 1902 he became a clerk with Swiss […]

Rose & Reuben Mattus

The ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs was invented in 1959 by a Russian immigrant, Reuben Mattus, at his kitchen table and manufactured at his family ice cream factory, Senator Frozen Products, in the Bronx. While Reuben handled the marketing and devised […]

Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin

Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin (Russian: Влади́мир Козьми́ч Зворы́кин, Vladimir Koz’mich Zvorykin; 1888 – July 29, 1982)was a Russian inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Educated in Russia and in France, he spent most of his life in the United States. […]

Dr. Robert Gallo

Robert Charles Gallo is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the infectious agent responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and in the development of […]

Blessings On The Feast Of Saint Francis

Let us remember That we are in the holy presence of God God bless the cow that gives us milk God bless the lamb that gives us wool God bless the hen that gives us eggs God bless the pig […]

A Polish Family Blessing

Let us remember That we are in the holy presence of God Lord, we ask you to bless this family with a warm place by the fire when the world is cold, a light in the window when the way […]

Old German Blessing

Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God With faith there is love with love there is peace with peace there is blessing with blessing, there is God with God there is no need. Saint John […]

Scottish Blessing

Let us remember That we are in the holy presence of God If there is righteousness in the heart, There will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, There will be harmony in the home. […]

An Irish Blessing

Let us remember That we are in the holy presence of God May you always have work for your hands to do. May your pockets hold always a coin or two. May the sun shine bright on your windowpane. May […]

Irish Prayer

  Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft […]